A short interlude on something Roman.
Whilst out gathering pictures for a bigger up-coming blog post, I got to play explorer in one of those small ways that makes my walks even more worthwhile. I’m not going to give exact location details although they’re not hard to find, but deep in a lush woodland this weekend, I was able to find the ruins of a Roman villa.
Now the spot even 2000 years later is still a very lovely example of the English countryside and it's understandable why a presumably wealthy family built their home there. It's also surrounded by water from springs and small brooks which presumably would have been present in some form. The surrounding land is rich and still largely farm land and nearby is a road that still bears the name ‘Saltway’. This straight road would almost certainly have been Roman and heading up to the salt town of Droitwich. Known as Salinae to the Romans, the town has its own Roman ruins (now largely under an industrial estate) and would have been a major salt producing town hence the name. I suppose that after nearly 2 millennia it's surprising that any remains still stand, never mind visible short walls and a Victorian preserved, but still Roman mosaic left covered over and sheltered from the elements.
This history is so much more visceral than the more sterile environment of English Heritage (in my sh*t list for a reason that may be explained in future blogs) or the National Trust, despite how much I enjoy those sites as well. This is a place where you can sense the feet on the ground, the lives that people lived and see what they built without first reading an interpretation board. Its why I keep going out and finding these bits of forgotten history that dot this land. From the neolithic to the Romans to nearly the present day it surrounds us, is us and hopefully will still be here in another 2000 years!
