About the Ermine Street
The Ermine Street is a Roman road about 421 km long in the Itiner-e atlas of ancient roads. It is mapped as 68 separate segments within the United Kingdom. 14 Roman places lie along it, from Londinium to Calcaria.
None of the Ermine Street is classed as certain: almost all of it is conjectured, so the line on the map is a best estimate of the course rather than a surveyed route.
- 421 kmlength
- 68segments
- 14Roman places
- 1country
How sure are we where it ran?
| How certain | Length (km) | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Certain | 0 | 0% |
| Conjectured | 416 | 99% |
| Hypothetical | 5.1 | 1% |
Certain: well documented, mapped to within about 50 to 200 m. Conjectured: known road, course less precisely documented. Hypothetical: route not pinned down, or existence uncertain.
Where the Ermine Street goes
| Country | Length (km) |
|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 418 |
In the UK it crosses: North Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Greater London, West Yorkshire, East Riding of Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland, City and County of the City of London, England.
Roman places along the Ermine Street
In order along the route, from Londinium to Calcaria. Names are the Roman ones from the Pleiades gazetteer.
- Londinium
- Braughing
- Durovigutum
- Durobrivae (Water Newton)
- Danum?
- Segelocum
- Causennis?
- Ancaster
- Col. Lindum
- Petuaria
- Roman Fortress at York
- Eburacum
- Roman colonia at York
- Calcaria
Modern roads that follow it
Many of today's roads were built on top of Roman ones. These numbered roads in Great Britain run along or very close to the line of Ermine Street. About 63% of the route in Great Britain lies on a numbered road of some kind.
- A15: 30 km (7% of the route)
- A1198: 26 km (6% of the route)
- A10: 26 km (6% of the route)
- A1: 24 km (6% of the route)
- B6403: 23 km (6% of the route)
- A1079: 21 km (5% of the route)
- B1043: 14 km (3% of the route)
- A1500: 13 km (3% of the route)
- A1(M): 10 km (2% of the route)
- A638: 10 km (2% of the route)
- B1207: 8 km (2% of the route)
How we worked this out: we checked every 50 metres along the Roman line for a numbered road within 200 metres heading the same way (within 20 degrees). A road is listed only if it follows the route for at least 8 km in total and 3 km in one stretch. These matches are approximate, because the Roman line is often a best guess. Modern road data: Ordnance Survey Open Roads.
Modern towns near the route
These towns and cities are within about 4 km of the road, in route order.
- London (United Kingdom)
- Soho (United Kingdom)
- Islington (United Kingdom)
- Holloway (United Kingdom)
- Highbury (United Kingdom)
- Stamford Hill (United Kingdom)
- Wood Green (United Kingdom)
- Walthamstow (United Kingdom)
- Tottenham (United Kingdom)
- Edmonton (United Kingdom)
- Enfield Town (United Kingdom)
- Waltham Abbey (United Kingdom)
- Cheshunt (United Kingdom)
- Hoddesdon (United Kingdom)
- Hertford (United Kingdom)
- Huntingdon (United Kingdom)
- Stamford (United Kingdom)
- Castleford (United Kingdom)
- Pontefract (United Kingdom)
- Bentley (United Kingdom)
- Doncaster (United Kingdom)
- Grantham (United Kingdom)
- Lincoln (United Kingdom)
- Brough (United Kingdom)
- York (United Kingdom)
Source
Road name as recorded in the Itinerary field of Itiner-e (version 2024 1.3, doi:10.5281/zenodo.17122148). Sources most often cited by its 68 segments (segments citing each in brackets): [1] Margary 1955 (66): cited so in the data; the Itiner-e bibliography lists Margary, Ivan Donald (1973). Roman roads in Britain. Baker, London. 2 segments carry no source reference. Margary route number 2 (London to York via Lincoln), per the Margary numbers table on Wikipedia (citing Bishop 2014, pp. 138-139).. Route lines: Itiner-e, CC BY 4.0. See all data sources and licences.
Keep exploring
Other named roads in United Kingdom
- Fosse Way (372 km)
- Watling Street (352 km)
- Dere Street (273 km)
- Akeman Street (119 km)
- Stane Street (93.3 km)