No Roman Roads Here?

When Penny Jackson got in touch to say she thought she may have found a lost Roman road on the Furness peninsula, we just had to take a look. This led onto a fascinating story of changing views over time about whether the Romans ever had a military presence there.

In this video we consider the evidence and opinions and then set out to trace Penny's find in the landscape. The route starts out near Conishead Bank and Bardsea, across Birkrigg Common - passing the stone circle - on via Sunbrick to the Romano British settlement near Holme Bank and then onto the Medieval Bow Bridge near Barrow in Furness and Furness Abbey.

An interesting antiquarian adventure in the field. Let us know what you think.

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Credits (Where due)
WC21 (UK) Productions Ltd theme tune: Keygenerator - Freesound
Roman Gazette theme tune: 8-bit Win – Velda – Epidemic Sound
For Serious Rambling Hikers & Scramblers theme tune: 514178 danlucas – Freesound
Compendium of Curiosities theme tune: Underbelly – Epidemic Sound
Coastal Catalogue theme tune: Just Like Magic – Epidemic Sound
The Time Tunnel theme tune: Micro – Epidemic Sound
Schofield’s Saxon Crosses theme tune: Good, Good – Epidemic Sound
Horror History Files theme tune: Eerily Distorted Retro Electronic Sound Horror – CapCut
The Institute of Amateur YouTube Antiquarians theme tune – Glaze remix of Keygenerator - Freesound
The Almanac theme tune: Rush – DJI Mimo
All other music: Epidemic Sound

Main “Broadcaster”: Darren Spratt
Cameras
DJI Pocket 3 Creator Combo
GoPro Hero 12 Creator Edition
DJI Flip

#morecambebay #barrowinfurness #furness #daltoninfurnace #romanroads #romanbritian #britishhistory

[pj]

I have never been so nervous watching a YouTube video before! Personally I would have added lots of correction overlays on what I said but not bad for my first time co presenting a mini documentary!

[craigix]

Whether hungover or not, these really are a lovely start to Sunday mornings. The sartorial effort in this episode was once again superb.

[andrewdolinskiatcarpathian]

Hi MrWC21(UKProductions)Ltd Congratulations to you and Penny on a delightfully entertaining and informative presentation. The content and production were exemplary. I think Penny has a compelling argument for her Roman Road discovery. Well done on bringing it to light. 👏👏👍😀

[ste]

This channels up there now with auto shenanigans and paul whitewicks channel as essential Sunday viewing . Great stuff .

[AdamMorganIbbotson]

Very convincing! Connecting those lines in the landscapes makes a sense, from coast to coast. Past those big Romano-British settlements, and the hill fort at Skelmore. 🤔

Though, as you learned at Rey Cross, I am definitely no Romanist…

[martinfrancis]

Thank you Darren and Penny. One must bear in mind that the sands of Morecambe Bay are constantly changing, it is entirely conceivable that the Romans would have crossed the sands and then abandoned routes with the shifting of the sands.
Some routes would have been marching roads or short term roads to allow quick easy access to short term assets.

[bobbilynnsmith]

Such stylish Antiquarians traispsing about! Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us. Penny is a natural presenter. 🤩

[jeningle]

Well done, a very interesting and entertaining video. Sunday wouldn't be Sunday without WC21(UK) Productions.

[davie]

hello Darren and Penny, a cool interesting video again, enjoyed it, well done and thank you both 😊

[_Hold_My_Beer_]

Just an observation from a Roman in another life - I think of the main roman roads as the motorways and to say the tributary roads leading to farmsteads, villas and small holding of the Romans were not 'Roman roads' would be silly - I bet theres thousands of these roman tributary roads that would not have deserved the full roman road treatment.
But the tell tale signs of these lesser roads is that they would have been straight - as romans would have done by default - but straight muddy or roughly stoned roads most likely.
I love me a bit of Rome stuff.... Great video guys!

[LeslieGilpinRailways]

Great to see Furness getting covered. I need to watch again! Especially to see where Penny's road across the estuary is heading.

[MrWarrensimmons]

continuing - proper mapwork combined with good aerial and ground-level shots of the terrain and features that are the subject of the video = perfect. Most other channels consistently fail to do this and it is one of the most frustrating failures in "archeological" videos

[archaeorob]

Another wonderful video! Thank you and keep up the good work.

[scotbotvideos]

The rather pejorative tone of the way you said English Heritage cracked me up.

P.S.: have Penny on more often -- she's great.

[Bby]

I enjoyed this. Ive walked these paths since i was a kid. Back in antiquarian times. Including BOW BRIDGE made my day. 🎉

[jmorin]

Look at you! Almost 10k subscribers in very little time! Congratulations! And Penny is a very good co-presenter. This was a very enjoyable episode!

[davidberlanny]

Mornin' Darren, Excellently presented video, Penny was really professional and explained her theories perfectly - where did she get that hat!! Full of enthusiasm too, great to see. Lots of maps and lidar provided evidence for a convincing theory, my question would be if crossing both bays and the peninsular would be better than going inland?

What struck me about this was, given the docks at today's Barrow, that the dock area wasn't used by earlier civilisations, maybe it was, but you could imagine that there would be evidence of a road leading to the dock area.

Crossing Morecambe bay dressed in full Roman dress sounds like a recipe for disaster especially if they stopped to dig for cockles!!

Maybe you should have been perched on the bonnet for the map sequence? No good with today's paper thin cars. The intro music was great too. I don't believe that graph, at most it's just a blip, you're going from strength to strength. Hope we see Penny again on your channel.

All the best!!

[Dripfed]

New channel idea. The Stile-ist. 10 min videos, lavishly shot, of hardcore stile action. Featuring the mount, perch, dismount and plenty of gratuitous swooping drone shots.

Great work Penny, yet another fascinating topic for a Sunday.

[andrewc]

Thanks Darren and Penny, a great little production and you can have a comment to help the algorithm and anti tanking.

[texano]

Very interesting and Penny is a knowledgable lesson. Keep up o the great work.