162 <>IJ> ROADS. PART ITT. 



Similar roads existed until recently in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of Birmingham, long the centre of con- 

 siderable traffic. The sandy soil was sawn through, as 

 it were, by generation after generation of human feet, 

 and by pack-horses, helped by the rains, until in some 

 places the tracks were as much as from twelve to four- 

 teen yards deep; 1 one of these, partly filled up, retain- 

 ing to this day the name of Holloway Head. In the 

 neighbourhood of London there was also a Hollow way, 

 which now gives its name to a populous metropolitan 

 parish. Hagbush Lane was another of such roads ; 

 before the formation of the Great North Road it was one 

 of the principal bridle-paths leading from London to 

 the northern parts of England, but it was so narrow as 

 barely to afford passage for more than a single horse- 

 man, and so deep that the rider's head was beneath the 

 level of the ground on either side. 



The roads of Sussex long preserved an infamous noto- 

 riety. Chancellor Cowper, when a barrister on circuit, 

 wrote to his wife in 1690, that "the Sussex ways art- 

 bad and ruinous beyond imagination. I vow 'tis me- 

 lancholy consideration that mankind will inhabit such a 

 heap of dirt for a poor livelihood. The country is a 

 sink of about fourteen miles broad, which receives all 

 the water that falls from two long ranges of hills on 

 both sides of it, and not being furnished with convenient 

 draining, is kept moist and soft by the water till the 

 middle of a dry summer, which is only able to make it 

 tolerable to ride for a short time." It was almost as 

 difficult for old persons to get to church in Sussex during 

 winter as it was in the Lincoln Fens, where they rowed 

 there in boats. Fuller saw an old lady being drawn 

 to church in her own coach by the aid of six oxen. T lie 

 Sussex roads were indeed so bad as to pass into a bye- 

 word. A contemporary writer says, that in travelling 



Button's ' History of Birmingham.' Ed. 1836, p. 21. 



