In recent times it has been assumed that the road from Bidford to Weston Subedge, known as Buckle Street, is identical with Ryknield Street, but I should prefer to call Buckle Street a branch of the latter only, for the purpose of joining Ryknield Street and the Foss Way near Burton-on-the-Water. I consider the real course of Ryknield Street to be as described in Leland's _Itinerary_ (inserted by Hearne), Edition III., 1768, in which he quotes, from R. Gale's _Essay concerning the Four Great Roman Ways_, that "from Bitford on the southern edge of Warwickshire it (Ryknield Street) runs into Worcestershire, and taking its course thro' South Littleton goes on a little to the east of Evesham, and then by Hinton and west of Sedgebarrow into Gloucestershire, near Aston-under-Hill, and so by Bekford, Ashchurch, and a little east of Tewksbury, thro' Norton to Gloucester." Such a course for Ryknield Street would make it the connection between the north, running through the Roman Alauna (Alcester) to Glevum (Gloucester). It must be remembered that there was, in Roman times, nothing at Evesham to take the road there, for Evesham did not exist as a town until long after the Romans left. Leland says that there was "noe towene at Eovesham before the foundation of the Abbey," which took place about A.D. 701, about 250 years later, and there was no road from Alcester to Gloucester except the one we are following. Another important road passed the northern extremity of Blackminster and crossed the road just referred to so that the Blackminster area was situated at the junction. This was the old road from Worcester, passing the present site of Evesham a mile or more to the north, crossing the Avon at Twyford, and the Ryknield Street at Blackminster, and going onwards through Chipping Campden towards London. The following passage in the _Annals_ of Tacitus, Book XII., chapter xxxi., _Ille (Ostorius) ... detrahere arma suspectis, cinctosque castris Antonam et Sabrinam fluvios cohibere parat_, which refers to the fortification of the Antona and Severn rivers by the Roman general P. Ostorius Scapula, has been the subject of various readings and controversy about the word _Antona_, no river of that name having been identified. The reading given above may not be good Latin, but the names of the rivers are quite plain. Another reading substitutes _Avonam_ for _Antonam_; but probably Tacitus avoided the use of the word Avon because it was then a Celtic term for rivers in general, and confusion would arise between the Avon which joins the Severn at Tewkesbury and the Avon a little further south which runs into the Severn estuary at Bristol. To make his meaning quite clear he did exactly what we do now in speaking of the Stratford Avon (_i.e._, river) and the Bristol Avon(_i.e._, river) when he prefixed _Antonam_ (_et Sabrinam_) to the word _fluvios_.