Border Country

Milton Keynes is now a peaceable part of a United Kingdom. But it has not always been that way (in a future post I will look at the motte and bailey castles put up in Shenley, Bradwell and Wolverton at the time of "the anarchy" during King Stephen's reign)

At school, I was taught that the Anglo-Saxon kingdom was divided from a Viking kingdom (known as the 'Danelaw') by Watling Street.

In fact this border ran across the country using the old Roman road - until it came to the crossing of the Great Ouse - where Watling Street ran through Old Stratford into Stony Stratford. At that point the boundary follows the Great Ouse to Bedford. It then went directly south to the source of the River Lea and followed that to the Thames.

A Treaty between King Alfred of Wessex (see http://jdmhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/alfred-great.html) and Guthrum, the leader of a Viking force that had invaded in 874 and brought Wessex to the point of extinction in 878, and then became the ruler of East Anglia - was agreed at some point between 878 and 890.

The Roman Roads of Milton Keynes

Watling Street is the name given later for the major Roman road (which may actually follow a more ancient route) which ran from the ports in Kent (Dubris (Dover) and Rutupiae (Richborough)), via Londinium (London), Verulamium (St Albans) onto Viroconium (Wroxeter). It then splits, continuing what may be more ancient routes towards Holyhead and Deva (Chester). The Antonine Itinerary, Route II extends the route beyond Deva to Hadrian's Wall.

In Milton Keynes, it enters the current boundary of the Unitary Authority at the roundabout on the A5 trunk route where it meets A4146. It runs through Fenny Stratford to the 'Roman' roundabouts near the Bletchley Tesco. It runs alongside Bletcham Way and the start of the V4 near the MK Dons Stadium, on Denbigh Road. It then follows the V4, which diverts to avoid the original route of Watling Street through Loughton and Stony Stratford. In Stony Stratford, Watling Street is the London Road and High Street. Watling Street exits Milton Keynes as it crosses the Great Ouse.

On its route it crosses a number of streams and the Great Ouse on bridges, but these were probably fords in Roman times.

There were other Roman roads in the area. The Bletchley to Buckingham road is believed to be of at least Roman foundation.  


"Viatores" is the name used by a number of scholars who published a book in 1964 which sought to identify possible Roman roads in the South East Midlands. Some of these roads are definitely Roman - but others are conjectures based upon known settlements, parish boundaries and previous archaeological finds. I'm not in a position to evaluate how much of work has been proven by later research - but the book is a useful starting point.

MKi Observatory used to have a Heritage Theme which showed the Viatores routes relative to the modern roads and paths. I have not been able to find it recently, but if anyone can provide a link - please share it with me. I do recall that one route crossed the southern end of Milton Keynes Central railway station, crossing Loughton towards Shenley Brook End near to the current route of Child's Way. The picture below shows the Viatores routes in the general area.

Route 175 heads for Irchester via Olney. following the course of the River Ouzel.

A copy of "Viatores" can be consulted in the main Milton Keynes library.

Roman Milton Keynes

Watling Street (though the Romans did not call it this), is the most obvious sign of the Roman presence in Milton Keynes. It enters Milton Keynes at the large island at the south of the A5 trunk route and is still in use through Fenny Stratford; closely passing the Tesco in Bletchley and as 'Denbigh Road,, parallel to Bletcham Way to the start of the V4. This modern road follows the original route (except to avoid Loughton (where the London Road follows Watling Street) and then along the High Street in Stony Stratford.

The Roman villa at Bancroft is also well known, but is not the only villa found in the area. A map in Bob Zeepvat's "Roman Milton Keynes" identifies villas in Holne Chase, Sherwood Drive (both Bletchley), Dovecote Farm in Shenley Brook End, Wymbush, Stantonbury  and Stanton Low. He also  notes that a site in Walton could be a villa and that the Ouse valley "is also particularly well endowed with villas, which occur at intervals of 2-3 kilometres along its north side." The term means farm - and some villas are really a collection of buildings dominated by a place of residence. The book on Bancroft shows that the extent of buildings covered most of the land between the open remains of the villa and the car par and the pétanque pitch. Wymbush's villa included a stone house and outbuildings including a barn. The picture above was taken at the British Museum and is of coins found near Watling Street as it enters Magiovinium (the Roman town mow within Milton Keynes).



Detailed lists of sites and findings are listed in Roman Milton Keynes: Excavations & Fieldwork 1971 - 82 edited by Dennis C Mynard.



An interesting book was published by the Museum of London Archaeology Service called "Becoming Roman". It traces the development from the late iron age to the end of the Roman period at Monkston.


All these publications are available in the Milton Keynes Libraries. The Main library in Silbury Boulevard has an excellent local studies sections sited within the Reference Section (though some can be borrowed).

There's a good interactive resource available at http://www.mkheritage.co.uk/mkm/mkarchaeology/Web%20pages/roman1.html

Milton Keynes 50 today!

Happy Birthday to a great city. Created 50 years ago today by ministerial order, the city has transformed this area of North Buckinghamshire. It now has a population of over a quarter of a million citizens. We moved here in 2009 - and wouldn't want to live anywhere else. We live close to Furzton Lake - a carefully planned artificial balancing lake - which is now home to a variety of birds. I love being able to walk from my home to Milton Keynes Central station through two miles of parkland. (Despite its image as a concrete city, it has millions of trees and a redway grid offering a healthy alternative to its road & roundabouts grid)

It also has a fascinating history. One of the advantages of a planned development in the 1960s onwards - is that archaeologists went in before building began. Roman villas (& a fine mosaic now on permanent display in the shopping centre); bronze and Iron Age settlements & a number of treasure hoards have been found. I live half a kilometre from Watling Street, a hundred metres from an Iron Age settlement and a few doors down from where a gold Roman brooch was discovered. Bletchley Park is a 25 minute walk away - and Alan Turing stayed in a then-pub in the estate neighbouring ours.

In this blog I will be writing about that history - there are already a number of such posts (do take a look) - but I'm working my way through the many archaeological reports that have been published - and other histories that have been published.

And if you haven't visited MK - it's worth a visit.  Explore The redways (The red coloured paths wide enough for cyclists and pedestrians to peacefully co-exist - that go through the countryside in the city). Visit Bletchley Park, or our Roman villa in Bancroft. Walk through Stony Stratford past the building in which Richard III took his nephew into "protective custody", or Newport Pagnell - a key to the English Civil War of the 1640s (or Shenley Toot - or the ruins of Wolverton Castle - both built during the civil war after King Stephen seized the throne)

My home

I live on the very modern estate of Furzton in Milton Keynes. Much of it was build in the 1980s and 1990s. The lake (which is superb for bird watching; or walking) was built to ensure that flooding down the Loughton Brook was avoided. But, as I've mentioned in earlier posts, it has a heritage going back before the Romans arrived. I live only yards from an iron age settlement - and the major Roman Road we now refer to as Watling Street is the Eastern boundary.

The map below (which if clicked expands), is a hand drawn map of the Furzton area from the 16th Century. In the top left hand corner is the small village of Shenley Brook End. The three streams which flow into today’s Furzton Lake can be seen. The most northerly is the stream which flows through Shenley Brook End, which now flows into the Lake near the car park in Shirwell Crescent. The second, which has the name “Chaldwell” under it – now runs through the northern part of Emerson Valley, meeting the lake at its most westerly point. The third now divides North Furzton from South Furzton. Alford bridge is where Watling Street crossed the main stream. It may be the same Hertford Bridge that Sir Frank Markham writes about as the scene of a robbery in June 1766 that led to the rector of Tingewicke pursuing and fatally shooting the highwayman. He was acquitted of manslaughter.

Did the Romans march from Westminster to Milton Keynes?

As noted in the last post, Watling Street ran from the channel ports to Londinium and up through Milton Keynes to Wroxeter and Chester. But was this the original route?

Londinium was, like Milton Keynes, a new city (although they both had their roots thousands of years beforehand). By 50AD, according to a notice in the Museum of London, the original road was diverted to take in this developing new city. Where did the original route run?

One of the characteristics of Roman roads was that they are remarkably straight. Unlike the later roads which can be notoriously windy, Roman roads joined up points in a straight line. There are of course abrupt changes of direction to avoid some obstacles.

If the road from Dover were continue in a north westerly direction; and the Edgware Road was to follow its path south easterly (rather than abruptly turning eastwards into Oxford Street) they would end up facing each other across the Thames at Westminster.

There has been an oral tradition that the Thames could be crossed by foot at certain times where the Palace of Westminster now stands. Archaeological work (see The royal palace, abbey and town of Westminster on Thorney Island – Museum of London Archaeology Service, 2006) suggests that a sandbank once extended beneath the Palace of Westminster into the then wider & shallower Thames, just to the south of St Stephen’s Chapel (the ‘original’ House of Commons) close to the statue of Richard the Lionheart.

If this thesis is correct we had a direct link to Westminster – via Dunstable; St Albans; the Edgware Road – across Park Lane towards the entrance to Buckingham Palace (the site of Cowford – where the road crossed a branch of the River Tyburn is near to the Victoria Memorial) – across to Tothill Street and along the “ridge” on Thorney Island where Westminster Abbey now stands.