WHEN Roger Bellamy started taking tourists to a limestone post on their way around Burford he thought it was just a useful place to stop and talk.

But then the tour guide’s interest in local history prompted him to dig deeper.

And the amateur historian now believes his favoured stop-off point is in fact an 1,800-year-old Roman milestone.

The 56-year-old from Chipping Norton said: “It has always looked unusual, it is an unusual shape and it did not look to me like it was there for any specific purpose.

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“I knew it had been used as a milestone in medieval times and then I started to do some research.

“It struck me that, with there being a Roman road near here, it could be a Roman milestone.”

Mr Bellamy pored over historical websites to compare the stone with others recorded in the country.

His said his research showed the post matched the materials and shape of a Roman milestone and its weathering is consistent with 1,800 years in the open.

In Roman times there would have been hundreds of the stones marking out distances on the vast Roman road network, which covered about 2,500 miles in Britain. Now very few remain.

Mr Bellamy said: “They are unusual, the ones that survive tend to be on isolated bits of moorland.

“This is so typical of Burford, there are so many little traces left.

“People will walk past and not realise how old they are.”

During the Roman Empire’s occupation of Britain, the post would have had a marking at its base showing how many miles it was to the next destination.

Mr Bellamy said: “This has whetted my appetite to find more things in the district.

“You can come across Roman coins and Roman plasterwork if you go looking.”

How empire made its mark in the area

  • The Romans invaded Britain in 43 AD and within a year had established a major military base at Alchester, near modern day Bicester.
  • By the 1st century it had grown to become one of the county’s first two towns, along with Dorchester.
  • Alchester had a temple, public baths, stone houses and town walls.
  • Pottery was a significant industry in Oxfordshire in Roman times and was produced on the site of what is now the Churchill Hospital in Headington.
  • It was exported as far as Scotland and continental Europe.
  •  Villas were established across the county, with the best preserved site today at North Leigh, near Witney.


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