Althouse: "The Trees, The Track and The Carvings - a walk up ancient Hell Lane, Symondsbury, Dorset."

March 19, 2023

"The Trees, The Track and The Carvings - a walk up ancient Hell Lane, Symondsbury, Dorset."

Hell Lane, "the infamous smugglers pathway," is a famous "holloway," it says at Cool Places Britain: "These sunken roads date from at least 300 years ago, many going back as far as the iron age. They would have started as drovers’ roads or pilgrims’ paths, worn down by human feet, hooves of horses and cattle, and wheels of carts...."

12 comments:

gilbar said...: It would be weird living in Europe, where a 100 miles is a long way;
instead of the USA, where a 100 years is a long time; 3/19/23, 3:30 PM
Michael K said...: In Andrew Wareham's wonderful series of novels of the history of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, his main character begins the story as a boy smuggler in Dorset. The series is 12 novels and is called "A Poor Man at the Gate.; 3/19/23, 3:35 PM
Heartless Aztec said...: Reminds me of the Sunken Lane on the Antietam Civil War battlefield in Maryland.; 3/19/23, 4:07 PM
rcocean said...: Very cool. I"ve heard good things from people who have taken long-distance hikes in scotland and England. Just bring your raincoat.; 3/19/23, 4:07 PM
Ernest said...: Lot's of cool places in Britain. When we lived in Edinburgh we took holidays and on one of those we visited Avebury. It's older than Stonehenge and the day we were there we were the only people on the site. You can walk up and touch the stones there.; 3/19/23, 4:18 PM
toxdoc said...: Neat! There are parts of the Natchez Trace where you can hike the original trail. This link describes the longest stretch. https://www.nps.gov/thingstodo/potkopinu-section.htm; 3/19/23, 4:48 PM
Eva Marie said...: Michael K, I followed your link to Amazon and the first book (for Kindle) is free - if anyone else is interested.; 3/19/23, 5:59 PM
Old and slow said...: You can find arrowheads in the UK. The cool thing about them is that they are made of bronze or iron not flint. Though you can also find ancient stone tools as well. I once worked installing network cabling in an old Church building made of flint. It was simply NOT an option to drill through walls. This was back before reliable WiFi networking.; 3/19/23, 6:43 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: What, no Kilroy?; 3/19/23, 7:07 PM
Rusty said...: : "These sunken roads date from at least 300 years ago, many going back as far as the iron age."
I can just hear one of the stone movers for Stonehenge, We ain't movein' this bleedin' thing through that!" And the guy at the back of the line shout's, "That's what she said!"; 3/20/23, 10:06 AM
Robert Marshall said...: Judging from the steep rock walls, I think there was probably some excavation of this road in the past. Not all just worn that way. Very interesting carving, too. Old school graffiti. Some old trails originated as logging railroad beds, here in NE GA; wouldn't be surprised if there are some of those in England.; 3/20/23, 12:23 PM
Rusty said...: IDK, Robert. Some of those wagon trails out west are deeply rutted soft rock and that only took, what? 30 or 40 years. This trail could be the result of a thousand years of travel.; 3/20/23, 3:01 PM