A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE 



section of our road doubtful. Surer traces occur on the moors west of 

 Wirksworth. The road is said to have been cut through near Hopton by 

 Mr. Cell in the eighteenth century. At present its visible remains begin 

 a mile and a half north of Brassington village. From this point it can 

 be followed with hardly a break for 16 miles to Buxton. Almost 

 continuous parish boundaries mark it, and sometimes modern roads run on 

 its line, and often its own raised bank may be seen in the fields which it 

 traverses. Its general direction is north-westerly. It passes a few yards 

 east of Minninglow barrow. At Pike Hall it coincides with Hedge 

 Lane. Shortly after, it leaves Arbor Low nearly a quarter of a mile to 

 the east, and runs through Benty Grange. Middle Street farm, Over 

 Street, near Hurdlow, and Street House (opposite the Duke of York Inn) 

 supply significant names. From Bull in the Thorn to the inn just named 

 it can be clearly seen in the fields, running parallel to the Ashbourne and 

 Buxton high road and a few feet west of it, and, after a divergence of 

 old and new roads to save a gradient, it can again be traced from Brierlow 

 barrow almost to Buxton cemetery, still parallel to the high road and some 

 60 or 80 yards west of it. 



The precise method of its approach to Buxton is less certain. 

 According to some observers it divided into two, and one branch ran to 

 Silverlands (p. 225), while the other turned to the west through Burbage. 

 Supposed traces of the latter have been detected in the shape of old road- 

 paving found at the corner of Lismore and Burlington roads in 1892, in 

 Macclesfield road in the same year, and near Green Lane in 1889, and 

 a low bank running from Burbage, near Green Lane, and the Golf Links 

 has been pointed out as possibly showing its line. 1 All this, however, 

 requires further investigation. At present we can only assert that it 

 must somehow have reached Buxton. 



From Buxton the course of the road is still more obscure. It is 

 generally alleged to have passed on north-westwards, crossing the Goyt 

 valley at Goyts Bridge, and winding along a road called ' The Street,' 

 and ' Embridge Causeway ' into Cheshire, to Bollington, Stockport, and 

 finally to Manchester. 2 It is at least as likely to have run more nearly 

 north along the line of the present Manchester road, but diverging from 

 it on Long Hill and keeping a direct line across the moor by White 

 Hall and Wythen Lache to Whaley Bridge. But this whole section 

 of the road is practically still undiscovered, despite the confident assertions 

 of antiquaries, and on our present evidence it is difficult to call even its 

 existence proven. Nor is the evidence any stronger for another con- 

 tinuation, which has been conjectured to lead from Buxton westwards 

 over Axe Edge by Toot hill to Kinderton or to Leek. 



It will be observed that in reality only one part of the whole road 

 is adequately attested. This is the stretch of sixteen miles from Bras- 



1 Turner, Deri. Arch. Journ. xxv. 159 : personal inspection. For the sites, see fig. 26. 



* Whitaker, Hist, of Manchester (1771), i. 232 ; letter by Watson (1782), cited by Pegge, Roads 

 through the Coritani, p. 35, and Lysons, p. ccxiii ; Watkin, Ches. p. 77 ; - s - six-inch, Derby, 

 xiv. S.E., and Cheshire xxxvii. and xxix. 



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