Section of historical Roman street found beneath most cost-effective place on Monopoly board
People travelling in and out of London have been driving directly over an ancient road that once delivered emperors to the capital.
A new archeological breakthrough has been made during the excavation of Old Kent Road in south-east London. The famous three kilometre stretch, a key artery into the city from Dover and the South East of England, has long been regarded by archeologists as one of the most important Roman roads in the country and is almost 2,000 years old.
Back then, it was known as Watling Street and ran all the way from the port in Dover to the West Midlands, passing through the heart of London. It is thought famous rulers like Hadrian would have travelled along it,while further up to the north west of London, it was also the scene of the famous defeat of Boudica at the Battle of Watling Street.
(Image: Southwark Council)
Now, the section of that historic thoroughfare has been found south of the junction of Old Kent Road and Ilderton Road.
A team from the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) alongside Southwark council’s in-house archaeology officer Dr Chris Constable, were able to identify the road, built in AD43 shortly after the Roman invasion of Britain. Knowledge about where Watling Street is has been held by researchers for some time, but until now physical, archaeological evidence has been hard to come by.
Like other Roman roads, how straight it was helped with locating it. The discovered section is understood to be in good condition and measures 19ft, or 5.8m, wide by almost 5ft, or 1.4m.
(Image: Southwark Council)
Images of the section show clear layers in the solid object, with Southwark Council saying that it features a compacted section of gravel in between two layers of chalk. This sandwich is then topped with another layer of condensed gravel and sand.
But, despite sitting under the new road, the original surface is thought to have previously sat at the same height as the modern one.
Dr Constable said: “In the planning for this project, we’d expected to solve this question but the extent of survival of the road is remarkable. We hope this project will answer some other archaeological questions in the borough.”
