Maud Heath's Causey. 255 
tract of heavy clay land, made heavier by occasional inundation 
of the North Wilts Avon which runs through it. There can 
be no doubt that to ensure safe passage for the old wives and 
their baskets across this plashy level, was a main point with the 
considerate Maud Heath. Here no doubt she had often herself 
had a battle with the mud: had lost many a fine fresh egg, - 
and disappointed many a Chippenham breakfast table, during the 
wars of the Roses. Over this her battle ground she was resolved 
to triumph, and she fas triumphed. The stone-pitched path 
that has so long borne and will yet probably so much longer bear 
her name, continues down Wick Hill, (where indeed it does not 
seem to be much wanted) through the pretty village of Tytherton, 
(surnamed from a former owner) Kellaways, then across the perilous 
flats just mentioned, over a canal and then over the Avon by bridges, 
and so through the parish of Langley Burrell, till it lands the 
Bremhill adventurer safe at the town of Chippenham. Between 
Langley Common and Chippenham, on account of insufficient 
breadth of road, or for some other reason, there was until lately 
a considerable distance without any causey; but it is now completed 
the whole way. 
Maud Heath being thus represented by so useful and enduring a 
work, might very well say, as Sir Christopher Wren is made to say 
within St. Pauls, “If you want to see my monwment—look around 
you:” and perhaps from the peculiar cireumstances of this case and 
the tradition belonging to it, it was not very likely that her name 
at all events would be forgotten, however obscure the rest of her 
history might become. Still, as the public memory is sometimes 
treacherous even towards those who have deserved more nobly of 
their country than Maud Heath, it was not an unwise precaution, 
on the part of those who took it, to set up at intervals by the way- 
side substantial mementos of the good deed and the worthy doer. 
The verses inscribed upon these memorials are not indeed amongst 
the highest efforts of the muse; but they have the merit of being 
adapted to the purpose of being easily remembered by the common 
people. 
The path is always described in the old documents relating to it, 
