238
THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
by traffic in ancient times, but has been greatly increased in
recent times by deliberate widening of these roads, in order to
improve the approaches to the town.
It is not, however, of these roads as a whole that I wish to
speak, but of three only of them—those coming, respectively,
from Hadstock on the north, from Debden on the south-east,
and from Newport on the south. These three roads differ from
the others mentioned and from any others I know of as now
existing in Essex. Though I have spoken of them as roads,
they are, in fact, not roads, but trackways. They descend
towards the town by gently-sloping hill-sides, into which they
are cut to a depth of from ten to twenty feet. Unlike sunken
roads (which have usually more-or-less perpendicular sides),
these trackways have sides which slope steeply clown to a bottom
so narrow that it can never have served as a road-way in the
ordinary sense—that is, as a passage-way for wheeled vehicles.
The bottom of each of these track-ways is, in fact, in most
places, no more than just wide enough to serve as a foot-way
for horse or man, while the sides of each slope, in some places,
so steeply that the track-way is ditch-like in section—far wider,
that is, at the top than at the bottom. In the case of each of
them a modern road-way has been constructed, for a greater
or lesser distance, by the side of the ancient track-way. One can
only conclude that the peculiar features of these three track-ways
is a result of their use for pack-horse traffic in ancient times.
Doubtless, the other four roads mentioned as leading into the
town were similar before they were widened. That there was
pack-horse traffic in other parts of Essex where no such track-
ways now exist is, of course, certain ; but elsewhere, apparently,
the local geological conditions, combined with the lie of the
land, were not such as to favour the formation of these deep,
narrow, ditch-like track-ways ; or, if such were ever formed,
they have been converted, in more-or-less recent times, into
ordinary sunken road-ways.
Taking each of these three track-ways separately, they may
be described as follows5 :—
(1) The Hadstock Road.—The traveller coming from Hadstock
5 None of them is mentioned in the Essex Reports of the Royal Comm. on Hist. Monuments,
being regarded, apparently, as not "Historical Monuments" within the meaning of the Act,
though other kinds of earthworks are described. Moreover, even the large-scale maps of the
Ordnance Survey scarcely give a hint of the existence of these sunken trackways.