Ackling Dyke
Sorviodunum to Durnovaria
The route
Ackling Dyke is the name given to the Roman road running south-west from Sorviodunum at Old Sarum, just north of modern Salisbury, across Cranborne Chase to Badbury Rings, about twenty-two miles. The road continued to Durnovaria at Dorchester, though that stretch is usually counted separately.
It climbed onto the chalk downland and held to the high ground, passing close to the Iron Age hillfort at Badbury Rings and through a landscape already dense with Bronze Age barrows. The Roman engineers drove the road straight through that prehistoric cemetery, in places cutting into the barrows themselves.
The surveyed line
The Itiner-e survey maps Roman roads across this part of the empire, but attributes no segment to Ackling Dyke by name, so there is no measured line to draw here. The road is well attested by archaeology and by the modern roads that still follow it.
The road today
The B3081 and various minor roads take up short sections, and the A354 between Salisbury and Blandford runs in the same corridor. But much of the best-preserved length crosses land that never carried a modern road, which is precisely why it survives so well.
See also: which modern roads follow Roman lines, and how closely.
Where to see it
This is among the finest surviving Roman road earthworks in Britain. Between Badbury Rings and Bottlebush Down the agger runs up to fifteen metres wide and stands nearly two metres above the surrounding fields, unmistakable and walkable for several kilometres.
The National Trust land around Badbury Rings gives the easiest access. Park at the rings and follow the road north-east, toward Oakley Down and Old Sarum.
Common questions
What is an agger?
The raised embankment on which a Roman road was built, formed from material dug out of the ditches either side. It lifted the running surface clear of standing water. Ackling Dyke has one of the most impressive surviving aggers in Britain, up to fifteen metres wide and standing nearly two metres high.
Where is the best place to walk Ackling Dyke?
The stretch between Badbury Rings and Bottlebush Down in Dorset, where the road survives as a broad raised bank across open downland, accessible on foot from the National Trust car park at Badbury Rings by heading north-east.