Heritage - Invaders and Settlers North Warwickshire as we know it today has seen people settle by its rivers and along its valleys for thousands of years, each using the fertile land for cultivation, or its hills and ridges as places of strategic fortification. Although, pottery and metal objects found in the fields and towns show early settlers in the ages of Bronze and Iron, the first major impact came with the Chariot wheels of the Romans. The Romans in their drive northward from London into Wales built Watling Street. The road, which we know today as the A5, skirted the Forest of Arden with a fortification at Mancetter.  Although only the line of the road remains, you can stand on The Green at Mancetter and imagine the travellers passing through heading both North and South. Soldiers marching to their next garrison with their equipment always ready to do battle should the need arise.  Then there were the traders peddling their wares and taking the opportunity to settle wherever they could make a living. When the Romans left, the road remained. This was to become the frontier border between the Vikings in the East, known as the Danelaw, and the Saxons in the West. The road became a trade route for precious commodities such as salt, which would trundle along the road in over laden carts heading for the towns, such as Atherstone and Coleshill and further a field into Warwick and Stafford. These people also built their castles (mounds of earth with wooden stakes surrounded by ditches). A good example can be found behind the church in Seckington, where treachery and murder took place. Then came the Normans. Following the Battle of Hastings in 1066, these great builders made the more permanent features of castles and churches. The remains of the castle at Hartshill and many of the churches stand as monuments to these settlers, who left their mark upon the North Warwickshire landscape.