I have read that Roman roads are in use in Britain. Are they, and what condition are they in?
Oh, come on!
The courses of Roman roads are still followed, but with modern surfaces- the A5 for instance (Ermine Street IIRC) runs in a virtually straight line NNW from the South East to the North West over a hundred miles.
I used to live near to a bridle path in Hertfordshire that still had roman pavementium just beneath the earth.
Pjen is right, the roads have either been surfaced over many times and the roman layer lies a long way down, or in many cases the roman stone will have been lifted and used elsewhere and a new road laid in the same place.
Often when flying over the UK, I’ve spotted roads which were originally roman from the air; often you can see distant roads that ‘line up’ with each other and would originally be part of the same route.
The only one I can think of that is still a usable way and does not have a modern road surface on it is over Blackstone Edge near Halifax, even then it may not even be Roman but that is the local word.
Here is a link for you,
http://website.lineone.net/~ian-steel/photo3b.htm
The surface is cobbled but it looks to me much more recent as a road this age would have sunk into a very flat W section under the constant use of centuries of wheeled traffic.I’d say it looks to be either a Victorian restoration, which was a pretty common rustification fashion or possibly late 19thC for packhorses transporting wool as I’ve seen very similar roads on the moors around Pately Bridge.
More realistically this is what usually remains of lost Roman roads,
http://www.betws31.freeserve.co.uk/html/roman_road.html
Some pictures showing Roman causeways still in use but with more recent surfaces
http://www.imagesofdorset.org.uk/Dorset/060/intro.htm
Wheeldale Roman road
http://www.danu.co.uk/gallery/info/misc/wheeldale.html
As you can see, this is not frequented to any great extent by traffic and the surface is most unlikely to be original.
Here is what you are more likely to find on the surface,
http://www.walkingbritain.co.uk/walks/walks2/w168e.shtml
I live not very far from York(Eboracum) which was a fairly important Roman centre, as a result there are quite a few Roman ways around here to places such as Tadcaster(Calcaria), Castleford(Argentium - which was a fortified river crossing)where I live, Adel etc.
http://www.vicb.fsnet.co.uk/map_counties_roads_towns_yorkshire.htm
I have used Ordnance Survey maps to follow the paths of some Roman roads but they usually take you through ploughed fields, very little trace remains.There are several modern roads that have been built right on top of the Roman ones and their straightness stands out on maps this being fairly unusual in the English countryside but that is often the only clue there is.
There was a large link road built to join two very major routes (A1-M1) just a a handful of miles north of me but before work could go ahead York University archeology department was called in to record what lay in the ground, they found charnel pits from one or two nasty battles(mostly civil war) plus the Roman roads had been resurfaced so many times that they had become raised causeways several feet above the Roman one.If you looked at the previous link you can see it, its the straight road leading north out of Castleford.
In some places the Romans were forced to use existing routes such as over Kirkstone pass, there is evidence this has been used since neolithic times, not surprising as it is the only realistic way through.
Here’s a link to see most of the Roman roads in the UK
http://www.vicb.fsnet.co.uk/inv_roads.htm
If you can find a link to modern day maps its fairly easy to see which roads are still in use, but of course its only the route that is used, the original surfaces have long gone.
Thanks, casdave!