Watling Street: Travels Through Britain and Its Ever-Present Past

by John Higgs

Hardcover, 2017

Status

Available

Call number

914.2048612

Collection

Publication

Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Description

A journey along one of Britain's oldest roads, from Dover to Anglesey, in search of the hidden history that makes us who we are today. Long ago a path was created by the passage of feet tramping through endless forests. Gradually that path became a track, and the track became a road. It connected the White Cliffs of Dover to the Druid groves of the Welsh island of Anglesey, across a land that was first called Albion then Britain, Mercia and eventually England and Wales. Armies from Rome arrived and straightened this 444 kilometres of meandering track, which in the Dark Ages gained the name Watling Street. Today, this ancient road goes by many different names: the A2, the A5 and the M6 Toll. It is a palimpsest that is always being rewritten.

User reviews

LibraryThing member Eyejaybee
John Higgs has produced a marvellous book that manages simultaneously to be informative. Entertaining and thought-provoking.

The basic premise is very simple: Higgs follows the route of the old Watling Street from the Kent coast right across England and North wales to Anglesey. I have been aware of
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Watling Street in one form or another for most of my life. My first encounter with the name was probably around fifty years ago while I was at infants’ school. Then, Watling Street was described to me as one of the major Roman roads across Britain whose route had survived across the centuries and could still be clearly seen today. That was of particular interest to me for two reasons – like most schoolboys of my generation, there was a general fascination with anything Roman, while I also had experience of another enduring Roman road as the Fosse Way passed, arrow straight, not far from where I was growing up.

What I had not appreciated was that both the route, and also the name, of Watling Street predate the Romans. There was an ancient route long before the Roman occupation of the British Isles – they merely served to improve the construction of the road, to such an extent that much of their refurbishment work still remains today. Like the Icknield Way, which it crosses in what is now Dunstable (at the site of the decidedly unmemorable Quadrant shopping arcade), it was a long-established route valuable to traders, and serving to link coastal ports with the interior of the country, from time immemorial.

Higgs undertakes his exploration of the route, not straying more than five miles from the road at any stage, and generates an enchanting history of England. Starting from Dover, the route goes through Canterbury, then the Medway towns before reaching London and then heading northwest along what is now the Edgware Road and onwards up the MI and then the M6.

The great beauty of this book is the miscellany of potted histories that it offers, with diverting insights into all sorts of ephemera along the way.

Popular history at its best!
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LibraryThing member gothamajp
The author traces the route of the ancient pre-Roman route that cut across Britain from the south east to the north west uncovering many of its stories en-route.

But this isn’t just a travel or history book, it’s also an insightful look into the development of modern British culture and
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attitudes. Using the past to shine a light on the Brexit-era Britain it is one of the most illuminating examinations of why the country is not just divided geographically by ancient byways, but why it remains divided on political, socio-economic, and many other lines.
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LibraryThing member cbl_tn
Author John Higgs travels the length of Watling Street, from the white cliffs of Dover to the ancient burial mounds of Anglesey, to explore the history and culture of Britain. Watling Street is an ancient route that was in use before the Romans arrived. It is still in existence, and it passes
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through cities and cultural centers including Canterbury, London, St. Albans, and Bletchley Park. Higgs unearths forgotten history, such as the Southwark prostitutes known as the “Winchester geese” who are buried in the unconsecrated Cross Bones burial site. He also sheds new light on well-known historical events and figures such as the murder of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral and the World War II code breakers of Bletchley Park.

Higgs began his journey on the day of the Brexit referendum, and the post-Brexit national mood colors much of the book. Higgs takes a long historical view in Watling Street. Consequently, readers on both sides of the current political divide will find things to appreciate in Higgs’ observations.
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LibraryThing member PDCRead
It is easy to be complacent about the amount of history we have on this little island of ours. The layers are draped over our landscapes and towns and if you know where to look, the past is startlingly visible. Some of our roads go back to before Roman times, and these have become historical sites
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in their own right. These include Ermine Street and Icknield Way, the Ridgeway and of course one of Britain's oldest roads, Watling Street. This trackway can be still travelled along in its modern incarnations as motorways and A roads and reaches in a huge logarithmic arc from Dover to Anglesey.

As the path became a trackway the name of the land it passed through changed names. Invaders came and turned it into a road whilst making it straighter and at some point in the distant past, it gained a name; Watling Street. It has seen a lot of history in its time, it is the place that spelt the end to Boudicca, it has heard the chatter of machines decoding secrets and seen the landscape surrounding it change as people have sculpted it to their needs. It has seen myths and legends created and destroyed, and had the lowest in the land to the Royal bloodline travel along its route.

Nowadays it is the same as every other road, with its grey asphalt, pale lines and unnecessary amounts of road furniture, but it still carries people to places that they need to go to. As Higgs travels along it, he peels back the layers that have made us who we are, goes to the significant milestones of history along the route and contemplates how this one road can be a metaphor for who we are and who we may become in this post-Brexit age. It is a difficult book to pigeonhole too, partly history book, partly polemical, a smattering of personal memoir and a draught of nostalgia is probably the best way of describing this. He writes with enthusiasm about the places and people that he encounters on his journey with the odd funny anecdote and sharp wit. However, there is more to this book than that, it is an insightful guide to the current state of the nation and our present psyche. Higgs doesn’t have all the answers, but it is a whimsical look at our country.
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LibraryThing member MarilynKinnon
Interesting exploration of UK, "a mad odyssey" myths and eccentric characters but good rants about the state we are in - and he is writing pre Covid.
Uses term 'noosphere' equates to man's thinking and cultural imput.

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

2017

Physical description

9.41 inches

ISBN

1474603475 / 9781474603478

Local notes

Follows an ancient prehistoric track from Dover to Anglesey.
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