FOSSE WAY, an ancient British and Roman road from the S coast of Devon on the English channel, north-eastward to the N coast of Lincolnshire on the Humber estuary. It began at Moridunum, near Seaton and Axmouth; passed through Ilchester, Stratton-on-Foss, and Bath, to Cirencester; was crossed there by Ermine-street; went thence to Claychester or High Cross, and there met Watling-street; went thence to Leicester, and there crossed the Via Devana; proceeded to Verometum, near Willoughby, to Ad Pontem, near Thorpe, to Newark, Lincoln, and Ludford; and terminated at the Humber near Great Grimsby. It is still traceable nearly all the way from Bath to Lincoln; and it looks like a wide ditch, which had been deeply cut, at Owthorpe and other parts of Notts.

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))