harrow way

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yoseph Y
yoseph Jul 30, 2009 21:48:57
Replying to Chance

well i went over it again and im not imagining it. i think it may be a function of erosion, cos its only on gradients that suddenly the path opens up into two or three routes. I can convince myself the huge difference in height accross the profile is the result of years of feet and rainfall, trying to find a way around the trecherous clay slope, laterly i suspect motocross playground has accellerated it.

I followed a couple of lanes heading east from the end of the byway that seem to continue the line of the os marked harrow way byway, sure enough the wooded uncultivated land either side, seemed much wider than the typical earth bank at a field margin and had the same double ditch W profile.

its got to the point when im now suspicious of any and all countryside thats not flat aaaahhhhh... strangely the h way runs paralel with a roman road marked on the os as the portway, which is utterly flat and featurless, only two miles to the north. judging by the wear and tear and state of the overgrowth, the natives still prefer the hard way !

anyway ive found some nice trails and thanks for the book info, i can get hold of that hippisely chap cheers

S Seventhorn Inn
Seventhorn Inn Jul 30, 2009 23:00:13
Replying to yoseph

Hippisley Cox reckons 'Harrow' is the 'Hoare' or 'Ancient' Way, which fits in with the derivation of hoar in this 'New' English Dictionary from 1932 (Odhams) - 'august...grey with age', etc. I think our old mate Alfred Watkins had something to say about hoarstones (ancient stones), but I couldn't find it in the index of 'The Old Straight Track', and the elderflower 'ale' is taking its toll.

As for the Pilgrims' Way to Canterbury which, as Chance says, goes over the Surrey Downs, Hilaire Belloc wrote 'The Old Road' about it.

Parallel routes - Portway, Harrow Way, etc. That seems to be a recurrent phenomenon worthy of exploration. In 'Prehistoric Ritual and Religion' (eds. Alex Gibson and Derek Simpson, 1998, Stroud: Sutton) there's Roy Loveday's essay, 'Double Entrance Henges - Routes to the Past?' (pp14-31), which notes the literal parallels between the orientation of henge entrances and 'Roman' and medieval trackways. I can't be arsed to retype it all word for word, but here's a taster...

'A herepath mentioned in an Anglo-Saxon charter...surviving as an alternative westerly route to that along the Kennet valley, runs from the Marlborough region across Overton Down to pass through the east and west entrances of Avebury... Durrington Walls...lies immediately adjacent to another medieval east-west route...Its popularity is demonstrated... by the deep hollow ways which mark its descent of Beacon Hill en route to Bulford ...A hint that the route was of some antiquity is furnished by its correspondence with the only substantial opening in the linear ditch system of the eastern Plain'

And...

'On Cranborne Chase...maps...reveal Knowlton/Brockington...as the node of the main pre-turnpike routes heading south to Poole and south-west to Dorchester - the former route still bisecting the great enclosure...aso, aso,'

And what of the 'disconcerting' phenomenon of the axes of Roman Roads parallelling the axes of henges, miles distant? This Loveday relates to the existence of 'braided' routes - ie, roads from A to B needn't follow a single line (ultimately established by turnpikes - now there's a philosophical question!)...'turnpike surveyors rationalised routes which had previously followed a number of different, parallel tracks, often as much as two miles apart'...