Watling Street is the later name for the major Roman road from Dover through Canterbury to London and thence via Verulamium to Wroxeter (later the basis for Telford's Holyhead road, the A5). Whether the sections either side of London were seen as unitary in the Roman period is debatable; they are now united by their Anglo-Saxon name Wæcelinga Stræt, ‘the street of the people of Wæcel’.

Alan Simon Esmonde Cleary

Watling Street a Roman road (now largely underlying modern roads) running north-westwards across England, from Richborough in Kent through London and St Albans to Wroxeter in Shropshire. The predominant form of the name in Old English is Wæclinga strǣt; the first element may represent a (real or imaginary) family or clan.