England -- Description and travel; Icknield Way (England); Thomas, Edward, 1878-1917
The one map of the period showing the roads is such as they might have
been expected to make. It belongs probably to the thirteenth century
and was reproduced by Hearne, from a British Museum manuscript, in Vol.
V of his edition of Leland’s _Itinerary_ (1710). It shows the four
roads by means of lines and a brief description--his Fosse going in the
approved manner from Totnes to Caithness, the Ermine Street due north
and south, the Watling Street from south-east to north-west. Ykenild
Street goes straight across from west to east. The artist’s description
of this as of the other roads is almost word for word from Henry of
Huntingdon. But there are these differences and additions: the western
extremity of the Icknield Way is not called St. David’s, but Salisbury,
which is thus placed due north of Totnes where St. David’s should be;
the eastern--or, as he calls it, the southern--is St. Edmunds. At
the point of intersection with Watling Street he writes “Dunstaple,”
which is accurate. Thus he is original only in his description of the
Icknield Way. In putting “Meridies” by St. Edmunds he made a slip due
to his drawing the map with its north end on the right side. It is
impossible to decide the extent of his mistake in marking Salisbury
at the west end of the road. He may have believed that it went to
Salisbury, but have been afraid to deviate from the received opinion
that it was an east-and-west road; or he may simply have put Salisbury
in mistake for St. David’s. Giving Bury St. Edmunds as the eastern
termination suggests local knowledge which the accurate position of
Dunstable confirms. He may have been a man of the eastern counties who
thought that Salisbury was not only the end of the road, as travellers
told him, but a city in the west.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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