THE OLD DROVE ROAD AND DEAD WOMAN'S DITCH

There are some landscapes in England - and elsewhere doubtless - where the history of our ancestors stands out against the skyline so clearly you can see it any old time you choose, whether or not you know what you are seeing. Round here we can glance up at Bronze Age Round Barrows while out shopping. There they are dot . . . dot . . . dot along the South Dorset Ridgeway. Given that they are in fields as well as in wild places and were constructed some time between 2,160 and 1,600 BC how come they are still there? Wouldn't it have been convenient to farmers to plough them down rather than go round them? Some, almost of course, have vanished. But there are enough remaining that they are a commonplace sight for miles around.

Beach on the field side of the Quantock Drove road. April 19th 2015

All over the country history is simply lying around underground too and the dug-up kind tends to be widely reported because everyone likes a good pile of treasure. Gold is valuable and Viking jewellery was often well made and pretty. It's nice to dream that we can find treasure too and get rich. As for skeletons; there's something fascinating about skeletons - as long as they're old ones!

King Richard the Third was found under a car-park in Leicester in 2012 and in 2014 3,000 skeletons from the 1665 plague were found under the new ticket office for Liverpool Street Station in London. Coming back to the area generally examined in Loose and Leafy, about 50 decapitated Vikings were found in 2009 during excavations in preparation for the Weymouth relief road. It sometimes seems as if it's almost impossible to dig foundations, plough fields or make roads without turning up a Roman Pavement or a Viking hoard. (Buried Kings are harder to come by.)

And there are old roads. Roman roads maybe the most well known if only because many are still used. But those Bronze Age people had to travel around too and the Ridgeways - long hills which stretch along the country as bones do in a body - made very good routes. Once you are up there you can walk for miles without coming down; and if anything untoward is happening among the smaller hills and planes below - you'll see it. Throughout history - until the invention of lorries I suppose - these Ridgeway paths have been used for moving goods and cattle from one place to another. Drove roads.

Quantock Drove Road Beside Triscombe Stone - April 10th 2015

In April I visited the Ridgeway in the Quantock Hills of Somerset. I wasn't there long. I'll need to go back. Some of it is in bleak landscape; and some is softened by trees where, about two hundred years ago, farmers began planting beech hedges on banks to make a barrier between the Drove Road and the fields along either side of it. They are hedges no longer. They have grown into a beautiful avenue of mature trees, their exposed roots all twisted into wonderful shapes like wrought iron sculptures.

(In the same area - at Cothelston Hill - there was a dispute in February 2014 about beech roots which were threatening to mess up a Bronze Age / Norman  rabbit warren. Intra-historical conflicts of interest! I haven't yet managed to find out whether the trees were felled or not. Anyone know?)

I began at the Triscombe Stone and just as with the post about the Valley of Stones, copying the information notice there seems the quickest, most informative and least pretentious way to introduce it.

'An important feature of this location is the track running along the ridge known as the Drove Road. This track has been used for thousands of years by traders, travellers and farmers moving stock. It is also on a 'Harepath' (a Saxon army route) recorded in the 14th century as the "Alferode". In the year 878 King Alfred may have been familiar with the route during his stay nearby at Athelny, on the Somerset Levels.

'Standing a mere two and a half feet high the nearby Bronze Age monolith called Triscombe Stone indicates that the Drove Road also had a pre-historic role, the stone is protected as a scheduled ancient monument.'

When time is short, some things have to be missed. So I dipped down to Nether Stowey (where, for all that he's mostly associated with the Lake District, Colderidge wrote some of his most famous poems - like 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' and 'Kubla Khan') and popped up again in the 18th Century at Dead Woman's Ditch. (Bet you've been waiting for this bit!)

The Drove Road heading back towards Triscombe from Dead Woman's Ditch - April 10th 2015

Here we go again with a notice, this time put up for the Quantock Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

'The ditch and the bank running along the west side of this car park is a prehistoric (probably Iron Age) territorial boundary.

'Although the name appears on earlier maps, Dead Woman's Ditch is often thought to be named after the notorious and gruesome murder of 1789 when John Walford slit his wife's throat and hid the body there.

'Born in Over Stowey, Walford was a charcoal burner who spent many nights in the surrounding woods tending to his slow burning stack. Walford had been forced to marry a local girl, Jane Shorney, who was pregnant with his child. Shockingly, just 3 weeks after they were married Walford murdered her at nearby Doddington where she had been drinking. The body was soon discovered and Walford was brought to trial and sentenced to hang. His public execution was carried out at a high point just off the Coach Road (opposite) where his body was put in a gibbet (there's a picture)  and was left hanging for a year. His remains were then taken down and buried at the site still known today as Walford's Gibbet.'

What a lot of history is scrambled together in the countryside! You look up at a hill. Or you see an avenue of Beech trees. You may see a slight rise or fall in the soil. But are you seeing what's really there? Impossible! People have been digging and walking and planting for thousands and thousands of years. Never underestimate a leaf nor a blade or grass.

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Apologies for the dull light in the photos. It was a dull day April so you are seeing everything in its true light!

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Rather a lot of references but they seem better here than cluttering up the text.

Dorset Ridgeway Round Barrows - Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
Snettisham Hoard - British Museum

Snetisham Hoard - Current Archaeology

Bedale Hoard - The Northern Echo

Bedale Hoard - Dail Mail

Richard lll - The Guardian On-line

Richard lll - Wikipedia

Liverpool Street Station - Evening Standard

Liverpool Street Station - Telegraph

List of Roman Villas in England - Wikipedia

Roman Pavement in Colchester Garden - Colchester Archaeological Trust

Ridgeway Skeletons (Vikings) - BBC

Avebury - Wikipedia (Some of the stones from this ancient site were used as building materials.)
Saving the Quantock Rabbit Warren - This is the West Country News
Alfred The Great - Wilipedia
Coleridge and Nether Stowey - National Trust
Quantock Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty  (Site)
Beech Boundaries - Quantock Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
What it means to be 'Gibbeted' - Wikipedia
Prehistoric Footsteps in the Sand - YouTube video by Michael Bott. I really, really, really recommend you look at this. It's only three minutes.