the Roads

The following is extracted from the glossary of nautical terms on the website ‘Journeys in Time’.

Road or Roadstead: a stretch of sheltered water near land where ships may ride at anchor in all but very heavy weather; often rendered as ‘roads’, and does not refer to the streets of a particular port city but rather its anchorage, as in ‘St Helens Roads’, the designated anchorage for shipping located between St. Helens (Isle of Wight) and Portsmouth…

Daily blog references to ‘The Roads’ or ‘St Helen’s’ are more than likely references to ‘St Helen’s Roads’, the safe anchorage near Portsmouth. Other entries refer to ‘Spithead’. Spithead was another anchorage between the Isle of White and Portsmouth, just west of St Helen’s Roads.

Links to Map:
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/nelson/viewObject.cfm?ID=G223%3A2%2F77

Source:
http://www.lib.mq.edu.au/all/journeys/ships/glossary.html