Watling-street

Forms: 1 Wæclinga-, Wæxling(g)a-, Wætlinga-, Weatlinga-strǽt, 2 Watlingestrate, 3 Watelinge stret, 4 Wat(e)lynge-, 5 Watlyn-, 5 Wadlyng-, Wattelynge-, 6 Sc. Vadland-, 6 Watlyng-, 6– Watling-. [OE. Wæclinga strǽt; the first word, app. the genit. pl. of the name of a (real or imaginary) family or clan, occurs also in Wæclinga ceaster (‘the Wæclings’ city’), the OE. name of the Roman-British Verulamium (now St. Albans), through which the ‘Watling-street’ passes.

  The forms with tl for cl, which have been universal from the 12th c. are all but non-existent in MSS. of pre-Conquest date; a solitary example is Wætlinga ceaster in OE. Martyrology, St. Alban, 22 June (MS. Cott. Julius A. x. fol. 112, written c. 975). The change of Wæclinga into Wætlinga can hardly be due to the close resemblance of c and t in OE. script (though many instances of the latter form in modern editions of OE. texts are mere editorial misreadings), because the existence of sense 2 seems to show that the name of the Roman road was preserved in popular and not merely literary tradition. Perhaps the word may have been assimilated to the Wætlinga which occurs in the place-name Watlington (Oxon and Norf.).

  The Wæclings may have been either an actual family that had obtained possession of the site of Verulamium, or a dynastic family celebrated in Mercian tradition, to whom, as typifying remote antiquity, the road and the city were attributed by popular fancy. It has been suggested that Wæclinga ceaster is a corruption of Werlama ceaster, an alternative OE. name of Verulamium (Uæclingacestir siue Uerlamacester, Bæda H. E. I. vii), which is an adoption of the British name in a later form; but the conjecture is untenable.]

  1.  The English name given in pre-Conquest times to the Roman road running from near London through St. Albans to Wroxeter; by antiquarian writers from the 12th c. onwards extended to Roman roads leading from London to the S.E. and from Wroxeter to the north or west.

  The places mentioned in OE. charters as situated on or near the ‘Wæclinga-strǽt’ are the following: Hampstead; Chalgrave (Beds.); Stowe (Bucks.); Weedon (Northants); Aston (close to Wroxeter): see Birch, Cart. Sax., Nos. 1309, 659, 986, 792, 1315. According to Henry of Huntingdon (died 1154) the Watling-street extended from Canterbury to Chester; according to Robert of Gloucester (c. 1290) from Dover to Chester; according to Higden (c. 1340) from Dover to Wroxeter and thence to Cardigan. Modern writers usually assign Dover or Richborough and Chester as the terminal points; but some apply the name Watling-street to the road running northwards from Wroxeter through Lancashire.

c. 885.  Treaty of Alfred & Guthrum (MS. 12th c.) in Liebermann, AS. Laws, I. 126. Ðonne up on Usan oð Wætlingastræt.

925.  Charter of Æthelstan, in Birch, Cartul. Sax., II. 335. (Boundaries of Chalgrave, Beds.) Ðar se dic sceot in wæclinga stræte, anlanges wæxlinga stræte … æft dice in wæxlingga strate.

a. 1118.  Florence of Worcester, Chron., an. 1012 (1848), I. 166. In septentrionali plaga Weatlinga-strætæ, id est, strata quam filii Weatlæ regis,… per Angliam straverunt.

a. 1154.  Hen. Huntingdon, Hist. Angl., I. § 7. Tertius [sc. callis] est ex transverso a Dorobernia in Cestriam … et vocatur Watlingestrate.

1297.  R. Glouc. (Rolls), 174. From douere in to chestre tilleþ watelinge stret.

c. 1340.  Higden, Polychr. (Rolls), II. 44. Secunda via principalis dicitur Watlingstrete.

a. 1552.  Leland, Itin. (1907), I. 10. Wedon … stondith hard by the famose way, there communely caullid of the people Watheling Strete.

1612.  Drayton, Poly-olb., xiii. 312. That Crosse Where those two mightie waies, the Watling and the Fosse, Our Center seeme to cut. (The first doth hold her way, From Douer, to the farth’st of fruitfull Anglesey.)

1725.  De Foe, Tour Gt. Brit., II. iv. 117. The great antient Road or Way call’d Watling-Street, which comes from London to this Town [Shrewsbury], and goes on from hence to the utmost Coast or Wales.

  b.  Erroneously applied to other Roman roads.

  Leland, e.g., applies the name to the Ermine-street in Lincolnshire, and to several distinct roads in Yorkshire. At the present day the name is very generally given to the road running from York through Corbridge into Scotland.

c. 1500[?].  Gest of Robyn Hode, ccix. in Child, Ballads, III. 66. ‘Take thy bowe in thy hande,’ sayde Robyn,… ‘And walk vp vnder the Sayles, And to Watlynge-strete.’

a. 1552.  Leland, Itin. (1907), I. 32. At the north ende of this village [sc. Marton, Lincs.] lyithe the commune way of Watheling Streat to Dancaster. Ibid., 39, 43, 44, 98, V. 146.

1767.  Percy, Reliques (ed. 2), I. 24, note. Otterbourn stands near the old Watling street road.

1884.  Encycl. Brit., XVII. 568 (art. Northumberland). The Roman road from London nearly bisects the county, and still goes familiarly under the name of ‘the Watling Street.’

  c.  The name of a street in the City of London, in the 16–17th c. the principal street for drapers’ shops.

1569.  Preston, Cambyses, F 3 b. I beleeue all [the] cloth in Watling street, to make gowns would not serue.

1603.  Stow, Surv. Lond., 84. The Drapers … are seated in Candlewick-streete, and Watheling streete. Ibid., 348. Then for Watheling streete, which Leyland calleth Atheling or Noble streete; but since he sheweth no reason why, I rather take it to be so named of the great high way of the same calling…. At this present, the inhabitants thereof are wealthy Drapers, retailors of woollen cloathes … more then in any one streete of this citie.

1614.  J. Cooke, Greene’s Tu Quoque, D 2 b. Sta. That I should liue to be a seruing-man … the seruing-man … weares broad-cloth, and yet dares walke Watling-streete, without any feare of his Draper.

  † 2.  The Milky Way, galaxy. Obs.

  The Milky Way received other popular names from famous highways, esp. pilgrimage routes. In England it was called Walsingham way, in Italy Strada di Roma. A widespread designation of this kind was the Way of St. James (of Compostella); so It. Via di santo Jacopo (Dante, Convivio, II. xv), Sp. Via de Santiago.

c. 1384.  Chaucer, H. Fame, II. 431. Se yonder loo the Galoxie … Somme parfeye Kallen hyt watlynge strete.

1398.  Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., VIII. xxxii. (Tollemache MS.). It semeþ þat þey [sc. comets] ben in þat cercle, þat is calde Lacteus, and Galaxia, also Watelynge strete.

c. 1460.  Towneley Myst., xxx. 126. Secundus demon, let vs go to this dome vp watlyn strete.

c. 1480.  Henryson, Orpheus & Eurydice, 71.

1483.  Cath. Angl., 410/2. Wattelynge strete, lactea, galaxias, vel galaxia.

1513.  Douglas, Æneis, III. viii. 22. Arthuris huyfe, and Hyades betaiknand rane, Syne Watling streit … and the Charle wane.

1549.  Compl. Scot., vi. 58. The quhyt circle callit circulus lacteus, the quhilk the marynalis callis vatland streit.

1551.  [see MILKY WAY 1].

1563.  Fulke, Meteors, III. (1571), 38. The mylke waye called of some the waye to saint Iames and Watlyng streate.

1590.  T. Hood, Use Celestial Globe, 40. By vs … it is called The milke way: some in sporting manner doe call it Watling streete.