King Street
Durobrivae to Ancaster
The route
King Street branched from Ermine Street near Durobrivae at Water Newton and ran north through the western edge of the Lincolnshire fens, past Bourne, before rejoining the main road about a kilometre south of Ancaster. The road on north from Bourne toward Sleaford is Mareham Lane, a separate Roman route.
Where Ermine Street kept to the higher ground to the east, King Street took the lower and more direct line through the fen edge, which required building a raised causeway across ground that flooded. It served the salt-making and farming settlements of the fenland, a landscape the Romans drained and exploited intensively.
The surveyed line
The Itiner-e survey maps Roman roads across this part of the empire, but attributes no segment to King Street 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
Very little of it. South of Bourne the line survives as minor lanes and field boundaries, and it is easy to pick out on a map as an unusually straight run of otherwise unremarkable country roads. North of Bourne little of the road is still in use.
See also: which modern roads follow Roman lines, and how closely.
Where to see it
The fen-edge lanes around Baston and Kate's Bridge give the clearest sense of it. This is quiet, flat country and the road's straightness across it is unmistakable.
Nearby, the Roman town at Water Newton and the Car Dyke, a major Roman watercourse running roughly parallel, put the road in the context of a heavily engineered fenland landscape.
Common questions
Why is it called King Street?
The name is medieval and honorific rather than Roman. No Roman name for the road has come down to us. King Street simply marked it out as a major highway in a period when most roads belonged to no one in particular.
How is King Street different from Ermine Street?
They are parallel routes that split near Water Newton and rejoin south of Ancaster. Ermine Street took the higher, drier ground to the east; King Street ran lower through the fen edge on a built causeway.