The Dover Road: Annals of an Ancient Turnpike

The Dover Road: Annals of an Ancient Turnpike

It has been said, by whom I know not, that prefaces to books are like signs to public-houses; they are intended to give one an idea of the kind of entertainment to be found within. But this preface is not to be like those; for it would require an essay in itself to give a comprehensive idea of the Dover Road, in all its implications. A road is not merely so many miles of highway, more or less well-maintained. It is not only something in the surveyors way; but history as well. It is life, touched at every point. The Dover Roadthe highway between London and that most significant of approaches to the Continent of Europewould have been something much more in its mere name had it not been for the accident of London: one of the greatest accidents. It would have been considered a part of the great road to Chester and to Holyhead: the route diagonally across England, from sea to sea, which really in the first instance it was. For the Dover Road is actually the initial limb of the Watling Street: that prehistoric British trackway adopted by the Romans and by them engineered into a road; and it would seem that those Roman engineers, instructed by the Imperial authorities, considered rather the military and strategic needs of those times than those of Londinium; for London was not on the direct road they made; and it was only at a later date, when it was grown commercially, they constructed an alternative route that served it. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 36589
Author: Harper, Charles G. (Charles George)
Release Date: Jul 3, 2011
Format: eBook
Language: English