On the road back in time. I though I'd explore a different aspect of Cranborne Chase on today's walk. I parked up between Gussage St Michael and Gussage All Saints and took 'Ackling Dyke' the Roman road the 4 or so miles to top of Wyke Down, where I sat a while on one of the prominent barrows and took in the full majesty of a landscape steeped in millennia of human activity. Well, it would be rude not to. But for an ever so slight kink just before you reach Harley Gap, the course of Ackling Dyke is, as you'd imagine, quite quite straight. Build around the mid first century AD Ackling Dyke is your standard (ish) Roman road, it's constructed on a substantial Agger (embankment), about 15m wide at the base, with the road surface would be about 6m wide, and on either side would have been a broad drainage ditch. The section which runs for nearly 2 miles through the Drive Plantation is stunningly well preserved. The Agger shows few signs of degradation, the road surface still, for the most part, flat and the drainage ditch and low outer bank are clearly visible (on the woodland side, other side mainly ploughed out). Quite wonderful. The road would have given the local population a strong message, 'we are Rome, and this is all ours' type of thing. The road cuts through all manner of prehistoric features, features which although probably not visited any more, still held sway in the folklore and imaginations of the people. Just like our colonial railways, the Roman roads weren't benevolent gifts to improve the lot of the locals, they were for communication, military and exploitation purposes. Ackling Dyke was certainly made to impress, and two thousand years on it still does. I really recommend this as a walk, I've not seen a better preserved length of Roman Road.
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