The Roman Road's Economic Significance
Ermine Street was one of the strategic roads built in the 1st century, early in the period of the Roman occupation of Britannia. The features of King Street are consistent with its having formed part of a development of the region along with the Car Dyke, in the reign of Hadrian (117-138). It may well have been a result of his visit to Britannia in 122; fairly early in his reign and just after he had spent time sorting out the Limes between the Rhine and the Danube.
From Bourne, the tidal waterway known to archaeologists as the Bourne-Morton Canal and to the Middle Ages as the Old Ea, seems to have given Bourne access by boat to the sea, which lay only at the far end of Bourne North Fen. This meant that the products of the fen and coast such as salt and animal products such as fowls, meat, wool, fish and leather, could be brought across the fen which would normally have obstructed such traffic. This trade may be enough to explain the six Roman roads which radiated, directly or separating a short distance away, from the site. The Long Hollow Road and King Street were two of these, linking respectively, north and south, into the trunk road system by way of Ermine Street.
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