XI The Fringe of the Road 



WHERE roads and lanes must be widened for modern 

 traffic, there is a risk of obliterating many a curious 

 testimony of the past. The broad grassy fringes 

 which often border the old main roads have in many 

 cases grown up since the disappearance of the coaches 

 and stage- waggons. With the reduction of road- 

 borne traffic which followed the development of 

 the railway system, it became unnecessary to keep 

 up so wide a metalled thoroughfare ; and as soon 

 as men ceased to scarify and beat the surface, 

 nature covered it once more with her unfailing 

 mantle of turf. But the green fringes of many of 

 the high-roads, and of nearly all the country lanes, 

 are probably much older than the coaches, and date 

 from the days before the enclosure of farm lands 

 became general. When the first hedges, walls, 

 or dykes were run beside the roads and lanes to 

 divide them from the fields, they left an ample 

 margin for the vague, rough track, often running in 

 several parallel lines, as we still see in the case 

 of unmetalled cart tracks across moorlands or 

 unfenced downs. When the made road settled 

 later into a single bed it still preserved, in 

 many cases, the irregular green border beneath the 

 hedgerows which had been spread for the rougher 

 trail. 



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