OLD ROADS

Modern streets will be used as a convenient grid-reference to many sites herein. It should not be assumed that these thoroughfares existed at the period being considered, or that the names given to the few old roads are the original ones. Where redevelopment has changed the street pattern it may be necessary to give two references: the first will always be that of 1939, the second that of 1977. Travel in prehistoric Aston was along the ridge to a Tame crossing where the river had eroded a sandstone cliff on the east side. In this were artificial caves, later called the Dwarf Holes: they gave the crossing-place its name, Scrafford later corrupted to Safford and Salford.

There may have been two natural channels which split the flow into two lesser obstacles: or these developed because early bridges (from 1290) impeded the movement of gravel along the river bed and ultimately created an island which necessitated two bridges and a cause-way between. (See the Tudor bridge across the Tame at Water Orton, where a central island has been made in this way).

Another Tame crossing ('the foul ford' 1460) was made at the north end of Aston, on Witton Lane. Rocky, Thimble Mill and Cuckoo Lanes approached fords on Aston Brook. There was probably a perambulation track beside 'Shire Brook'.

The lanes shown on the first detailed map of Aston, Tomlinson's of 1758 (Map 6), do not include a continuous ridgeway from Villa Cross to Salford, nor is the Roman road now called Ryknild Street shown. I suggest that the former had been diverted when a third of Aston became the Hall Park. It may be assumed to have continued the line of Lozells Road eastward straight to Sandy Lane - the line of Victoria Road in fact. There is no good reason for a diversion down and up hill again (Birchfield Lane, Park Wall Lane, Lichfield Road) except the Stuart emparking.

The Roman road, a second-class highway at best, began as a strategic reinforcement route during the legionary advance across the Plateau about 48 A.D. It linked the Foss Way with Watling Street. South of Birmingham it is still a highway or a lane, and in Sutton Park it survives as a gravel causeway.

By the C18th it was a hedgeline (with a path beside?) from Aston Furnace Pool to Lozells Road. This line became Wheeler Street in the 1840s. Where St. Paul's Lozells now stands on the ridge-top there was probably a sighting-point during the road's alignment, and perhaps a signal station later: indeed a mound there may explain the name of Lozells (see below). No traces of Romano-British occupation have been recorded in the manor.

Aston (Lichfield) Road, Aston Lane (Aston Hall Road), and Witton Lane were early tracks between fords: they avoided both the waterside bogs and the higher ground of the ridge. Birchfield Road might be considered as a later replacement for Ryknild Street.

It linked Birmingham with Walsall, crossing the Tame 300 yards west of the Roman ford. Imperial engineers made good crossings by paving streambeds where their roads happened upon them: when the stone slabs crumbled, both ford and road would be abandoned if the natural crossing was difficult, and new routes would replace them.

Index