Wheeldale Roman Road

A mile-long stretch of enigmatic ancient road - probably Roman but possibly later or earlier - amid wild and beautiful moorland, still with its hard core and drainage ditches.

The linear monument on Wheeldale Moor is first recorded as ‘Wade’s Causeway – a Roman Way’ on a map of 1720. It then features in most antiquarian accounts of the area as part of a Roman road, traced for various distances along a route from Amotherby, near Malton, in the south towards the coast north of Whitby, a distance of some 33 to 35 miles. More recent work, however, has suggested that it could be medieval, or that it might not be a road at all, but a much modified Neolithic or Early Bronze Age boundary feature.