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 S.S.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 still remain. 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 before 

 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 5J 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 Cunetio and 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 



