hi folks, ive been lurking here off and on for a while its an excellent site with good piccies. can anyone point me to any info about the harrow way ? ive been riding down it, just north of overton in hampshire, it seems to have a curious form, a W shape in profile, at several points along the miles i rode it that are continous for a quater mile at a time, possibley this is just evidence of heavy erosion, or is it supposed to be a raised path or two paralel paths ?
has anyone else noticed this? cheers
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Don't know the stretch north of Overton, but I've been along/around the bits between Chapmansford(St Mary Bourne)and Weyhill. Part is lost beneath the Portway Industrial Estate in Andover before re-emerging as a suburban stretch with bungalows and Harrow Way School on either side. The stretch between Apsley Farm and Chapmansford is impressively well-worn, with high banks on either side.
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Sorry Yoseph, I forgot to mention, the best info I have to hand is R.Hippisley Cox's 'The Green Roads of England' (1914 London: Methuen). I've got the 1973 Garnstone Press facsimile reprint of the 1923 edition. More informative is 'The Lost Roads of Wessex' by C.Cochrane (1969 David and Charles and 1972 Pan Books). Hippisley Cox says the Harrow Way starts in Weyhill (site of the famous fair where Henchard sold his wife in 'The Mayor of Casterbridge'),or perhaps it terminates there.
Weyhill Fair was interesting in itself. They had an initiatory ceremony called 'Horning the Colt',which had an accompanying song comparing the initiate to a bull lost in the briars (or something like it) - I think Martin Carthy's covered it. I suspect the village exists because of the fair, which has probably been going on since the Neolithic (up to the 1930s), while the village never got a church until the nineteenth century as it was part of Penton Grafton parish originally. The 'Wey' in the place name comes from OE 'weoh' - 'heathen shrine'.
C
yoseph wrote:
hi folks, ive been lurking here off and on for a while its an excellent site with good piccies. can anyone point me to any info about the harrow way ? ive been riding down it, just north of overton in hampshire, it seems to have a curious form, a W shape in profile, at several points along the miles i rode it that are continous for a quater mile at a time, possibley this is just evidence of heavy erosion, or is it supposed to be a raised path or two paralel paths ?
has anyone else noticed this? cheers
Hi yoseph + Seventhorn Innhas anyone else noticed this? cheers
I've been checking out some of these ancient trackways and got the Wiltshire library service to dig out some old books from their store.
The one that I would recommend is - Ancient Trackways of Wessex by H.W. Timperley & Edith Brill. The one I have at hand is by J.M. Dent & sons and first published in 1965 ISBN 0-460 -7794-5.
This has recently been reprinted by Nonsuch Publishing ISBN 1-84588-006-4 under the same title and is priced at £15.
Your questions and much more will be answered between these pages
Of the Harrow Way is says this.......
The Harrow, or 'Hard Way', is one of the oldest roads in Britain, and like the Great Ridgeway, its only competitor for the title, with the possible exception of the Icknield Way, crosses the country from east to west. The Harrow Way's eastern terminus is the Kentish coast near Dover, and it enters Wessex at the Surrey-Hampshire border, whilst the Great Ridgeway comes from East Anglia and enters Wessex after crossing the Thames at Streatley in Berkshire. The two great highways come together on the chalk downs of Wiltshire, and after that their routes intermingle at various points in Dorset and reach the same western terminus at the mouth of the Axe in Devonshire.
Through the ages confusion has arisen between them as to which is the Great Ridgeway and which the Harrow Way after the Wiltshire-Somerset border is crossed. It may be that tradition, or folk memory, has made out of the trunk and main branches of a great prehistoric coast-to-coast road two principal roads with separate identities. When one thinks of the configuration of the eastern and south-eastern uplands these roads had to traverse across Britain, the way they lead inevitably to the Wiltshire Downs and the great chalk plateau of Salisbury Plain, as well as the different kind of country and the distances in between the eastward ends of the branches, it is easy to realize how the separation came about. An ancient road—though it could be travelled along from one side of the country to another—was not originally planned to do this. It grew up out of various local trackways which became linked together as the need arose, and in its earliest days must have fluctuated until it finally settled into a definite route which long expertence had proved to be the most useful. Once it became well established the natural conservatism of man would keep it in being. The name Ridgeway and Harrow Way must apply to practically the same kind of trackway, for all ancient roads had to keep to the higher ground of the watersheds.
From Dover the Harrow Way goes over the North Downs into Surrey, and for part of its way through Kent and Surrey is known as The Pilgrims' Way. Pilgrims travelling to the shrine of Thomas a Becket at Canterbury kept this section of the trackway alive in the Middle Ages, and since then it has acquired a sentimental value which has kept it from being ploughed out like some of the other trackways. It’s Kent and Surrey reaches are certainly amongst the most charming parts of the Harrow Way.
Stephen Spender, in his autobiography, World within World, wrote: 'Travel is an art which has to be created by the traveller'.
Good fortune on the road
Chance