MEM24800 - Possible Roman Road east of Elworthy (Monument)

The Somerset HER records the course of a potential Roman Road from Exeter to Watchet, identified through examination of LiDAR data. Part of the suggested route runs to the east of Elworthy, south to north between ST 0874 3473 and ST 0869 3618, before following the existing routeway north and then diverging at ST 0862 3654 to continue in a northnorthwesterly direction. It is not clear how confident the mapping of this section of the road is from the data supplied. [1,2] The Roman Road was recorded via LiDAR analysis and subsequent field walking. The northern fields within the Exmoor section of the road were noted to show the feature more clearly than the southern section. [3] The proposed route of a section of the road near Springwater Farm was subject to a field visit and trial trenching in February/March 2020 as part of a planning application. No archaeological deposits were exposed within either of the trenches excavated and no finds were recovered. [4] A Roman road network system in South West Britain was mapped using Lidar and GIS spatial analysis producing a prediction of the likely layout of the road network [5] Additional observations on the road between ST 08683 36158 and ST 08695 35964 were made from crop marks showing on aerial photographs taken by Historic England in 2018 (references 33552_029 - 33552_032). Repair or construction pits may be visible as dark patches alongside the road. The lidar transcription of the road is a few metres to the east of the cropmarks. The levelled agger and bounding ditches are clear. [6]