The Wansdyke & District Forums

As I am new here and this is my subject, I will set down a little on the droving roads, for they are written on this country if you know how to read them, and most folk walk them without knowing. Before the railways, the sheep and cattle were walked to market on the hoof, hundreds of miles some of them, Wales to London, and the downs were threaded with the drove roads they used. You know them by their width, far wider than a lane needs to be, forty foot and more between the hedges, room for a flock to spread and graze as it went. The Ridgeway is the king of them, but there are dozens of lesser ones. Look for the wide verges, the wayside ponds for the watering, the names, Halfpenny Lane where they paid their toll, the inns set a day's drove apart. The trade is gone but the roads remember the sheep. I walked them as a boy with my grandfather and I have never quite stopped.

A wonderful first post, and welcome. You are quite right that the width gives them away, it is the single best clue on the ground. I would add, for the map-minded: the drove roads tend to run the high ground, the watershed, to stay out of the soft valley bottoms and away from the turnpike toll-gates down below, which is why they seem to go the long way round. A free road on the hilltop, a paying road in the valley. The drovers knew their economics. It is splendid to have someone on here who walked them in earnest.

Thank you Mr Trev, and yes, the high dry way, and free with it, that is exactly the heart of it. My grandfather called the turnpike the robbers' road and the drove the honest one. I shall enjoy this forum, I can see that already. It is good to find others who can look at a wide verge and see a thousand years of sheep going by.