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In PNs Shropshire part 3 pp.55-71, the names of the various townships making up Wellington parish are all given an etymological discussion, with the exception of Watling Street on p.66 (unless it is hiding somewhere and I have missed it). I can't believe that Margaret Gelling was not interested in this name, so the silence is rather a mystery. The name Watlingestrete in recorded in the area in 1301 (p.27), so how, when, and why did it spread from its proper region near London (cf. PN Herts 7)? Keith PS: My interest in the question is as a parallel to the spread of the name Icknield Way from Cambridgeshire into Suffolk, where the earliest record seems to be around 1470.