Seems that they were the only ones who could lay roads that lasted.
tinyurl.com/n2ww8p
Before any one says they didn't take the same level of traffic as ours do today, they did pro rata for what they were.
|
|
you should try driving on the m1 A1 link road now designated m1 i think,this when finished about 10 years ago was on concrete and was like being on a roller coaster,in fact there was one part so bad i nearly lost control and went up the banking,i diidnt but others did and so it was redone,guess what? its going again
|
|
It's amazing to think that in the 21st century , we can't lay a road surface capable of lasting a couple of years.
|
|
Wasn't a section of the M25 closed for resurfacing before it was opened?
|
Time is money. Corners are cut.
Any surface should be given time to cure. Nowadays its not. The main road outside my house was relaid with tarmac a couple of years back. Not the tar spray and chip technique either, real tarmac. Hours after being laid, it had traffic rolling along it. Now at the edges for about a mile we have gaps and cracks appearing at the edges of the camber. Spend decent money, do it right and we should have lasting surfaces.
|
It seems to me that anything involving tar from flat roofs/rooves to motorways will be subject to cheating if not closely monitored. Also tarmac has a life as does concrete and if laid too late or in unsuitable conditions (often) then you get carp, end of.
MD
|
|
Not quite Roman roads, but have often pondered, while negotiating the many traffic calming measures in London, whether they would be better to strip off the top layer, the humps and bumps, the bollards, the islands and gates and return some roads to the cobbles that lay below. Would both slow down traffic and look rather pleasing, might well also drain better!
|
Two wheels on wet cobbles, luverly! (Not).
|
|
Three wheels even worse, Robin! (sorry)
|
Three wheels even worse
Even four can be quite entertaining. Especially as cobbles are only bearable in a car if you keep your speed well up. Nothing more infuriating than to be in a favourite cobbled back-double only to be held up by some ghastly mimser who chooses to drive at the most uncomfortable and car-damaging speed. No offence to deepwith...
:o}
On Roman roads, they are indeed excellent. I use one in Sussex regularly. My boring mantra, delivered at top volume with many an expletive, runs: 'Julius Caesar didn't build this road just for these carphounds to waddle unsteadily along it at 45!'
I can almost hear the clanking of ivory-hilted, gold-embossed weapons as the great general and history-adjuster turns in his grave.
|
i don't think it's the surface that is wrong it seems to be the base material that is usually gravel aggregate which shifts under repeated heavy loads.
as in op the romans knew how to do it, big stone on the bottom then getting smaller in layers towards the surface. jag.
|
Julius Caesar didn't build this road ..
As you well know, he certainly didn't, Lud - I seem to remember he led the invasion in about 55 BC. I don't think he immediately set about a new road system ...
Edited by Andrew-T on 23/06/2009 at 10:40
|
|
|
|
Roman roads got cart ruts... a bit like certain motorway sections where the lorries plough furrows. Wonder if they had speed humps and traffic calming? six points on your licence Brutus, speeding in a chariot down the Fosse way and no insurance or tax.
|
Roman Road in Sussex?
Not the Hawkhurst Straight is it Lud?
Many a fine drive along that one, but heading from Hawkhurst back to Sussex there are some stretches that make you think that you are on the top of a roller coaster about to hurtle down very quicky indeed?
Z
|
>> Roman Road in Sussex?
Stane Street - perchance?
|
Not long ago, a section of the old Roman road near St Albans was being examined by archeologists and they found, along the side of the ancient road, a double line of yellow flints.
No parking for chariots?
eProf
Edited by eProf on 22/06/2009 at 00:35
|
|
Any dead wardens down there? ;>)
|
|
Ackling Dyke which runs from Old Sarum (Salisbury) to Badbury Rings is one of the best examples of surviving roman road in Britain, the aggar is elevated to 5-6' above the surrounding fields, and in a big fingers up to the then locals cuts across the route of the Dorset Cursus. Romans not unlike the Highways Agency then :)
|
Sarum (Salisbury)
Not mine, alas, don't know whose, but a favourite of my father which confused me a lot when very young:
There was a young curate of Salisbury
Whose habits were halisbury-scalisbury;
He rushed about Hampshire
Without any pampshire
Till the vicar compelled him to walisbury.
(Move to another thread if necessary. Sorry).
|
|
|
|
|
Zippy and drbe: don't know if it's Stane Street. It calls itself the A29 these days.
Edited by Lud on 22/06/2009 at 16:13
|
|
apparently, they used to use wooden cobbles near my local infirmary (built 1777) , it was to reduce the noise from the horse and wagons so as not to disturb the patients ..so i was told
|
There used to be a lot of woodblock road surfaces. I have a feeling they date from WW2. No bitumen or something.
They were incredibly slippery when wet, and a thin, partial, broken-up coating of macadam didn't improve them much. Haven't seen one in a long time though.
London roads at the end of the fifties were often a patchwork of those, cobbles and ordinary macadam, with a lot of tramlines showing through here and there.
|
|
I loved your Limerick, Lud. I hadn't seen that one before. I've offered my children a £10 prize if they can work it out.
|
|
|
|
|
According to my wife who has Sussex roots and is more learned than me, some of the A29 is Stane Street.
|
|
|
|
|
|
