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How old is the Berkshire Ridgeway?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Extract

In a letter to Dr Mead in 1738, Francis Wise discussed the location of Alfred's famous battle-ground of Ashdown and described it as ‘containing large tracts of down and sheep pasture where the great Western road passes at this day, being called the Rudge or Ridgeway’ (Wise, 1738). Sir Richard Colt-Hoare rode along the Ridgeway in 1815 and wrote ‘these ridgeways were the roads made use of by the earliest inhabitants of Britain as lines of communication between their different towns and villages. They generally followed the highest ridges of land on which also we find their habitations: they were not paved with stone and gravel as in later times by the Romans but their basis was the firm and verdant turf’ (Colt-Hoare, 1819). His description is the first itinerary of the route now followed with delight by thousands. He passed Wayland's Smithy, and Uffington Castle, following then with a long and speculative account of the battle of Ashdown. He was not immune to the enjoyment of a view. ‘Hitherto the ridgeway had afforded no attraction with respect to country or view, its chief interest was from a recollection of the important historical events which had transpired on its borders, but on proceeding eastwards the eye was continually amused by an extensive prospect over a rich vale extending to Oxford on the left, with numerous church turrets peeping forth amidst the dense foliage with which the country is overspread. The scenery at the right exhibited an open and cultivated extent of land. A few barrows occurred occasionally alongside the trackway but I did not see any other marks of ancient population.’

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1983

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Footnotes

John Steane is keeper of the Field Section at the Oxfordshire County Museum. His interest in archaeology was roused by visiting the area of General Pitt-Rivers's activities in Cranborne Chase when he was a schoolboy member of a farming camp in Dorset during World War II. Most of his archaeological experience has been on medieval rural sites in the Midlands. He was a student of Professor W. G. Hoskins at Oxford and author of ‘The Northamptonshire Landscape’. Readers will probably agree that this article is to be welcomed as continuing the Crawford tradition.

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