The Devil's Highway

The Devil's Highway ran west from Londinium to Calleva Atrebatum at Silchester, crossing the Thames at Pontes near Staines. It cut a fast line through the heathland of the Berkshire downs, the shortest road from London to the great inland town at Silchester. The name appeared in medieval surveys, long after the road had fallen out of use: country people who could not believe so straight a road could be human work attributed it to the devil. Today most of it lies under modern roads or under farmland, but a clear stretch survives across Crowthorne and Wokingham as a footpath through the pines.