Icknield Street or Ryknild Street is a Roman road in England, with a route roughly south-west to north-east. It runs from the Fosse Way at Bourton on the Water in Gloucestershire () to Templeborough in South Yorkshire (). It passes through Alcester, Studley, Redditch, Metchley Fort, Birmingham, Sutton Coldfield, Lichfield, Burton upon Trent and Derby.
Names
Four Roman roads having the King's protection are named in the Laws of Edward the Confessor: Watling Street, Ermine Street, the Fosse Way, and Hikenild or Icknield Street. Hikenild Strete is generally supposed to be connected with the country of the Iceni. Various forms of the name (the earliest in Anglo-Saxon charters are Icenhilde Weg or Icenilde Weg) designate other roads from the borders of Norfolk through Cambridgeshire, Bucks, Berks, Hants and Wilts into Dorset. These locations, however, would identify the route as Icknield Way an Iron Age trackway running from Norfolk to Dorset.
What is today referred to as the Icknield Street road acquired the name Ryknild Street during the 12th century, when it was named by Ranulf Higdon, a monk of Chester writing in 1344 in his Polychronicon. Higdon gives the name as Rikenild Strete, which, he says, tends from the south-west to the north, and begins at St David's in Wales and continues across England to the mouth of the Tyne, passing Worcester, Droitwich, Birmingham, Lichfield, Derby, and Chesterfield. It has borne that name, or Rigning, Reenald or Rignall, from early times. In three of the four MSS of Higdon the name is given as Rikenilde or Rikenyldes, and in the fourth (which is said to be one of the earliest), Hikenil Street. Trevisa's English translation (1387) calls it Rykeneldes Strete. Harverfield, writing in the Victoria County History of Warwickshire doubted whether the road had any real and original right to either name, preferring Ryknild as no less correct (or no more incorrect), and being able to distinguish it from Icknield Street in Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It is now called Icknield or Ryknild Street to distinguish it from the older Icknield Way. In the 19th century it is also referred to in antiquarian literature with the spelling "Rykneld Street".
A preserved section of the Roman road can be seen at Sutton Park, now in the City of Birmingham.
Route
George William Collen's book Britannia Saxonica (1833) concisely outlines the route, drawing on Leland's Itinerary:
Today's route
Much of the Midlands route of the Icknield Street is used by modern roads, most notably the A38 from Lichfield to Derby; and many sections retain the name "Icknield Street", but not always accurately as in Hockley, Birmingham and in Redditch, Worcestershire where there is also a road called Icknield Street Drive''' which stands near the course of the Roman road. "Ryknild Street" is still in use in Lichfield and "Ryknild Road" in Derby.
Bourton-on-the-Water to Bidford-on-Avon
The road appears to have joined the Fosse Way near Bourton-on‑the‑Water. Starting about two miles north of there, and two miles west of Stow-on-the-Wold, a lane (Condicott Lane) runs northwards in a straight line to Condicote and then Hinchwick. This lane appears to indicate the course of Icknield Street. It leads towards high ground, about on Bourton Down. It is not clear how the ascent of from Hinchwick to the Down was made, but on the Down a lane northwards from Springhill takes nearly the same line for to near the Evesham road , from which a parish boundary over Saintbury Hill seems to mark the course down the north side. On the west side of Weston Park, a line seems to be taken up lying between high ground , to the south, and Alcester, to the north. A road in this line, passing on the west of Weston-sub‑Edge, leads on to a highway with a parish boundary along it called Riknild or Icknield Street, which is crossed by the railway at Honeybourne Station. It continues northward under the name of Buckle Street to Staple Hill, one mile south of Bidford-on-Avon. This is probably the oldest version of the name being the modern form of a name Bucgan or Buggilde Street which appears in documents earlier than the Norman Conquest. As the road approaches Bidford there is a slight turn, and the modern road heads for the crossing point of the medieval bridge whereas the Roman ford is upstream of here and the road name preserved in a small road named Icknield Street on the northern bank. Evidence of a Roman causeway here confirms this as the Roman crossing point.