G. M. BOUMPHREY
AS THIS TALK of Mr. Boumphrey's, as well as the one he gave last week, deals with his journey along the Fosse Way, it might be as well to say a word not only about the Fosse, but also about the three other ' royal roads ' in Britain —Icknield Street, Eming or Ermine Street, and Watling Street. These four roads were mentioned in documents and by writers of the eleventh century, and were distinguished from all other existing roads because they enjoyed the special protection of the king.
Though the precise course of these roads, as they existed, is a matter of contention, early charters tell us that Icknield Street ran along the Berkshire downs and the Chilterns; Ermine Street almost due north through Huntingdonshire; Watling Street north-west across the Midlands from London to Shrewsbury, and the Fosse Way diagonally to it from Exeter to Lincoln, intersecting it at High Cross, four and a half miles south-east of Hinckley, in south Leicestershire, at a point sometimes called ' the centre of England.'
The derivation of the four names is unknown. The first three may be from English personal names. Fosse seems to be the Latin fossa in its rare sense of an embankment of earth or stones.
Apart from Icknield Street, they all seem to have been made or developed by the Romans, and the former perhaps was a prehistoric track, and was probably used by them.
Last Friday Mr. Boumphrey spoke of the south portion of the Fosse Way which he had covered as far as Cirencester, in Gloucestershire. This evening he will speak of the northern half on to Lincoln, which he has covered during the last seven days. He has passed through Stow-on-the-Wold, near Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, through Warwickshire, past Warwick and Rugby, through Leicester, on to Newark-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire, and ending up at Lincoln.