Bicycle Tag of bike

I'm not an expert on Roman roads, but certainly very interested in them and likewise look at maps to try to trace them. A couple of things to bear in mind, though:

(1) I believe that Roman investment in their roads corresponded to their military and economic importance, and in general the most ridiculously straight roads also cost the greatest investment to build (there will be exceptions where topography was uncommonly suited to road-building, although there it was also often the case that important trade routes were established early). More minor Roman roads change course more often. Needless to say, even in Roman times there was an extensive network of curvy small lanes that branched off the main roads. While your dashed red line may therefore indicate an approximate alignment, it's more likely that the actual route can be discovered to the left and right of that alignment in places, so it's best to be flexible in tracing it. For instance, look at the kink just south-west of Great Dunmow where the road may well have skirted around the valley there even in Roman times.

(2) I believe this road would have been fairly minor and not of very great importance in later times. For instance, in Roman times Great Dunmowum lay at the junction of the Stane Street with two other roads:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stane_Street_(Colchester)

However, I've tried several times to find whether there is any indication of what the Roman name was for Great Dunmow, and all I've found is speculation, so I don't think it was a place of great importance. While the Stane Street was important enough to be included in the Antonine Itinerary, the others were clearly not. Had they been more significant, I think it would have become a much bigger town, like most towns at important junctions, and there's no doubt that we'd know the name the place had in those times.

Later, it seems the west to east or south-east alignment was more important, as seen on this old map:

http://www.historyhouse.co.uk/placeG/essexg16a.html

I believe that Great Dunmow also only lay on an east-west railway line, so I don't think the connection to London was ever very strong even when the old road was there.

(3) How a road was treated in its post-Roman life can give a useful indication of how important it was in Roman times. If it ceased to be maintained (and hence largely disappeared off the map, as this one evidently did, except for the bit of the B184 close to Great Dunmow), that can be an indication that its original importance was military and not economic. (I believe the post-Roman economy in Britain was more localised for a long time and there was less long-distance trade, too, which contributed to the decline in some roads, not to mention the weaker, more regional authorities.) Then, as now, the area seems to have been mainly rural, so there doesn't seem to be a lot of historical information. If anything, it may have been a military road that eventually reached Venta Icenorum, but it doesn't seem that there was much trouble with the Iceni after their famous rebellions, and the region was probably not very densely populated, reducing the potential importance of any road. At any rate, the region would have been more focused on Camulodunum.

(4) Needless to say, finding actual evidence would involve a lot of digging on private land mostly adapted for agricultural or other use since. Road archaeology is notoriously difficult as roads tend to be long for some reason and you never know where along a road to look. Also, as people travel along roads they don't leave as many traces there as at the waypoints, so that it's much easier to look where people actually stayed. /captainobvious

All of this isn't well-informed, by the way, so may well be wrong.

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I suspect doing a ride along this road would mean a lot of clambering through fields. I've long wanted to do a ride along the Ermine Street, though.