Roman roads in Staffordshire
Letocetum at Wall, near Lichfield, is the reason Staffordshire matters here: it is where Watling Street and Ryknild Street crossed at right angles, and the excavated bath house and mansio beside the junction are among the best-preserved roadside buildings in Britain. Travellers on the road to Wroxeter and the Welsh frontier stopped, bathed and changed horses on this spot.
- Mapped segments
- 21
- Surveyed length
- 150 km
- Named roads
- 2
Measured from the Itiner-e survey within the modern county boundary, which for Yorkshire, Cheshire and the other counties broken up in 1974 means the traditional area reassembled from its present-day parts. The survey maps far more road than it attributes to a named route, so the segment count counts everything, and the named roads below are only those with a history recorded here.
Where to see it
Wall is National Trust land in English Heritage guardianship, with a small site museum of the finds. Further north, Rocester and Chesterton were forts on Ryknild Street, and the Staffordshire Hoard, though Anglo-Saxon, was found in a field beside Watling Street and is displayed in Stoke-on-Trent and Birmingham.
Named roads through Staffordshire
Watling Street
Rutupiae to Viroconium
Ryknild Street
Bourton-on-the-Water to Templeborough