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a

Gazetteer

  ©RRRA, 2018

The Antonine Itinerary - Iter 1

From Bremenio (High Rochester, Northumberland)

To Praetorio (Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire)

In 1921, Taylor & Collingwood wrote “The Tenth Iter in the British section of the Antonine road-book has been for many years–indeed for centuries–a standing puzzle in Romano-British history. Of its nine stations the seventh, Mancunium, has always been recognized as Manchester; but the others are not so easily identifiable” (Taylor & Collingwood, 1921 p.202) . A century later, things are a little better - of the nine stations of the Itinerary, we now know twice as many with certainty (i.e. two), Mamcunio (Manchester) and Bremetonnaci (Ribchester), and can be fairly sure of a further three. The identification of Condate with Northwich (Pastscape Mon. 72996), the only suitable site on the direct road from Manchester to Chester, and Mediolano with Whitchurch (Pastscape mon. 70991), fixed by its distance from Wroxeter in Iter II, now seem safe. The sixth stage, Coccio, is now generally held to be Wigan based on the distances from Ribchester and Manchester and the discovery of the long suspected fort there in 2005 (Miller & Aldridge 2011), although this is by no means universally accepted.

Durham, A. (2017) Pers. Comms.

Hassall, M.W.C. & Tomlin, R.S.O (1995) Roman Britain in 1994; II, Inscriptions; Brittania Vol 26 Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, London pp. 371 - 390

Haverfield, F.(1915); The Romano-British names of Ravenglass and Borrans (Muncaster and Ambleside); Archaeological Journal. Vol. lxxii (1915), pp.77-84. Available at: http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-1132-1/dissemination/pdf/072/072_077_084.pdf  accessed 12/2/18

Holder, P.A. (1997) A Roman Military Diploma from Ravenglass, Cumbria  Bulletin of the John Rylands Library Vol 79 (1) University of Manchester; pp. 3-42 ;  available at https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/api/datastream?publicationPid=uk-ac-man-scw:1m4006&datastreamId=POST-PEER-REVIEW-PUBLISHERS-DOCUMENT.PDF  Accessed 21/9/17

Holder, P. (2004); Roman place-names on the Cumbrian Coast; in Wilson, R.J.A. And Caruna, I.D., (eds) Romans on the Solway: Essays in Honour of Richard Bellhouse; CWAAS, Kendal, pp. 52-65

Miller, Ian & Aldridge, Bill (2011) Discovering Coccium: The Archaeology of Roman Wigan; Oxford Archaeology North

Potter, T. W. (1979); The Roman Fort at Ravenglass in Romans in North-west England, Cumb and Westmor Antiquarian and Archaeol Soc. Research Series vol 1, pp. 1-138.

Ratledge, D. (2016) Pers. Comms.

Ratledge, D. (2017); The Roman Road from Watercrook to Ambleside, Margary 70f; RRRA website http://www.romanroads.org/gazetteer/cumbria/M70f.htm  accessed 13/2/18

Rivet, A.L.F. & Smith, Colin (1979); The Place-names of Roman Britain; B.T. Batsford Ltd., London

Rodwell, W., (1975); Milestones, Civic Territories and the Antonine Itinerary in Britannia, Volume 6, pp. 76-101.

Shotter, David (1998); Roman Names for Roman Sites in North West England; Contrebis, Vol 23, Lancaster. pp. 9-10

Smith, I.G. (1997);  Some Roman Place-names in Lancashire and Cumbria; Britannia vol. 28 pp. 372-383

Taylor M. V. & Collingwood, R.G. (1921)  Roman Britain in 1921 and 1922  in The Journal of Roman Studies Vol 11; Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, London. pp. 200 -244

Wilson, T. (1884); The Roman Road over Whinfell; Trans. Cumberland & Westmorland Antiquarian & Archaeiological Society Vol. 7, pp. 90-95 available at http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-2055-1/dissemination/pdf/Article_Level_Pdf/tcwaas/001/1884/vol7/tcwaas_001_1884_vol7_0010.pdf

References:

The identification of the four forts at the northern end of the itinerary, however, have been subject to much debate over recent decades. After Haverfield identified Clanoventa at the start of the Itinerary with Ravenglass (Haverfield, 1915), the association quickly became accepted, as did his other interpretations of Ambleside as Galava, Watercrook as Alone, and Galacum as Overburrow. that necessarily followed (fig. 2). There is, however, a major problem with this. A lead sealing of the cohors I Aelia Classica in garrison at Tunnecelum was found at Ravenglass during excavations (Potter, 1979, pp. 73-4) , and fragments of a Roman military Diploma (award of Roman citizenship), issued to a veteran of the same unit (dated to AD 158), were found on the foreshore near the fort (Hassal & Tomlin 1995, p.390 & Holder, 1997). This unit was recorded as stationed at a place called Itunecelum by the Notitia Dignatorum (Tomlin 1997, 463-4), and this evidence, albeit somewhat circumstantial, points to Ravenglass being Tunnecelum, not Clanoventa. Even if Ravenglass had been Clanoventa, the distances of the Itinerary are hard to reconcile with Haverfield’s identifications (fig. 2), although Ambleside to Watercrook can be made to work if the two strokes of a ‘v’ had been mistaken by a copyist for two ‘I’s.

If Haverfield’s interpretation was incorrect, what is the correct one? Attempting to solve this question is not made easier by our very poor knowledge of the road network in the southern Lake District, although the route of the road from Ambleside to Watercrook has finally been identified (Ratledge, 2017). There have been several attempts to resolve the issue, and they are set out in the table below (fig. 2). Rivet’s route can be rejected because it starts at Ravenglass, and to get from Ambleside to Low Borrow Bridge utilises a very un-Roman road over Whinfell which was claimed in the late 19th century (Wilson, 1884) but which seems to relate more to early nineteenth century Enclosures (Smith 1997, p.374). By the time The Place-names of Roman Britain was published in 1979, Rivet had changed his mind  and reverted to Haverfield’s route. Shotter also utilised the unlikely Whinfell route, although the rest of his route does at least use known roads, whereas Smith’s suggestion is highly speculative and depends on Galava being at an unknown site near Beetham along an unknown road from Ambleside to Lancaster. Neither Shotter nor Smith’s routes agree very well with the distances of the itinerary, and their routes require there to have been errors in every stage. That is not to say the either one is wrong, just that they both seem unlikely.

In an attempt to resolve these first few stages, the author has taken a fresh look at the distances, working backwards from the first certain identification, Bremetonnacum (Ribchester), and another possible solution has emerged which fits the Itinerary extremely well.

Entry written and compiled by Mike Haken, last updated: 13 February 2018    

All suggested routes apart from Shotter’s share the identification of Galacum with Over Burrow, south of Kirkby Lonsdale. Not only is this along a well established Roman road (RR7), but the distance can be easily resolved. Thanks to the work of David Ratledge in establishing the route, the actual distance from Burrow-in-Lonsdale to Ribchester is now known to be 32 Roman miles, not 30 as in Rivet and Smith (Rivet & Smith, 1979, p. .). If an “x” had been misread as a “v”, then the Itinerary distance would also be 32 miles. The only other possible location at anything close to the stated distance would be Lancaster, as claimed by Shotter, but at just 25 miles it is not far enough. Therefore, the identification of Galacum with Over Burrow seems safe. The distance along RR7 from Over Burrow to Low Borrowbridge, the next fort along RR7, is 18.7 Roman miles, a perfect fit with the 19 miles of the previous stage. Not only that, this would place Alone on the R. Lune, as it undoubtedly should be (Shotter 1998, p.9), Alone being almost certainly the Roman name for the river. An altar found just north of Lancaster dedicated to the deity Ialono Contrebis (RIB 600) supports this assertion.

If the next stage, Galava, were Watercrook, then the distance would be about 11.5 miles, again a perfect fit with the 12 of the Itinerary. As already discussed, there is no known road but it is an easy enough route, followed by the modern A685 . Watercrook was built in a loop of the R. Kent, the river-name apparently deriving from a pre-Roman name Cunetiu (Ekwall, 1928, pp. 226-8, cited in Smith, 1997, p372). Smith stated that Watercrook cannot be Galava on etymological grounds, but did not give his reasoning. The implication is that that since Galava is usually interpreted as meaning ‘forceful stream’ (Rivet & Smith 1979, p.365), there would then be two names for the same river. It could easily be argued, however, that Galava is a descriptive term for the R.Kent downstream from the fort, where there are many rapids, and thus is not in conflict with the name of the entire watercourse. A parallel example in modern times would be the stretch of the R. Wharfe upstream of Bolton Abbey known as the Strid, totally unrelated to the river name, where Strid Cottage now bears its name.

For the next stage, Clanoventa (or Glannoventa),  Holder argued persuasively (Holder, 2004) that it is actually Ambleside and this is where at first it might seem we hit a problem. The route of the Roman road from Watercrook to Ambleside has recently been identified by David Ratledge, and follows an fairly direct route keeping west of the R. Kent, then Staveley, Ings, Mislet, Town End, Wansfell and so to Clanoventa. The road is 14 Roman miles (m.p. Xiiii) long. If the tail of the first ‘i’ had been overlong, it is very easy to see how a medieval copyist could have been mistaken it for a ‘v’, hence m.p. xiiii became the m.p. xviii of the Itinerary.  It has been demonstrated how it is possible for all the original Itinerary distances to have corresponded with the actual distances for the first four stages of Iter X. No matter how well this solution appears to work, it cannot be regarded as certain until the missing roads linking Ambleside to Watercrook and Low Borrowbridge have been located.

One final idea worth mentioning has been mooted by Anthony Durham (Durham, 2017), who suggest the same identifications as the author, except that he proposes that Galava could be a ghost entry, written by mistake because of its similarity to Galacum and Clanoventa. His solution would of course require a direct route from Low Borrow Bridge to Ambleside,  which again involves the highly improbable route over Whinfell.   

Returning to the order of the Itinerary as written,  from Ribchester, if travelling by known roads would have meant heading along RR703 as far as Preston, then south down RR70 to Coccium (Wigan), a distance of some 24.5 miles. A direct road, however, would be about 20 Roman miles, a perfect fit with the itinerary. Unfortunately this road has not yet been found although there are many hints of such a road (see the Lancashire Pages, http://www.romanroads.org/gazetteer/roman4.htm, and WAS blog).

From Wigan, however, we are at last on very solid ground, as the road to Manchester (RR702) has been confirmed along much of its route and is about 17 Roman miles, a perfect match with the itinerary. From Manchester, the route follows RR7a as far as Northwich (Condate), where the itinerary distance of 18 miles is three miles short, as in Iter II, suggesting that this may not actually be an error of transmission. The route then turns onto King Street (RR70a) as far as Middlewich, and then finally along RR700 to Whitchurch (Mediolanum). This final stage is five miles short, suggesting that an ‘x’ has again been misread as a ‘v’.

It is impossible to completely reconcile any of the total distances of the routes that have been proposed over the years with the stated distance of 150 miles, including the route proposed by the author. In this proposal, four miles have been removed to Watercrook, five added at Ribchester, and five more added at Whitchurch, making the total 156 miles. That would go up to 159 if three were added back at Northwich. The only suggestion that can be made, as has been suggested for some other Iters, is that a copyist changed the statesd total to match the sum of the stages after the errors had crept in.

Fig. 2  Table illustrating five different interpretations of the first part of Iter X. Entries highlighted in green agree with the stated mileage, those that  can potentially be explained by a single misread or omitted character are highlighted in yellow.