SOME SUNKEN TRACK-WAYS NEAR SAFFRON WALDEN. 241
seven feet high and a bottom three to four feet broad. Down
this trickles a tiny streamlet, which soon loses itself in the
flat. The southern side of the track-way, however, rises quickly
to ten or twelve feet in height. About thirty-five yards after
leaving the flat, the track-way divides, sending off on its southern
side a short branch, about thirty yards long, which ends in a
small circular enclosure surrounding a weak muddy spring—
that from which comes the trickle of water above mentioned.
The other (northerly) branch of the track-way runs straight
on up the slope, as a dry V-shaped trough, perhaps fifteen feet
wide at the top and about the same deep. On its southern
side there are various irregularly-shaped hollows and other
disturbances of the surface, which perhaps represent ancient
diggings for gravel or chalk. After running about 300 yards up
the slope, the track-way reaches (Plate XVIII, fig. 4) the edge
of a plantation, known as the "Hollow-road Plantation."7
through which it runs (Plate XVIII, fig. 5). Therein, the track-
way is at its widest and deepest ; and, though there is much
silt in its bottom, it presents quite an imposing aspect. Its
northern side is 15 feet in height; its bottom is 9 to 10 feet wide ;
its southern side is 8-9 feet in height ; and along the top of this
side run two parallel banks, five or six feet apart, and each
from two to three feet high, as shown in the accompanying
section (text fig. 6). The track-way, continuing, passes next into
a narrow extension of the plantation, running along the south
side of the modern road to Saffron Walden, which bounds
7 This plantation is marked and named on the 25-inch Ordnance Map, which gives practically
no other evidence of the existence of the "Hollow Road."