Sussex (England) -- Description and travel; Sussex (England) -- History; Sussex (England) -- Pictorial works
This military way can be traced, with a few gaps, for a space of fifty
miles and more; from the eastern gate of Chichester to the neighbourhood
of Epsom, where it passes just between Lord Rosebery’s house and the
race-course, having crossed the Surrey border in the neighbourhood of
Ockley, and pursued its way through Dorking churchyard across Burford
Bridge, through the gardens of Juniper Hall, and so northwards and
eastwards.
The line of it in Sussex is clear to any one who glances at an Ordnance
map. It is a hard road over the first mile on leaving Chichester. At the
village of West Hampnet, some unknown cause in the
[Sidenote: THE STANE STREET]
remote past has diverted it, and the original line is lost in the fields
behind the workhouse of the place; but within another mile it once more
coincides with the present high road and goes straight for the Downs.
Close upon it was founded the Abbey of Boxgrove which, like Hyde and
Westminster and so many others, owed its site to the presence of a great
national way. It goes on over the shoulder of Halnacker Hill, then
plunges through the north wood where it is no longer traceable as a
road, but as a high ridge for several miles. It emerges upon the open
grass of the Downs at Gumber Farm, where it still marks a division
between ancient properties and modern fields. It then climbs down the
escarpment of the hills upon the north side in a great curve which has
given its name to the farm of Cold Harbour,--for the word Cold harbour,
which so frequently occurs in English topography, is probably derived
from the Latin “Curbare,” and marks the points where the usually dead
straight line of the Roman road was compelled for some local reason to
adopt a curve.
Immediately at the foot of this curve is to be found the little village
of Bignor, which contains one of the most perfect Roman pavements in
England, and which has been conjectured to be the “Ad Decimam”--the
tenth milestone from Chichester. It may be the villa of a private estate
or (more probably) the military residence of a small garrison. From this
point to Pulborough Bridge the track of the road is conjectural, with
the exception of a few stretches, where, even to-day, the discoloration
of the earth in the ploughed fields marks the old line in the Stane
Street. At Hardham, however, just before it reaches the marshes of the
Arun, its passage is clearly discernible due east of a still defined
camp which stands in between Petworth branch line and the main line of
the L.B.S.C.R., just before their junction. Immediately beyond, on the
farther side, stood the old Priory of Hardham which, like Boxgrove, must
have owed its site to the neighbourhood of the way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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