'Icknield Street'

Hutton's greatest mistake was to identify the old Warstone Lane (Monument Road) with 'Icknield Street'. It was known that a Roman road could be found south and north of Birmingham : no name for it had survived, but medieval scholars had confused it with the Icknield Way of Norfolk and so it became 'Icknield Street'. This was corrupted in time to 'Ryknild' (various spellings), which is used today to avoid the old confusion, but Hutton preferred the earlier mis-nomer. Noting (probably on Henry Beighton's map of 1725) that from Lifford Lane to Sutton Park several connecting lanes appeared to lie more or less along the straight line between the two, he assumed that these were actually part of the Roman road, despite their unRoman meanderings. These lanes included (modern) Pritchatts, Richmond Hill, and Chad Roads, and Monument Road.

Hutton's belief was shared by a Victorian professor who claimed that the legionary engineers deviated round Birmingham because they feared the martial vigour of its people. So, according to him, the conquerors of Europe bypassed an indefensible hamlet - which probably did not exist until seven centuries later. It was due to Hutton's theory that when an old track from Warstone Lane to Hockley was made up as a street in 1841, both it and that part of the lane which joined it to Summer Hill were called Icknield Street and so remain.

Hutton had met Brindley, and no doubt had discussed the canal with him. But he was unaware of or discounted the geological difficulties which had prevented the making of a Smethwick tunnel. Suggesting this practical solution of the de-lays and water shortages of the summit, he wrote 'What benefit would then accrue to commerce could they but travel a dead flat 14 miles without interruption ?'. Thomas Telford found a better solution than a tunnel after Hutton's death.