The first antiquarians to discuss the site in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries dismissed early folkloric explanations of its origins. Roman roads were of particular interest to eighteenth-century antiquarians, and they sought to explain the Wheeldale structure in the context of Roman activity in the North York Moors area in the first and second centuries AD. Specifically, it was commonly suggested in their writings that the causeway was most probably constructed to connect the Roman Cawthorne Camp to the south with the Roman garrison fort at Lease Rigg near Grosmont to the north. The excavated section of the structure does lie linearly approximately between these two sites, which Knight et al. believe lend credence to its being of Roman origin. Its average reported width of approximately plus wide lateral ditches flanking either side matches closely to the width of other Roman roads in Britain (e.g. Stanegate at ) as well as to the average of for Roman roads internationally; historian John Bigland, writing in 1812, also states that there is no other plausible alternative for the structure's scale and method of construction than "Roman industry and labour".