
Recent Wiltshire Books, Pamphlets, and Articles. 325 
the course he gives by Maiden Bradley and East Cranmore to the Mendip 
Hills appears to have little evidence on the ground, or from parish 
boundaries. The old Ordnance map shows a piece of ridge nearly in 
the line of the ridge at Lower Pertwood, on Long Knoll, one mile south 
of Maiden Bradley. A parish boundary follows the ridge, which points 
to a barrow on the west end of the Knoll. It is six miles from the ridge 
near Lower Pertwood, and there are no traces of the road beyond.” 
“Old Sarum to Badbury. This road quitted Old Sarum on a line 
straight from the south side to the crossing of Bokerly Dyke, 10 miles 
distant. A lane called Portlane leads to a ford south of Stratford-sub- 
Castle, where the Roman road crossed the Avon near Coldharbour Farm, 
and a track and Folly Lane mark the course on in the same line to 
Bemerton, where Stukeley tells us a stony ford over the Nadder was 
still very perfect. A road up to Wilton Racecourse along which a parish 
boundary runs, follows the line, and beyond, a green track through 
ploughed land, a track across the down, and a lane, mark the course to 
near Toney Stratford, where the river Ebble was crossed. A track now 
a good deal defaced, leads on to high ground, one mile 8.8. W. of Bishop- 
stone, where a remarkable diversion from the straight line begins. The 
latter was no doubt laid out from points on the high ground intermediate 
between Old Sarum and Bokerly Dyke, but if it had been followed it 
would have crossed in the space of a mile and a half three steep-sided 
combes, 150 to 250 feet deep, separated by two spurs of similar 
height, before regaining the 500 feet level . . . The straight line 
was therefore departed from, and the road was kept on the high ground 
to the south of the combes. The ridge of the road is shown on the old 
Ordnance map for nearly the whole length of the diversion. Sir R. C. 
Hoare described it some years later as in very perfect form on the 
down, and traces stillremain. A narrow lane, and a track beside a hedge 
where the land has been ploughed up now mark the course. 
The course of the road where it resumes the same straight line as pare 
is now marked by a track along a hedgerow N.W. of Knighton Woods, 
where traces of a paving are marked on the new six-inch Ordnance map, 
and by Vernditch Woods to the down, where the embankment is very 
conspicuous, and the ditches at the side remain, including which the 
_total width is about 20 yards. A parish boundary follows the ridge here 
for a mile-and-a-half. Where the embankment is away from the modern 
road it remains almost perfect, about 54 yards wide at top, and as much 
as six or seven feet high, and where a drove way has been cut through 
it shows a coating of Tertiary gravel two feet six inches to three feet 
thick. This must have been brought some four or five miles from the 
south.” 
Winchester to Cunetioand Wanborough. “To keep on the high ground 
the Roman road, still well defined, bends westward and skirts round 
the heads of the two branches of the combe by Chute Heath and Scots 
Poor, bending round to the north and north-east until a prolongation of 
the original line is reached, more than two miles from where it was 
quitted. This remarkable bend is roughly a half-circle of one mile 
