West along the A5

Image: © Richard Law Taken: 22 Apr 2015

This stretch of the A5 runs from Junction 12 of the M6 (Gailey) westwards towards Telford. At this point, and being constructed on the line of the original Roman-British Watling Street, it bisects the Roman settlement of Pennocrucium. Little or no trace of this remains on the ground today, but it was identified from cropmarks in the mid 1940s, but evidence from excavations soon after suggests the settlement was occupied as a military and civilian camp for the best part of 300 years, from the mid-1st century until the 4th century AD. The site lay at an important road junction in Roman times, and consisted of a rectangular enclosure, roughly 200 yards long (west to east) by 150 yards north to south, with a series of ditches and banks around it.

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