(An occasional series on Swavesey’s Roads)
Roman Road: The A14 (Part One)
Chariots to ‘Juggernauts’
By Stephen Bull

“Any [article] about a journey through Britain – unless  you’ve travelled along  the 7,400 miles of Roman roads in the country – is rarely straightforward.” (From “Journey Through Britain” by David St John Thomas)

The “A604”, sorry, the “A14” (that dates me!) latterly dubbed “The Road to Hell” forms the SSW boundary of the parish of Swavesey. Most probably dating back 2,000 years it has been referred to as the “Cambridge-Huntingdon Road” and just the “Huntingdon Road”; the “Huntingdon Turnpike” (from 1745); the “Via Devana” (in Victorian times); and sometimes just the “High Road”. Then it was given the classification of the “A604” and later the “A604T” and in 1994 upgraded to the present day “A14” – but with precautionary “A14 formally A604” signs still abounding! But of course it’s still referred to on some maps as a “Roman Road”.   

The Roman Road: Little is known of the early Roman Road, except for the two Roman settlements, or towns, occupied by present day Cambridge and Godmanchester. Today, almost two millennia later, it is difficult to visualise a rough, gravel surfaced road, which served as a Roman Road, churned up by iron wheeled chariots and the feet of Roman legions marching ‘up north’ to fight another battle, take up guard duty on Hadrian’s Wall, or just take a well earned leave …….

Following the military surveyor’s preferred route – ease of gradient, on a fairly level ground, arrow straight and connecting rivers at fordable points (at which forts, settlements or towns of Cambridge and Godmanchester were eventually established) – the road, today’s A14, most probably following an ancient track through inhospitable waste land, served as part of an extensive Roman road system linking the Roman capital on the East Coast, CAMVLODVNVM (Colchester), with DEVA (Chester) -- an hypothesis that now appears to be unfounded (The Victoria History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely Vol. VII page 17). The twin objects of troop movement and efficient communications were the basic purposes of the road: for economy and bulk transportation, however, wherever possible water transportation was used. (Fen & Upland page 3)

It is well known that the Romans developed the fens as an important grain producing area and used improved waterways, linking with the Wash, to transport grain to their garrisons in the Midlands and North (F&U page 3). In Roman times there were only “two ways into and through the area ….. by water and along the Roman road.” (F&U page 3)  

Construction materials usually obtained from near at hand would have been used for the construction of the road, with a solid foundation (probably rubble), with a cambered, all-weather gravel capped top surface hemmed in by kerbstones -- very different from the streets of rutted cut lava blocks in Pompeii! Whether the present A14 runs atop the original Roman road, or has deviated over the centuries, isn’t known (sometime it would be interesting to view a deep trench during an excavation of the A14 to check if anything remained of the original Roman road!) – although recent excavations in the north of Cambridge revealed that the Roman road lay some distance to the right of modern Huntingdon Road/Castle Street. (Romans in the Cambridgeshire Area leaflet page 11)

Roman Cambridge: Excavations adjacent to Castle Street and Gloucester Street in Cambridge revealed significant major features within the Roman town of DUROLIPONS (Cambridge). These included a well-preserved cobbled surface, presumably “Akeman Street”, running NE, running through Arbury and to Ely and the Fens, which intersected slighter traces of the (A14) at the top of Castle Street, running NW to Godmanchester. These two roads were probably completed soon after 43AD and remained in use all through the Roman occupation and beyond. No trace of a river bridge has been found, although a wooden causeway, several meters below the modern surface of Bridge Street, may, if it is of Roman origin, have bridged or forded the river (Cam) (Romans in the Cambridgeshire Area leaflet page 7) and stretched over the Gog Magog Hills and on to Haverhill.

Godmund’s settlement: Similarly, the small picturesque town of Godmanchester (at the other end of ‘our’ section of the A14) was a fairly important Roman settlement. It grew up where two Roman ‘vias’ (roads) met with the major north-south route of “Ermine Street” at the point were it forded the Great Ouse. (Cambridgeshire Journal and East Anglian Life: March 2004 page 28) The typically Roman pentagonal (five-sided) street layout survives – the outline of the encampment may still be traced by taking a walk round the four or five pubs! (Cambridgeshire Journal: March 2004 page 31) As a point of interest the name in fact stems from its history – roughly translated as: “The former settlement belonging to [the Roman lord] Godmund.” (Cambridgeshire Journal: March 2004 page 28)

As with a great number of the roads constructed by the Romans the (A14) has remained in use long afterwards. We do not know the names given by the Romans to any one of the roads in Britain, not even whether they gave names at all. Afterwards however many received distinctive names from the Saxons: e.g. “Akeman Street” and “Ermine Street”; and later “Via Devana” [the corn road to DEVA (Chester) by Victorian antiquarians. (Map of Roman Britain published by The Ordnance Survey; 1931 page 5)

Interestingly, there is little, if any, evidence of Roman settlements along the Roman Road between Cambridge and Godmanchester. A number were built, however, closer the fen-edge than had happened during the Iron Age period. Settlements grew up, though not in actual present day villages, but down in the fenland at Willingham and Cottenham. Waterways were dug or improved, including “Navigation Drain” in present day Middle Fen in Swavesey, for transportation of grain for its garrisons in the north (the Roman legions marched on their stomachs!) to link with the Great Ouse navigatable out to the Wash. [Presumably the later invaders, the Saxons and Normans preferred to establish communities and settlements on higher, drier parts; Boxworth and Elsworth; and even today Fenstanton is the only (Saxon) village established on the Roman Road.]

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The “Road to Hell”: If the Romans were to return today what would they make of the A14? Would they be surprised to find that the road, the foundations of which they laid nearly 2,000 years ago, is still not only being used; but still serves as a vital communications network with the Midlands and East Anglia – indeed is now a section of “a European highway”! They might be disappointed that their inscribed mile posts -- 1,000 paces representing one Roman ‘mille’ (mile) – have been removed, or have disappeared altogether! And, as builders of the Roman Road, what impression would they gain as they witness the congestion, tail-backs and chaos caused by the explosion of freight lorries and passenger traffic --- the road having become the “most used A-road in England” --- and gaining the ‘epithet’: the “Road to Hell” !!!

With the departure of the Romans the state of the roads throughout the country deteriorated, and some were ‘lost’, through the lack of maintenance and many probably reverting to muddy tracks (the maintenance of roads being the responsibility of those Roman officials who held military command).

It wasn’t until road transportation developed in the 1600s that the neglect of deteriorating roads was reversed, and the necessity for the repair and upgrade the ancient roads and new roads deep into the countryside was called for. “Turnpikes” were thereby established by private Acts of Parliament which allowed private companies to charge a toll in exchange for repairing the highways.

A number of turnpikes are recorded in the Cambridge/Huntingdon area, one as early as 1725. The straight Roman Road from Cambridge to Godmanchester was designated and served as a turnpike between 1745 and 1874.

In an attempt to cope with increase in traffic the A604 was developed into suicidal three-lanes between Cambridge and Fenstanton with the central lane for overtaking in both directions. The death of 12 people in a relatively short time in this section brought strong protests and a call for the road to be made into a dual carriageway. (Cambridge Evening News: From the News of December, 1972) Soon after, work on dualling the road commenced in 1975.   

However, the short-sightedness of the planners has been blamed for the ‘unforeseen’, but ‘predicted’!, increase in traffic volume with the dual carriaging of the old A604 section, and the opening of the M1/M6-South Coast link. Evidently as soon as the word spread that the A14 was open (completed on 15th July 1994) the road became perceptively busier (C.E.N.: Mike Moore correspondence, November 1994) resulting in today’s traffic snarl-ups we witness at most times of the day. Within four months the road was described as “worse than the M25” (C.E.N.: 17th November 1994) and “one of the worst roads in the county/country!” (C.E.N.: 15th July 1995) with 65,000 vehicles a day thundering along --- and that was 10 years ago!

In July 1976 the News was reporting that “Juggernauts* were still passing through Cambridge’s winding narrow streets [Castle Hill, Victoria Road, Newmarket Road en route for the East Coast] before the construction of the Girton nine-mile Cambridge northern bypass [was built].” (C.E.N.: 26th July 2001) Obviously today the concern is not that “Juggernauts [are] passing through Cambridge’s winding narrow streets” (Cambridge and Godmanchester – and the village of Fenstanton - having since been ‘bypassed’) --- but the inability of the A1-Fen Ditton stretch of the A14 to cope with the amount of heavy freight being transported by modern day Juggernauts!!!    

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Nowadays the constant drone of the A14 is heard in Swavesey from early morning until late at night – with just a few of hours of quiet in the early hours: and during those ‘early hours’ if you listen intently you may just hear, however faintly, the wheels of Roman chariots speeding along the A14!

Note:- *The word “Juggernaut” is Hindi for “Jagannatha”: Lord of the world. Devotees formally threw themselves under a huge cart carrying Lord Juggernaut, an idol of Krishna. The British have adapted the word for a very large, heavy lorry.