The Military Way

The Military Way was the Roman supply road that ran along a frontier wall behind the line itself, linking the forts, milecastles and turrets along its length. Two Roman walls in Britain had one: a longer route behind Hadrian's Wall in Cumbria and Northumberland with a shorter twin behind the Antonine Wall across the central belt of Scotland. The road stayed in use through the centuries of Roman occupation in the north. It is still walkable in many places as a slightly raised line of grass and stone: an unspectacular thing on its own but the backbone of the most remote frontier the empire ever held.

The route

The Military Way is not a single named route but the service road that ran behind a Roman frontier wall, linking its forts, milecastles and turrets.

Two frontiers in Britain had one. Behind Hadrian's Wall it ran the full width of the country from Wallsend to Bowness-on-Solway, generally a little to the south of the wall and between it and the Vallum. Behind the Antonine Wall a shorter equivalent ran across the central belt of Scotland from the Forth to the Clyde.

Its purpose was lateral movement: getting men and supplies quickly along the frontier rather than through it.

The surveyed line

The Itiner-e survey maps Roman roads across this part of the empire, but attributes no segment to The Military Way 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 B6318, confusingly called the Military Road, is an eighteenth-century construction built largely on top of Hadrian's Wall itself after the Jacobite rising, not on the Roman Military Way. The two should not be confused.

See also: which modern roads follow Roman lines, and how closely.

Where to see it

The clearest surviving stretches are in the central sector of Hadrian's Wall, between Housesteads and Steel Rigg, where the Roman road shows as a low raised band of grass and stone running parallel to the wall a short distance south of it.

Walk the Hadrian's Wall Path through that section and the Military Way, the Vallum and the wall are all visible together, which makes the logic of the whole frontier system suddenly obvious.

Common questions

Is the Military Road the same as the Military Way?

No, and the similarity of the names causes constant confusion. The Military Way is the Roman service road behind the wall. The Military Road is the modern B6318, built in the 1750s largely on top of the wall itself.

What was the Military Way for?

Moving troops and supplies along the frontier. The wall itself was a barrier; the road behind it let the garrison shift men quickly between milecastles and forts in response to trouble anywhere along the line.

Counties it crosses

Am I on it?