Icknield Street or Ryknild Street is a Roman road in England, with a route roughly south-west to north-east. It runs from the Fosse Way at Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire () to Templeborough in South Yorkshire (). It passes through Alcester, Studley, Redditch, Metchley Fort, Birmingham, Sutton Coldfield, Lichfield, Burton upon Trent and Derby.
Names Four Roman roads having the King's protection are named in the Laws of Edward the Confessor: Watling Street, Ermine Street, the Fosse Way, and Hikenild or Icknield Street.Leges Edwardi Regis, David Wilkin, p190 Hikenild Strete is generally supposed to be connected with the country of the Iceni. Various forms of the name (the earliest in Anglo-Saxon charters are Icenhilde Weg or Icenilde Weg) designate other roads from the borders of Norfolk through Cambridgeshire, Bucks, Berks, Hants and Wilts into Dorset. These locations, however, would identify the route as Icknield Way an Iron Age trackway running from Norfolk to Dorset.
What is today referred to as the Icknield Street road acquired the name Ryknild Street during the 14th century, when it was named by Ranulf Higden, a monk of Chester writing in 1344 in his Polychronicon. Higdon gives the name as Rikenild Strete, which, he says, tends from the south-west to the north, and begins at St David's in Wales and continues across England to the mouth of the Tyne, passing Worcester, Droitwich, Birmingham, Lichfield, Derby, and Chesterfield. It has borne that name, or Rigning, Reenald or Rignall, from early times. In three of the four MSS of Higdon the name is given as Rikenilde or Rikenyldes, and in the fourth (which is said to be one of the earliest), Hikenil Street. Trevisa's English translation (1387) calls it Rykeneldes Strete.Roman Roads in Britain, Thomas Codrington, SPCK, London, 1903. Harverfield, writing in the Victoria County History of WarwickshireVictoria County History of Warwickshire Vol I, p. 239, 1904 doubted whether the road had any real and original right to either name, preferring Ryknild as no less correct (or no more incorrect), and being able to distinguish it from Icknield Street in Oxfordshire and Berkshire.Highways and Byways in Shakespeare's Country, Hutton 1914 It is now called Icknield or Ryknild Street to distinguish it from the older Icknield Way. In the 19th century it is also referred to in antiquarian literature with the spelling "Rykneld Street".
A preserved section of the Roman road can be seen at Sutton Park, now in the City of Birmingham.Sutton Park , Birmingham Roman Roads Project, University of Birmingham, Accessed 29 December 2008
Route George William Collen's book Britannia Saxonica (1833) concisely outlines the route, drawing on Leland's Itinerary:
Today's route
Much of the Midlands route of the Icknield Street is used by modern roads, most notably the A38 from Lichfield to Derby; and many sections retain the name "Icknield Street", but not always accurately as in Hockley, Birmingham and in Redditch, Worcestershire where there is also a road called Icknield Street Drive which stands near the course of the Roman road. Google Maps "Ryknild Street" is still in use in Lichfield and "Ryknild Road" in Derby.
Bourton-on-the-Water to Bidford-on-Avon
The road appears to have joined the Fosse Way near Bourton-on‑the‑Water. Starting about two miles north of there, and two miles west of Stow-on-the-Wold, a lane (Condicott Lane) runs northwards in a straight line to Condicote and then Hinchwick. This lane appears to indicate the course of Icknield Street. It leads towards high ground, about on Bourton Down. It is not clear how the ascent of from Hinchwick to the Down was made, but on the Down a lane northwards from Springhill takes nearly the same line for to near the Evesham road , from which a parish boundary over Saintbury Hill seems to mark the course down the north side. On the west side of Weston Park, a line seems to be taken up lying between high ground , to the south, and Alcester, to the north. A road in this line, passing on the west of Weston-sub‑Edge, leads on to a highway with a parish boundary along it called Riknild or Icknield Street, which is crossed by the railway at Honeybourne Station. It continues northward under the name of Buckle Street to Staple Hill, one mile south of Bidford-on-Avon. This is probably the oldest version of the name being the modern form of a name Bucgan or Buggilde Street which appears in documents earlier than the Norman Conquest. As the road approaches Bidford there is a slight turn, and the modern road heads for the crossing point of the medieval bridge whereas the Roman ford is upstream of here and the road name preserved in a small road named Icknield Street on the northern bank. Evidence of a Roman causeway here confirms this as the Roman crossing point."Warwickshire Time Trail" The Archaeology of Bidford on Avon Accessed 19 February 2011
Bidford-on-Avon to Birmingham
From Bidford following the named Icknield Street the line of the road then follows Waterloo Road through Bidford and then across country as the B4085. At Wixford by the Three Horse Shoes Inn the modern road turns west whilst the line of the road continues north in a hollow way to Saint Milburga's church where it becomes a track running along the ridge to the east of Ragley Hall heading towards Alcester. At Alcester the original crossing point has been lost due to changes in the course of the river and the development of the town but the line is recovered north of the town on the modern A435. Passing Coughton Court the road bears the local name of Headon or Haydon Way and proceeds through Studley and to one mile beyond, where the modern road turns off to the north-eastward. Heading north much of the route is lost, since Codrington wrote, in the development of Redditch, however Icknield Street Drive, Battens Drive approximates the route until a small road through the residential area of Churchill marked Ryknield Street on the modern 1:25,000 Ordnance Survey map, exactly in a line with Haydon Way, is reached. This line appears to point from Alcester to high ground about , one mile east of Rowney Green, and north of Beoley. Now the B4497 the road heads north through Beoley crossing under the M42 motorway just south of Alcott Farm. It retains the name Icknield Street, climbing the high ground of Swans Hill between the Coach and Horses Public House at Weatheroak Hill and the Peacock Inn at the junction with Lea End Lane. Here, a hedge line and footpath run directly up the hill while the modern road deviates slightly to the east to accommodate the incline before rejoining the original route and continuing north until it enters the suburbs of Birmingham at Kings Norton adjacent to the Romano British settlement of Longdales Road.Birmingham University Excavations at Longdales Road, Kings Norton 2006 Accessed 27 May 2011 It then follows the course of Walkers Heath Road over the traffic roundabout at Parsons Hill, to Broadmeadow Lane, Lifford Lane, Pershore Road and Hazelwell Street, finally disappearing into residential developments at Stirchley by the swimming baths.
Across Birmingham
The 7 miles from Stirchley in the south of Birmingham to Perry Bridge at Holford in the north is a serious problem. It has long vexed Birmingham antiquaries and is perhaps insoluble. HuttonHistory of Birmingham, William Hutton, 1781, p. 142 gave the course as "onwards by Stirchley Street, crossing the Bromsgrove road at Selly Oak, leaving Harborne a mile to the west, by the observatory in Lady Wood Lane, crossing the Dudley Road at Sandpits, and along Worstone Lane, passing five furlongs north of the Navigation Bridge in Great Charles Street, Birmingham. He saw the section of the road where the inhabitants attempted to pull it up for the sake of the materials, 20 yards wide, and one yard deep, filled up with stone cemented with coarse mortar," and he says that "the course was discoverable by its barren track through uncultivated meadows." Icknield Street or Icknield Port Road are not old names and cannot be traced in the city prior to 1825 and may have been introduced as a result of Hutton's theory. Birmingham and its suburbs now cover the old road. The line of Hazelwell Street sets the course of the road towards the next established point of the route at Metchley Fort in the grounds of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. The fort was established about 48 AD by the Roman army as a base camp for its conquest of the Birmingham areaVictor Skipp, The History of Greater Birmingham - down to 1830, 1980. and part of a network of forts across the Midlands linked by roads.Birmingham's Roman Fort Main Findings, Web.archive.org It stood by Birmingham's earliest known road junction at the point where Icknield Street was met by Roman roads coming in from Droitwich and Penkridge. From here the road runs north to another fort at Wall, Roman Etocetum near Lichfield. The Perry Bridge of 1711 stands at its crossing of the River Tame in Perry Barr. However, Walker cast doubts on this orthodox view of the road's course in this areaWalker, B, 1936 The Rycknield Street in the Neighbourhood of Birmingham Trans Birmingham & Warwickshire Archaeol Soc 60, 42-55 and resistivity surveys undertaken on sites either side of the crossing in 1992, showed that, although the line of the road is clearly indicated on old maps and aerial photographs, the site has been considerably altered this century by, among other things, the embankment of the M6. The one place where the road might have been detected proved inaccessible without considerable clearance of dense undergrowth (remnants of a hedge-line following the road?) and a 20-metre grid on adjacent open ground proved negative. The second site was on wasteland immediately south of the river. Here, the "Walker" road-line only shaved the top comer of this before disappearing under a modern industrial development (plot-holders in allotments to the south did not recall any finds during building work, nor were they able to identify any "hard" areas on their land, where the "Walker" line might be expected to continue). A series of complete and partial 20-metre grids laid down the fence line between the industrial estate and the wasteland and then right across the open area yielded nothing which could relate to the "Walker" line but did produce some low resistance features running parallel with the site's east boundary.Holford , Birmingham Roman Roads Project, University of Birmingham, Accessed 27 May 2011"West Midlands Archaeology" issue 40, 1997, page 102
Birmingham to Lichfield