Geograph - photograph every grid square

TL5948 : Roman Road at Mark's GraveTL5948 : Ford at Mark's Grave

Who was Mark?

Percy Hide Reaney in Place-names of Cambridgeshire ... (Cambridge, 1943; p. 110) tells us that this location "may be associated with terra quondam Johannis Marke de London [qui] iac[it] in Stonstrett" [the land once that of John Marke who lies in Stone Street] as itemised in the records of Pembroke College in 1522 and that the name "may refer to burials at cross-roads, but we may note that Mark's Grave is at the junction of the boundaries of four parishes and may contain [the Anglo-Saxon word] mearc, 'boundary'."

Stone Street or Wool Street (because it was paved with stone and used to transport wool from Suffolk) are alternative names for the Roman road known as Via Devana which crosses the lane from West Wratting and Balsham to Bartlow at this point. Felons, including suicides, were commonly buried at crossroads, being denied interment in consecrated churchyards, but if Reaney's conjecture is correct the hapless Mark may never have existed.

The Roman road was presumed to link Chester (Deva) with Colchester, and now also forms part of the E2 European Long Distance Path from Galway to Nice