An important antiquarian discovery in the Haw Leys, at Matlock, was made during the laying of a sewerage pipe track. Workmen cut through an old Roman road leading from the Shiplode (sheep ford) of the Saxon period.
The roadway is 25 feet wide, and so hard that to cut into it steel wedges had to be used. The surface is as smooth and level as the top of a table.
The road, built during the Roman occupation, would be used to convey the lead smelted at the Roman or Celtic smelting hearths on Oker Hill, north of Matlock—a Roman military station—to Chesterfield, the Roman latudarumLutudarum (this identification is disputed). From Roman coins found on Oker, the date, a.d. 260–280, may be taken as about the time of the making of the newly-discovered road at Matlock.
Source info: MS note by AW “B’ham Post Sep 4”.