The Road

A Story of Romans and Ways to the Past

Christopher Hadley

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English

HARPER360
01 February 2023

History; British & Irish history; Social & cultural history; Bargains

A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR

‘An absolute joy to read and an early contender for every list of History Books of the Year’ Sunday Telegraph

‘On nearly every page a random passage takes one’s breath away’ The Times

Have you ever heard the march of legions on a lonely country road?

For two thousand years, the roads the Romans built have determined the flow of ideas and folktales, where battles were fought and where pilgrims trod. Almost everyone in Britain lives close to a Roman road, if only we knew where to look.

In the beginning was Watling Street, the first road scored on the land when the invading Romans arrived on a cold and alien Kentish shore in 43 CE. Campaign roads rolled out to all points of the compass, forcing their way inland and as the Britons fell back, the roads pursued them relentlessly, carrying troops, supplies and military despatches. In the years of fighting that followed, as the legions pushed onwards across what is now England, into Wales and north into Scotland in search of booty, mineral wealth, land and tribute, they left behind a vast road network, linking marching camps and forts, changing the landscape, etching the story of the Roman advance into the face of the land, channelling our lives today.

Christopher Hadley, acclaimed author of Hollow Places, takes us on a lyrical journey into this past, retracing and searching for an elusive Roman road that sprang from one of the busiest road hubs in Roman Britain. His passage is not always easy. Time and nature have erased many clues; bridges rotted and whole woods grew across the route. Carters found an easier ford downstream, and people broke up its milestones to mend new paths. Year after year the heavy clay swallowed whole lengths of it; the once mighty road became a bridleway, an overgrown hollow-way, a parched mark in the soil.

Hadley leads us on a hunt to discover, in Hilaire Belloc’s phrase, ‘all that has arisen along the way’. Gathering traces of archaeology, history and landscape from poems, church walls, hag stones and cropmarks, oxlips, killing places, hauntings and immortals, and things buried too deep for archaeology, The Road is a mesmerising journey into two thousand years of history only now giving up its secrets.

By: Christopher Hadley
Imprint: HARPER360
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 153mm, Spine: 20mm
Weight: 270g
ISBN: 9780008602475
ISBN 10: 0008602476
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 01 February 2023
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Christopher Hadley is a journalist and author. His pieces on such popular subjects as 18th-century religious tracts have appeared in The Independent, The Guardian, The Times, London Review of Books, Esquire and his local parish magazine, among many other publications. Hollow Places, an account of his search across a thousand years of British history for the dragon-slayer Shonks, is his first history book. Christopher is married with three children, whom he hopes will never grow-out of hunting for dragons and other marvels in the Hertfordshire countryside where they live.

Reviews for The Road: A Story of Romans and Ways to the Past

EARLY PRAISE FOR THE ROAD 'There's something beguilingly mysterious about these ancient roads . . . When searching for his road, Hadley makes full use of his senses. . . the breadth of his knowledge . . . the beauty of his prose. This book deserves to be read at least twice, first to appreciate what it reveals and then to luxuriate in its effervescent voice. On nearly every page a random passage takes one's breath away' The Times, Gerard DeGroot 'Magnificent . . . exciting . . . This is no dry and prosaic history, but a work of imagination and a deeply literary book... wonderful prose . . . striking images and lapidary sentences... enthralling. It's an absolute joy to read and an early contender for every list of History Books of the Year' Sunday Telegraph, Harry Sidebottom 'Loving The Road, [it's] about a Roman road but also a rumination on the past and our relationship with it. [An] excellent companion piece to his previous book about a dragon slayer's tomb. The pair offer a whole new and very exciting model for how to do local history. Highly recommend' Dr Kelcey Wilson-Lee on Twitter PRAISE FOR CHRISTOPHER HADLEY'S HOLLOW PLACES 'Impossible to summarise and delightfully absorbing, Hadley's book is comfortably the most unexpected history book of the year' Sunday Times 'A sensitively intelligent excavation into Hertfordshire history, the English imagination and omnipresent myth' Country Life 'Hadley wears his scholarship lightly but at the heart of this antiquarian wild goose chase is an ingenious meditation on what history, in all its complexity and unevenness, really is.' Guardian 'Enthralling' The Oldie 'This meditation on the power of folk myth lives up to its billing as an 'unusual history'. It's also engaging, wide-ranging stuff, exploring how stories become ties that bind' BBC History Magazine