Country Images Magazine North January 2018 | Page 46

Illustrations on these 2 pages
clockwise from top right:
St Peter’s Street, Derby looking
towards the north.
Th e corner of Osmaston Road
and Wilmot Street, Derby
looking towards the Cathedral.
Queen Street looking north past
the Cathedral. Photographed by
Richard Keene 1867.
Iron Gate today looking south.
A map of the Roman roads
and the trackway that passed
through the City.
I risked publishing this idea in 1988, and notice it has entered
archaeological orthodoxy now, thanks to a recent report of the
archaeology of Derby’s western inner suburbs. between groups to ply their trades. When the Romans came, they simply
took the route over, probably made improvements and used it to connect
Derventio to Ratae and thence the south and Londinium.
What we have is an Iron Age trackway which long pre-dated Derby to
allow the inhabitants of the tribal area of the Corieltauvi (whose Roman
period capital was Ratae (Leicester) to reach the Trent and follow the
Derwent Valley north in the territory of the Brigantes. Iron Age it may
have been, but artisans such as smiths and potters had to move around Th e crossing at Swarkestone would have been on a substantial bed of
brushwood and withies, just like the tracks of the same vintage exposed
on the Somerset Levels in the 1980s, with a ford over the wide part of
the Trent, then positioned further south than today. Th ere aft er the road
probably ran as today, east then north to Chellaston, avoiding the Bronze
46 | CountryImagesMagazine.co.uk