Now, if you look at the present scheme of roads surrounding this
original Roman core they look at first as though they had no connection
with it, but when you examine them in detail the way in which they grew
up out of the Roman road is clear. Every deflection can be accounted
for, and the development of the local systems from the original
continuous backbone becomes evident.
[Illustration: _Part II_, Sketch XI]
First you have all Sussex south of Pulborough Marsh, and again south of
Alfoldean Bridge, isolated.
What happens?
There remained no reason for using the Stane Street as a continuous
line. It now led nowhere. When it meets with its first great obstacle
going north, the woods near Eartham, it makes for the next centre of
population--Petworth, where there was a fortified post going back to
some very early time. The wood deflects the road towards Duncton Hill
(I have quoted this example in my section on vegetation in the earlier
part of this essay). Beyond Petworth it had little function, so this
first ten miles of the Stane Street becomes the parent of the local
Chichester-Petworth road which grew up out of it, leaving a gap where
the woods intervened. Next you must note the local roads beyond this
gap. Pulborough Bridge probably survived, but the causeway could not
be kept up, or was ill kept up. In its original line, when it served
the camp at Hardham, it ran over a wide part of the marsh. In the Dark
Ages men picked their way over the narrowest part of the marsh and then
followed the hard bank above the Arun-flooded levels, linking up the
villages as far as Bignor. But there the use of the road ended. The
“potential” was from Pulborough to the nearest seaport, which was then
Arundel. And all that the Roman road did in this section was to throw
out this bow or curve of lateral road eastward between Pulborough and
Bignor, the line of main local travel being diverted from Bury over
Arundel Hill and so seaward.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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