"Clive Page" wrote in message
news
In article , John Rowland
writes

http://www.johnchaple.co.uk/romanroad.htm

Using the 1:50,000 map of East London, the line of
Watling Street from Kent seems to just touch the
bank of the Thames at Greenwich, rather than
cross the river as shown on the map on John's page.

I hope everyone realises that the John who wrote the page is not me and
probably doesn't read this group.

Maybe a slight deviation would have been needed,
as the river bank would have been a bit marshy, I'd imagine.

My first thought when looking at the Deptford part of the map map was that
the Thames had probably moved a bit since Roman times. It is normal for the
outside of loops to be eroded, and deposition to occur on the inner curve -
that's how the Greenwch loop was formed in the first place.

Continuing on the same
straight line takes us to the Thames just south
of the present Westminster Bridge, perhaps
not far from the horse ferry, after which
Horseferry Road was named.

I found it a bit harder to trace the line of Watling
Street south from Marble Arch, as the road
curves somewhat in the stretch south from
Edgware leaving several possible alignments,
but the most likely projection would take it to
the Thames just north of the Tate Gallery,
i.e. some way upstream from the other projection line.

I wonder if a map showing the location of other rivers and islands in the
area might explain why a ferry would go from the Tate Gallery area to the
Waterloo area.

Perhaps there was some more curvature in this stretch
of the Roman road, but it's hard to guess how much,

Why guess, when you can go dip-spotting? ;-)

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes