Watling Street (book)

Watling Street: Travels Through Britain and Its Ever-Present Past

Cover by Steve Marking for the first edition hardback
Author	John Higgs
Language	English
Subject	History
Publisher	Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Publication date	July 2017
Publication place	Great Britain
Media type	Hardcover, paperback, Kindle
Pages	384
ISBN	978-1-4746-0347-8

Watling Street: Travels Through Britain and Its Ever-Present Past ^[1] is the fifth book by the British journalist, novelist and cultural historian John Higgs. The book charts Higgs's journey along Watling Street, one of the oldest roads in Britain, from Dover to Anglesey, during which journey he records the so-called hidden history of this ancient path from its first creation up to the present day. As well as recording the historical figures and their stories surrounding the road, Higgs also meets up with and interviews contemporary figures along the way such as Alan Moore and Alistair Fruish. The author describes the history of the road as, "Watling Street is a road of witches and ghosts, of queens and highwaymen, of history and myth, of Chaucer, Dickens and James Bond. Along this route Boudicca met her end, the battle of Bosworth changed royal history, Bletchley Park code breakers cracked Nazi transmissions and Capability Brown remodelled the English landscape.