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A Sketch of the Parish of Yatesbury. 



Laines," but now yclept par excellance, " Yatesbury Lane/' which 

 stretches away due north for several miles in a direct line, and which 

 possesses more bottomless sloughs and more deep tenacious clinging 1 

 mud than you shall find in a winter day's journey elsewhere ? Not 

 however that the parish is altogether destitute of hard roads in these 

 days of improvement. You may see no less than six stoned roads 

 diverging on all sides from our village, like the six legs of an insect; 

 "this is the result of doing a little — a few yards at a time — year by 

 year, to the improvement of our roads by stoning them : but then 

 at a short distance from the village they all end in soft muddy lanes, 

 so that with the single exception of the one hard road which joins 

 the turnpike-road on the south there is no entrance or exit for wheels 

 to or from the village, 1 and we are in so effectual a cul de sac that 

 every carriage or cart which enters our village, must perforce — ex- 

 cept in very dry summers — return by the same route, there being 

 no hard thoroughfare leading through the parish in any direction. 



But Yatesbury, though behindhand in regard to roads of its own, 

 has from the earliest times of which we have any record, been 

 singularly situated in regard to its vicinity to great thoroughfares 

 through the country. Thus the famous "British Trackway" having 

 crossed the vale of Pewsey by Honey Street, ascended the downs at 

 Alton, traversed the village of Kennet and mounted Overton Hill, 

 winds along the brow of Hackpen, within sight of our village, and 

 within four miles on the east : a trackway much used by smugglers 

 in past years, who managed by this unfrequented route to convey 

 vast quantities of contraband goods from the southern coast into the 

 heart of the country ; and which, within very recent times, until 

 turnpikes were abolished, was as much traversed by drovers and 

 others, who would thus save the tolls they would go any distance to 

 avoid. Again the ee Roman Road" following a direct course from 

 Verlucio (Wans) to Cunetio (Marlborough) strikes along the side of 



1 There does however occur from time to time, some reckless driver, who re- 

 gardless of the springs of his cart, or of the strain on his horses, will plough 

 through the deep mud of our lanes in the winter ; but when he reaches the 

 village, his equipage generally presents an appearance suggestive of warning 

 rather than of encouragement to follow his example. 



