_Eighteen miles and a half_
Winchester differs from most other towns which the Romans reorganised
in that its main streets, the street north and south and the street
east and west, do not divide the city into four equal quarters. The
point where the two ways cross is close to the western wall, and this
peculiar arrangement was probably made by the first conquerors in
order to avoid an exit upon the marshy land beside the Itchen; for
that river flowed just against the eastern wall of the city.
Of the four arms of this cross, the northern, a street always given up
to commerce, became, in the later Middle Ages, the Jewry. By a process
at first perhaps voluntary, but later legal, the Jews were
concentrated into one quarter, a sort of Ghetto. It is to be noticed
that in nearly every case these Jewish quarters were in the very thick
of a city's life, and (as in the Paris of Philippe le Bel) of far
greater value than any other equal area of the city.[8] Something of
the kind was present at Winchester. The whole stream of traffic which
passed out from the capital to the rest of England went through the
lane of the moneylenders, and we may say with certitude that the north
gate, the limit of that lane, was the starting-point of the Old Road.
The north gate has now disappeared. It lay just south of the grounds
now known as North-Gate House. The deflection of the street is
comparatively modern; the original exit was undoubtedly (as at
Chichester and elsewhere) along the straight line of the Roman road.
This passed near the site of the present house, and pointed towards
the isolated tree which marks the northern edge of the garden.
[Illustration]
From this point it has been commonly imagined that the Old Road must
have coincided with the modern Hyde Street, and have followed this
line as far as the smithy at Headbourne Worthy. Thence it has been
supposed to branch off to King's Worthy.
From the church of that village onwards through Martyrs' Worthy and
Itchen Abbas no one questions but that the modern highway is identical
with the Old Road; but I think the original track may be shown to have
proceeded not along the modern street, but by an interior curve,
following up the Monks' Walk, passing under the modern railway
embankment near the arch which is just north of the Itchen bridge, and
making thence straight for King's Worthy church, thus leaving
Headbourne Worthy on the left, and running as the thick line runs in
this sketch-map.
The point evidently demands argument, and I will give the arguments
upon one side and upon the other, so that the conclusion may recommend
itself to my readers.
In favour of the first supposition there is this to be said, that the
line through Headbourne Worthy carries the road all the way above the
levels which may be marshy, avoids the crossing of any stream, and
indicates in the continuity of the place-names (the three Worthies)[9]
a string of similar sites dating from a similar antiquity. To this
consideration may be added that parallel between Canterbury and
Winchester which will be found throughout this essay. For at the other
end of the road the entry into Canterbury is of a similar kind. The
Old Road falls, as we shall see, into Watling Street, a mile before
the city, and enters the ecclesiastical capital by a sharp corner,
comparable to the sharp corner at Headbourne Worthy in the exit from
Winchester.
Against all this one can array the following arguments. The Old Road,
as the reader has already seen, never during its course turns a sharp
corner. It has to do so at Canterbury because it has been following a
course upon the north bank of the Stour, the bank opposite from that
upon which Canterbury grew; no better opportunity could be afforded
for crossing the river than the ferry or bridge which the most
primitive of men would have provided as an entry into their township,
and such a bridge or ferry would necessarily run at right angles to a
path upon the opposite bank.
No such necessity exists in this case of the exit from Winchester. The
town is on the same bank of the river as the road. Had the Old Road
left by the eastern gate, such a corner would have been quite
explicable and even necessary, but as a matter of fact it left by the
northern.
The argument which relies upon the necessity of following the high
land is of more value; but that value may be exaggerated. The shorter
and more natural track, to which we inclined, though it runs indeed at
a lower level, follows the edge of the chalk, and just avoids the
marshy alluvial soil of the valley.
The objection that it compels a crossing of the little stream, the
Bourne, is not so well founded as might be imagined. That stream would
indeed have to be crossed, but it would have been crossed under
primitive conditions in a much easier fashion than under modern. Its
depth and regularity at the present day are the result of artifice,
it runs at an unnatural level embanked in a straight line along the
Monks' Walk, and was perhaps turned, as was nearly every stream that
served a medieval congregation, for the purpose of giving power to the
mill of the Hyde Abbey and of supplying that community with water.
The mention of the stream and of the monastery leads me to two further
considerations in support of the same thesis. This splendid monument
of the early twelfth century and of the new civilisation, the
burial-place of the greatest of our early kings, the shrine which
stood to royal Winchester as St. Germain des Prés did to royal Paris,
and Westminster later to royal London, would, presumably, have had its
gates upon the oldest highway of its time.
It should be remarked also that before its deflection that brook must
have followed the slope and fallen into the Itchen by a much shorter
and smaller channel, reaching the river near where the railway bridge
now stands. A portion of its water still attempts a similar outlet,
and there can be little doubt that before the embankment of eight
hundred years ago the fields we traversed in our search for the path
would have been dry, for they are high enough to escape flood, and
they have a sufficient slope, and their chalky soil is sufficiently
porous to have left the land firm upon either side of the little
stream.
The Roman road also took the same line, at least as far as King's
Worthy; and a Roman road was often based upon a pre-Roman track.[10]
The path so taken not only turns no abrupt corner (in itself an
excellent argument in support of its antiquity), but points directly
to King's Worthy church so as to pass its _south_ porch, and then
curves easily into that modern highway which goes on to Martyrs'
Worthy and Itchen Stoke, and is admittedly coincident with the Old
Road.
The alternative has no such regular development; if one comes through
Headbourne Worthy one is compelled to turn a sharp corner at the
smithy of that village and another just upon King's Worthy church
before one can fall in with the modern road at the point where its
coincidence with the old one ceases to be doubtful.
From all these considerations we determined to follow the lower and
more neglected path as representing the track of the Old Road.
We left Hyde Street by the first opening in the houses of its eastern
side; we halted with regret at the stable door, still carved and of
stone, which is the last relic of Hyde Abbey. We saw the little
red-brick villas, new built and building, that guard the grave where
Alfred lay in majesty for six hundred years.[11]
We went up the Monks' Walk, under the arch, past King's Worthy church,
through King's Worthy village and so on through Martyrs' Worthy to
Itchen Abbas. It is a stretch which needs little comment, for after
King's Worthy the modern high-road certainly corresponds with the
ancient track. We were walking these few miles upon earth beaten (to
quote recorded history alone) by the flight of Saxons from the battle
of Alton, and by the conquering march of Swegen which was the
preliminary to the rule of the Danes over England. We noted the sharp
dip down into the valley[12] (whence Itchen-A-Bas is thought to take
its name), and on reaching the green at Itchen Stoke, six miles from
our starting-point, we determined to explore the first considerable
difficulty which the road would present to us.
That difficulty we had already presupposed to exist from a study of
the map before we undertook our journey, and an examination of the
valley confirmed us in our conjecture.
Thus far the history of the Worthies, and, as we have seen, the
topographical necessities of the valley had determined the way with
some accuracy; the most of it had corresponded to the present
high-road. At Itchen Stoke these conditions disappeared.
The valley of the Itchen here makes a sharp bend northwards round a
low but rather difficult hill, and leads on to the Alresfords. The
modern road follows that valley, passes through New Alresford, and
there joins the main road from Winchester to London.
The Old Road did not follow this course. It crossed the river at
Itchen Stoke, crested the hill, and did not join the London road until
the point marked by the church at Bishop Sutton, one mile from
Alresford. That its track was of this nature can be proved.
We had already noted, upon the earlier maps, that, barely a century
ago, nothing but irregular lanes connected Itchen Stoke with the
Alresfords by the valley of the river. These could not represent the
original trail; where that trail passed we were able to discover. The
word Stoke here, as elsewhere in the South Country, is associated with
the crossing of a stream. It stands for the 'staking' which made
firmer the track down through the marshy valley, and supported on
either side the wattles and faggots by which an approach to a river
was consolidated. Moreover, to this day, a ford exists at Itchen
Stoke, and it is an obvious place for passing the river; not only is
the water shallow, but the bottom is firm, and the banks are not
widely separated, as is so often the case where the depth of a river
is lessened.
This ford, by itself, might not mean much. There are plenty of reasons
for crossing a stream whenever one can, and Itchen Stoke would have
provided a convenient ford for any one living north of the river who
desired to get south of it. But there are a number of other
considerations, which confirm to a point of certitude the crossing of
the river by the Old Road at this point. Just above Itchen Stoke is
the confluence of all the head-waters which form the Itchen: the Alre,
and other streams. Now a confluence of this kind is invariably marshy,
and this marsh could not, in early times, have been avoided (if one
followed the flat right bank) save by a very long bend to the
north: along that bend no trace of a road or of continuous
prehistoric use exists: while, if one crosses at Itchen Stoke to the
other bank, one finds a steep, dry bank on which to continue one's
journey.
[Illustration: THE HEAD-WATERS WHICH FORM THE ITCHEN, THE ALRE AND
OTHER STREAMS]
It might be argued that the traveller would have wished to take on his
way such settlements as the Alresfords; but though it is true that an
ancient track leaves Old Alresford to the north-east, that track does
not point to Farnham, the known junction of the 'short-cut' from
Winchester with the original 'Harrow Way.' Old Alresford is well to
the west, and also too far to the north of the track we had followed
to be touched by it save at the expense of an abrupt and inexplicable
bend. New Alresford is nearer the alignment (though not on it), and it
is to New Alresford that the modern road leads. But the town was not
in existence[13] till the end of the twelfth century, and only grew
up in connection with Bishop Lucy's scheme for rendering the Itchen
navigable. The pond which was the head of that undertaking still
remains, though much diminished, the chief mark of the place.
The ford might have been used, and is still used, for reaching all the
district south of the Itchen, but that district was high, bare,
waterless, unpeopled, and of no great importance until one got to the
Meon valley, and it is significant that the Meon valley was in its
earliest history independently colonised and politically separate from
the valley of the Itchen.
In this absence of any but a modern road up the valley to the
Alresfords, in the presence of the marsh, in the eccentricity of Old
and the modernity of New Alresford, and in the unique purpose
attributable to the ford, we had a series of negative considerations
which forbade the Old Road to follow the river beyond Itchen Stoke.
On the other hand, there are as many positive arguments in favour of
the thesis that the ford was used by the oldest road from Winchester
to Farnham.
Between these two centres, as will be seen in a moment by the
sketch-map on p. 137, a high but narrow watershed had to be crossed.
To approach this watershed by the easiest route must have been the
object of the traveller, and, as the map will show, to cross at this
ford, go straight across the hill to Bishop Sutton, and thence follow
the Ropley valley was to go in a direct line to one's object.
As we talked to the villagers and gathered their traditions, we found
that this ford had been of capital importance. The old church of the
village stood just beside the river, and in such a position that the
road to the ford passed just by its _southern_ porch. It has
disappeared--'in the year of the mobbing,' say the peasants: that is,
I suppose, in 1831; but the consecrated land around it is still
enclosed, and its site must have clustered the whole place about the
riverside. It stood, moreover, close against the ford; and the Old
Road that skirted the churchyard is marked by an alignment of yews
and other trees leading directly to the river.
Finally, when we accepted the hypothesis and crossed the river, we
found a road corresponding to what the old track should be. It has in
the past been somewhat neglected, but it is now a metalled lane; it is
without any abrupt turn or corner, and leads directly over the hill in
the direction of Bishop Sutton, the Ropley valley, and so at last to
the watershed, the surmounting of which was the whole object of the
trail from this point onwards.
The points I have mentioned will be made clearer, perhaps, by a
sketch-map, in which the dark patches and lines represent the
water-ways at this confluence which forms the Itchen. The Old Road I
have indicated by a dotted line, but for its exact course it would be
advisable for readers to refer to an Ordnance map.
All these pieces of evidence supporting one another seemed to us
sufficient to determine the trajectory at this point. The ford, the
position of the church, the number of streams that would have to be
crossed were the valley to be further pursued, the low marshy ground
at the confluence of these streams, the non-existence of any ancient
settlement or trace of a road at the base of Alresford Hill, the fact
that the only village to which such a track could lead is of
comparatively recent creation, the existence of an old track, direct
in its alignment, proceeding straight from the ford, and pointing
without deviation to Bishop Sutton church and the Ropley valley--all
these facts combined settled any doubts upon the way we should go. We
climbed and followed the lane to the top of the hill.
[Illustration]
These two miles of the way gave us (under the evening--for it was the
falling of the light) glimpses of the Itchen westward and away behind
us. The road had the merit of all savage trails, and of all the tracks
a man still takes who is a-foot and free and can make by the shortest
line for his goal: it enjoyed the hills. It carried two clear summits
in its flight, and from each we saw those extended views which to the
first men were not only a delight, but a security and a guide. It was
easy to understand how from these elevations they planned their direct
advance upon the ridge of the watershed which lay far before us,
eastward, under the advancing night. As they also must have done, we
looked backwards, and traced with our eyes the sharp lines of light in
the river we had just abandoned. We so halted and watched till
darkness had completely fallen; then we turned down northward to
Alresford to sleep, and next morning before daybreak, when we had
satisfied the police who had arrested us upon suspicion of I know not
what crime, we took the hill again and rejoined the Old Road.
By daylight we had come down Whitehill Lane, the steep pitch into
Bishop Sutton, and were tramping up that vale which makes for the
watershed, and so leads to the corresponding vale of Alton upon the
further side.
Here, at least as far as the Anchor Inn, and somewhat further, the
modern highway corresponds to the Old Road. It thus follows the lowest
of the valley, but there is no reason at first why it should not do
so. The rise is fairly steady, the ground dry (an insignificant stream
gradually disappears beneath the chalk), and the direction points
straight to the shortest approach for the ridge which cuts off the
basin of the Channel from that of the Thames.
This direction, does not, however, long continue. The valley curves
somewhat to the north, and it might be presumed that the original way,
making more directly for the saddle of the watershed, would gradually
climb the southern hillside. By so doing it would find two advantages:
it would take a shorter cut, and it would conquer at one stretch, and
rapidly, the main part of the 360 feet between the Anchor Inn and the
summit.
It was but a guess that the Old Road would probably take a straight
line upwards. The curve of the modern road does not carry it more
than half a mile from the direct alignment. The Old Road might quite
well have suffered such a deviation, and we were in some doubt when we
proceeded to gather our evidence. That evidence, however, proved
fairly conclusive.
There is a tradition, which Mrs. Adie has justly recognised, that the
pilgrims of the Middle Ages passed through Ropley.[14] What is more
important to our purpose, Ropley has provided a discovery of British
antiquities, Celtic torques, near the track which the more direct line
to the watershed would presuppose.
We had further the place-name 'Street' to guide us: it is a word
almost invariably found in connection with a roadway more or less
ancient; later on we found many examples of it upon this same
road.[15] Here the hamlet of Gilbert Street lay to the south of our
hypothetical alignment, and another, named North Street, just to the
north of it.
[Illustration]
We further noted upon our map that a very considerable portion of the
exact alignment drawn from the main road at the Anchor Inn to the
saddle of the watershed would coincide precisely with a lane, which,
when we came to examine it, gave every evidence of high antiquity.
Possessed of such evidence, it was our business to see whether
investigation upon the spot would confirm the conclusion to which
they pointed. There was enough discovered so to confirm it, though the
Old Road at this point has disappeared in several places under the
plough.
The course of our discovery will be best followed with the aid of this
rough map, whereon are sketched the contour-lines, the trace of the
Old Road, and the watershed.
About half a mile from the 'Anchor' at the end of the avenue of trees
which here dignifies the turnpike and just after the cross-roads,[16]
in a meadow which lay to the right of the road, my companion noticed
an embankment, perfectly straight, slightly diverging southward from
the main road as the line we were seeking should diverge, and (as we
found by standing upon it and taking its direction) pointing directly
at the saddle of the watershed. Whether it was continued through the
garden of the Chequers Inn (a very few yards) I would not trespass to
inquire: in the three fields beyond, it had entirely disappeared.[17]
After this gap, however, there is a boundary, with an old hedge
running along it and a path or cartway of a sort.[18] These carry us
exactly the same direction down a short slope, across a lane called
Cow Lane, and on to the Manor Farm at North Street. During this
stretch of a mile there was nothing more to guide us. The division
between fields and properties very often follows the line of some
common way: one could not say more.
But the significant fact which, as we believe, permitted us to bridge
the gap was this: that the embankment we had first discovered, and the
hedge and path (which proceeded in the same line after the loss of the
road over the two fields) each pointed directly towards the lane
(Brisland Lane) which we entered close to the Manor Farm,[19] which
presented, as we found, such marks of antiquity, which takes the hill
steeply, and which, on the plateau above, continues to aim straight at
the saddle of the watershed.
It is difficult to express in a written description the sentiment of
conviction which the actual view of such an alignment conveyed. When
we had followed the lane up the steep hill and stood by Brisland
farmhouse, looking back from that height we could see the lane we had
been following, the hedge, the corner of the garden of the 'Chequers,'
the embankment beyond, all in one, stretched out like parti-coloured
sections of one string, and the two gaps did but emphasise the
exactitude of the line.
Turning again in the direction which we were to follow, the evidence
of ancient usage grew clearer.
We were upon one of those abandoned grassy roads, which are found here
and there in all parts of England; it ran clear away before us for a
couple of miles.
It was very broad--twenty yards perhaps. The hedges stood upon either
side, guarding land that had been no man's land since public
protection first secured the rude communications of the country. No
one who had seen portions of the Icknield Way upon the Chilterns, or
of this same Old Road where it has decayed upon the Kentish hills,
could doubt the nature of what we saw. Long fallen into disuse, it had
yet escaped the marauding landlords during three centuries of
encroachment. They had not even narrowed it. So much of its common
character remained: it was treeless, wide, and the most of it
neglected; never metalled during all the one hundred and fifty years
which have transformed English highways. It was the most desolate, as
it was the most convincing, fragment of the Old Road we had set out to
find.
It had an abominable surface; we had to pick our way from one dry
place to another over the enormous ruts which recent carts had made.
For generations the lane had been untenanted; but there is a place
where, in the last few years, an extraordinary little town of
bungalows and wooden cottages had arisen upon either side of the
lane.
Not satisfied with the map, we asked of a man who was carrying milk
what local name was given to this venerable street. He told us that
the part in which we were walking was called Blackberry Lane, but that
it had various names at different parts: and as he could tell us
nothing more, we left him.
At the very summit this way joined a modern, well-made lane, called
Farringdon Lane, turned to the left and north, and immediately fell
into the main London road, which had been climbing from the valley
below and was here at the thirteenth milestone. The Old Road,
suffering no deviation, plunged into a wood, and reappeared just at
the summit of the pass, perhaps a quarter of a mile further. It is the
point where the Ordnance map marks a height of 683 feet, and where one
finally leaves the valley of the Itchen to enter that of the Wey.
The complexity of this corner is best understood in the sketch-map on
the following page.
At the point where the Old Road leaves the wood, it merges again into
the London turnpike, which turns its direction (as the map shows) so
as to correspond with the direction of the Old Road. This identity
between the prehistoric and the modern is maintained nearly as far as
Alton, and, if we except a short gap before that town, the coincidence
of the Old Road and some existing highway may be said to continue
right on to Puttenham, a distance of seventeen miles.
[Illustration]
The valley which now opened eastward under the dull morning light
reminded me of one of those noble dales which diversify the long slope
of the Chiltern Hills. Like them it had the round sweep of the Chalk;
beeches, the trees of the Chalk, adorned it; its direction was the
same, its dryness, its neat turf; but it lacked the distant horizons.
For two miles the road, magnificent in surface and in breadth, one of
the finest in England, followed the bottom of the valley, falling in
that distance some 300 feet; and in all this part it was most
evidently the oldest of ways across these hills. There could be
repeated of it what has been said above with regard to the road
between Bishop Sutton and Ropley, and what will appear further on in
the valley of the Wey: that any track, ancient or modern, was bound to
follow the same course. For the dry and porous soil permitted a
journey even under the earliest conditions along the lowest points,
and, so permitted, such a journey had the advantage of descending by
the easiest gradient. Had it taken to the hillside it would have
fallen at last upon Alton by way of a steep spur. Moreover, the bottom
of the valley is here constant in direction, not curving as we had
found it on the far side of the watershed, and this direction deviates
little from the straight line to Alton.
These characters do not attach to the London turnpike after the
fifteenth milestone is passed; it turns somewhat sharply to the right
(or southward) and falls by a corner into the road from the Meon
valley at the entry of Chawton village. Such a course one may be
certain was not followed by the Old Road. It could not but have
preserved the alignment which the valley had already given it, and
which corresponds, moreover, with the High Street of Alton itself. For
these seven furlongs there can be no doubt that it continued straight
along the dip of the valley, and entered Alton on the northern
side[20] of the triangular common called 'The Butts,' by which one
approaches the town from the south-west.
We were unable to prove this by direct examination; the main line of
railway has here obliterated much by an embankment, and to this has
been added all the new work of the Meon valley line, and the junction.
The ground has therefore lost all its original character, and its
oldest marks have disappeared. We made no attempt to follow the
direct path for this short mile. We descended the high-road round by
Chawton to Alton, and the first division of our task, the division in
which a greater proportion of uncertainty would exist than in any
other, was accomplished.
Comforted by such a thought, we drank mild ale at the 'Three Tuns' for
about half an hour.