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Green swamp west gps tracks3/21/2023 Travellers shared roads with herds of cattle being driven to market from distant pastures. Royal processions toured the country enjoying various subjects’ hospitality, pilgrims travelled great distances to visit shrines, ‘church paths’, and ‘corpse roads’ connected parish churches with outlying settlements and trade routes attracted names like ‘portway’, ‘maltway’ and ‘saltway’. Narrow pack-horse tracks, like North Yorkshire’s flagstone ‘trods’ at Kirby Bank in the image above, wended their way through hills. The bumpy dirt tracks that remained were frequented by robbers.ĭespite this, roads with specialist functions emerged. Part of an extensive network of long-distance tracks (or ‘trods’) across the North York Moors © Historic EnglandĪfter the Romans left Britain (by the 5th century AD), little attention was paid to making or repairing roads. Medieval Tracks and Drift-Ways: Kirby Bank Trod, Yorkshire Kirby Bank Trod, North Yorkshire: Scheduled, dating from late 12th–13th century, with later reuse and repair. These lanes – which can still be walked today – confirm the area’s importance as a communications conduit for Winchester, from the Romano-British period onwards. The aerial photograph above, taken in 1929, shows the multiple ‘hollow-ways’ (or sunken lanes) criss-crossing the ancient landscape of Twyford Down in Hampshire. As a result, many routes that have declined in importance still survive as public footpaths. Roads often gained special status as legal and customary rights of way. Crawford Collection © Crown copyright NMR Ancient Hollow-ways: Twyford Down, Hampshire Multiple hollowed trackways traverse the hill slope at Twyford Down, Hampshire. Some of the finest Roman roads can be seen on open moors, such as the Blackstone Edge paved road that still crosses the Pennines, and the road crossing Tideswell Moor to Whiston in Yorkshire (shown in our banner image). The roads’ straightness today helps us identify them as Roman, even when obscured by modern tarmac. Roman engineers connected key points by the most direct route, skilfully keeping to a straight course despite natural obstacles. From AD 43 – when the army of Emperor Claudius began their conquest – troops could move rapidly and transport supplies using wheeled freight wagons, a novelty in Britain.Ĭursus publicus (imperial mail service) messengers used roads to travel up to 150 miles a day, changing horses at wayside mutationes (posting stations). These hard-surfaced highways (laid on embankments called ‘aggers’) were built by their army for invasion purposes. The Romans famously made our first ‘proper’ roads. Roads to Conquer: Blackstone Edge Roman Road The scheduled Roman road that runs across the Pennine’s Blackstone Edge Moor, Yorkshire © Mark Moxon A reconstruction can be found in the British Museum. Historic England protects many of these, including sections of the scheduled Sweet Track on the Somerset Levels, which is over 5,800 years old. These included causeways made of twigs, split logs and planks across low-lying, water-logged places. ![]() Prehistoric ridgeways following chalk and limestone hills, such as the South Downs Way, were part of a wider network of early routes. Then, over time, well-trodden paths developed. Human footprints have been found preserved on English shores before the end of the last Ice Age ( roughly 11,500 years ago). Heavy planks carried goods and pedestrians © illustration after Coles & Coles, ‘Sweet Track to Glastonbury’ (1986) From main roads connecting towns and cities to meandering green lanes and mysterious paths to nowhere, our highways and byways are steeped in history.įreight lorries bound for the Continent still use prehistoric tracks, long-distance coaches hurtle along Roman roads and farmers depend on medieval lanes to reach their fields.Ī number of these routes have been protected through scheduling: is there an ancient road near you? Early Footsteps: Tracks on the Somerset Levels The prehistoric Sweet Track, Somerset (now a public footpath).
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