CENTURIATION IN ESSEX. 211
like network of paths or roads dividing the arable land into a
number of plots or possessae a little larger than one square
mile in extent. The possessae suffered further division into still
smaller square plots of land having a side a little shorter than a
quarter mile and known as centuries. Changes usually occurred
in the direction of the bounding paths when some physical feature,
such as a range of hills or a river, made a different orientation
necessary. In a centuriated area the cultivated plots would
have appeared from above rather like the modern American
farmsteads of the Middle West with their typical rectangular
plan. Examples of Roman centuriation are still visible at a
number of places in Italy, notably Musa, and again farther
north as at Orange in Westphalia.
The late Professor Haverfield, whilst casting some doubt on
a suggested centuriation plan for Middlesex9, carried out some
work in connection with vestiges of centuriation in Essex. He
demonstrated that on the present day road map there was some
evidence of parallelism to be observed in certain Essex roads.
He furthermore indicated that the parallelism seemed unnecessary
unless serving some purpose other than that of communication.
Finally he allowed the possibility of these roads being part of
some land division of Roman times, but suggested that there
seemed little other evidence in the routeways to indicate the
onetime existence of centuriation in Essex.
The results of an attempt to trace further vestiges of Roman
centuriation in Essex appear in Plate VIII. Working with large
scale maps, every existing road, lane, and footpath which may
be regarded as forming part of an ancient rectangular network
was noted and placed on the small scale map. Many of the
roads appearing here were checked by practical fieldwork.
Modern roads, with their tendency to follow the grid-like course
of their predecessors, have been excluded. While this map is
not claimed as definite proof of Roman Centuriation, it displays
features that can only with difficulty be otherwise explained.
It is immediately apparent that the pattern falls into three
areas of differing orientation divided by some kind of physical
feature. The entire north-west of Essex and the Tendring area
form one tract in which the scattered lineaments show parallelism.
9 Middlesex in British, Roman and Saxon Times, Montague Sharpe.