30th August 2008, 03:31 PM
Quote:quote:Originally posted by Sparky
Er...no brainer regarding preservation in situ. Can you imagine. Build over top of it with some sort of reinforcement. A few yeasr later, the road collapses or becomes pot-holed due to increased traffic and heavier vehicles. Roads Authority do what they usually do, i.e. fill in holes and re-surface. Souterain becomes unwittingly filled with hardcore and concrete.'
Regarding preservation in situ, I am not sure it is entirely out of the question. Route 11 in the City of London (now known as London Wall) has an underground carpark for most of the length of the road between Moorgate and the Museum of London in which various sections of Roman city wall are preserved. Likewise there are buried underground railway lines under a lot of London thoroughfares which seem to survive the weight of traffic going over them. Likewise I believe there is a Roman bathhouse under the M1 or A1M at Welwyn Garden City which has been preserved and is still accessible.
....And I once worked on a site in Orkney that had a souterrain over which had been built a broch, and that managed to survive until us archaeologists came and <s>trashed</s> er....preserved it by record in the early 80's.....