Watling Street goes on (and on)

One of the great things about just wandering-where-you-will is that you often come face to face with things you never expect.

Here, in the middle of countryside near Lichfield, I just came up against a modern street sign. There is nothing unusual in that, except that “Watling Street” is a route that is at least two thousand years old, and I'd read about it in history books. This ancient trackway across England (from Dover to Shropshire, cutting through south Staffordshire) was named Wæcelinga Stræt by the Anglo-Saxons; and then the Romans developed it, since when we know it as Watling Street.  Basically, the A5 follows the same route.

It’s weird suddenly realising that you are on a piece of earth that has been tramped for millennia, and is probably full of ghosts. It’s even weirder seeing a modern street-sign … as though history had never happened.