Ratledge[1] has identified a roman road using LIDAR running west-north-west from Leicester to Rykneild Street (the modern A38 Lichfield-Burton-Derby; Margary Number RR18) and designated it RR573x (henceforth ‘New Road’.)
On this interpretation, the roman road running west-south-west from Leicester to Mancetter (Margary Number RR57b) is a spur from the New Road originating at SK54440 05090.
Both roman roads in South Leicestershire, running west-south-west from Leicester to Mancetter (Margary Number RR57b) and running east-south-east from Leicester to Huntingdon (the Gartree Road, Margary Number RR57a), appear to have been in part aligned with parish boundaries, suggesting that the roads were extant in the landscape at the date of establishment of the parish boundary; it would be convenient for a parish boundary to follow any existing feature in the landscape – no additional fence or ditch would be required.
Liddle and Hartley[2] note that the track aligns with parish boundaries between Branston & Dunstall (Staffordshire) and Drakelow and Walton-upon-Trent (Derbyshire); aligns with the Ratby-Groby parish boundary; and aligns with the Ashby-de-la-Zouch and Ashby Woulds parish boundary.
Less intuitively, in some cases where the parish boundary runs perpendicular to the track of a roman road, at the point of crossing the road, the parish boundary briefly ‘kinks’, suggesting that the visible track of the roman road was used as a ‘hook’ in the landscape; in a world without maps, a useful aide-memoire to the generations subsequently ‘beating the bounds’ – certainly as useful as a hilltop, boulder or tree.
Ratledge makes no specific mention of parish boundaries in his paper (supported by a ‘fly through’ across a LIDAR landscape at https://youtu.be/bTHNWJknS4Q) but it is possible to trace the route of the New Road on mapping and to check for any unusual features at the coincidence of the roman road with a parish boundary.
I followed Ratledge’s route through north west Leicestershire, looked at crossings of parish boundaries – summarised below, with mapping on individual pages on this website – then plotted his LIDAR evidence, the alignments noted by Liddle and Hartley, and the ‘oddities’ I spotted where the road crosses (rather than tracks alongside) parish boundaries on a Google Map.
The civil parish boundaries that the New Road crosses are:
City of Leicester – former parishes of Braunstone, Kirby and Glenfield Friths
Glenfield (City of Leicester) – Ratby
Ibstock – Ravenstone with Snibstone
Ravenstone with Snibston – Normanton-le-Heath
Normanton-le-Heath – Packington
Packington – Ashby-de-la-Zouch
Ashby-de-la-Zouch – Ashby Woulds
Ashby Woulds – Overseal (Derbyshire)
[1] Ratledge, D ‘A Roman Road from Leicester to Ryknield Street, RR573x (The Via Devana?)’ accessed at https://www.twithr.co.uk/leicestershire/leicester-ryknield-street-DR.pdf on 18/08/2025.
[2] Liddle, P and Hartley, R F ‘A Roman road through north-west Leicestershire’ in Transactions of the Leicestershire and Rutland Archaeological Society Volume 68 (1994) pp 186-189.
A Walk Through Leicestershire 