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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
Quote:What are the current opinions about Arbury Banks or Cuttle Mill?

Cuttle Mill is the same location as Paulerspury, I think. It's right on Watling Street, which is plausible, but a bit far north for my tastes and seems to require that the Britons make a big half-circular detour to the east in order to bring them round to face the Roman position.

You can read Grahame Appleby's thesis on Arbury Banks here, and it's nicely put together even if he does still support the 'cavalry dash' thing for no reason. His identification of the site (I would guess the position he has in mind is between Newnham Hill and Ash Hill, with Ashwell to the rear) seems to rely heavily on the reasoning that the "high stakes of the operation and subtle niceties of a carefully laid-out camp make the construction of such a camp unlikely and the more likely scenario was the need for a suitable redoubt." (above, p.62) Since Roman troops in the field routinely built marching camps every day, building such a camp (even with 'subtle niceties', whatever that means!) would present no difficulty for Paulinus. Roman commanders did not by choice fight from fortified positions (as we've discussed elsewhere), so looking for a readymade 'redoubt' seems unnecessary and using the presence of one as a criterion for identifying the battle site unsupportable.

However, the 'Roman' road (probably, like Stane Street, a pre-existing track) from St Albans through to Baldock would present a suitable avenue for Iceni withdrawal, as Appleby suggests. It may be that the site of battle does indeed lie in this direction - there's some quite rolling countryside along the way, probably with some suitable defiles...
Nathan Ross
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Messages In This Thread
Re: Calling all armchair generals! - by Ensifer - 03-11-2010, 03:13 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-18-2012, 06:26 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 12:02 AM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 02:50 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 05:40 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 11:26 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 05:11 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 09:42 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 10:10 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 03:11 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 03:25 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 08:36 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-26-2012, 02:57 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-27-2012, 01:50 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 08-05-2012, 02:24 PM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Nathan Ross - 09-04-2013, 10:15 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-07-2014, 02:18 PM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-08-2014, 01:50 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-11-2014, 02:03 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-18-2014, 07:54 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-20-2014, 02:37 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-25-2014, 08:29 AM

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