185 
On Lindley Moor, the commissioners in trust of the road 
from Outlane to Rastrick, have formed their turnpike by 
the side of the great military way from Eboracum to 
Mancunium, in order, as it would seem, to avoid the trouble 
and expense of levelling what remained of the ridge, or of 
restoring what has been lost, at this point, of the second iter 
of Antonine. But at another place, as on the north west 
Watling-street, * a road which does not appear to have been 
raised above the ground anywhere on its passage through 
this parish, but rather sunk into it, the trustees have changed 
its direction; and, in the fields adjoining, the line, which 
had been worn hollow by the traffic of ages, or deepened and 
narrowed by natural agencies, may still be seen of a lighter 
tint than the surrounding vegetation, and still retaining to 
some extent the depression of the original course. In addition 
to all this, the obstacles thrown in the way of our inquiry by 
the General Enclosure Act,f which provides that every kind of 
road, "not set out" by the commissioners, is declared to be 
extinguished ; and the spirit of improvement, which in these 
days animates society at large, but more especially that of 
the manufacturing districts, would seem to render hopeless 
the satisfactory elucidation of a subject invested with so 
much interest. It is true, that in the out-townships of 
our parish, on their unreclaimed moors, their lofty eleva- 
tions, and in their secluded valleys, much still remains to 
encourage the inquiry. But the society will allow me to 
express my regret, on account of the difficulty which attends 
it now, that so much which might have been well and effec- 
tually done by abler hands than mine a century ago, has to 
be taken up and investigated at the present date, under the 
accumulated drawbacks I have enumerated. Then, as so 
little aid is to be derived from those local channels of 
information, to which I would gladly have referred, it 
* The Ilkley iter. + Geo. 3, c. 102, 
