20 THE ESSEX NATURALIST
for the track itself, we have found no evidence of its survival, even
as fragments, yet many footpaths and by-roads follow very closely
in its direction. In some cases, it has formed the basis of modern
rights-of-way preserving the ancient path in the heart of a modern
town.
Without a doubt the track was used by pedestrians, and not by
wheeled traffic, for it travels in a series of short straight sections
with a complete disregard for contours. This is particularly
noticeable in the Chiltern country, where it traverses a long series
of steep-sided bottoms radiating fanwise from the south-east.
Where the land is even and firm, as in west Suffolk, the track runs
remarkably direct for as much as ten miles at a stretch, but in
parts of Essex, where many low-lying river-valleys must be
crossed, it weaves between the sighting-points, yet maintains to an
extraordinary degree a constant general direction.
In reviewing the course of the track, we shall begin at the most
westerly point hitherto traced by us, at Thatcham, near Newbury,
Berkshire. We have reason to believe that the site of a Mesolithic
workshop floor discovered by Peake and Crawford, in 1920f2],lies
upon the track, for a trail of conglomerate boulders pointing to-
wards it was found in Holly Wood, according to the Geological
Survey, 1867. This trail of five stones lay some two miles north-
east of Thatcham, and pointed towards the Thames at Pang-
bourne, forming a section of the track which we consider probable
but unconfirmed. It is not until we reach Witheridge Hill, near
Stoke Row, Oxfordshire, some miles north of the Thames cross-
ing, that we meet the connected trail of trackstones leading away
across the Chiltern slopes, and passing two other Mesolithic
flint-workshop floors at Nettlebed Common and Kimble Farm
respectively [3]. Puddingstone boulders have been found at inter-
vals, for instance, at Bixbottom Farm, Warmscombe Lane, Kimble
Farm, Fingest, and Cadmore End. The eastern slopes of the Bled-
low Ridge are crossed at a point opposite Bradenham, where the
trackstone lies embedded at the foot of the south-western buttress
of the Church tower. This is the first "pagan" stone encountered,
and from it the direction follows the line of the road to Walters
Ash, passing an unusual feature on the right—an eroded valley
strewn with an outcrop of boulders of puddingstone, similar to its
sarsen counterparts found on Salisbury Plain west of Shaftesbury.
From Bradenham to Great Missenden the line of the track is
very well marked, roughly following a series of footpaths liberally
punctuated by conglomerate boulders, and rising and falling over
the steep ridges and deep bottoms, crossing Piggott Wood, Denner
Hill, and Nanfan Wood. At Great Missenden is an extraordinary
example of the persistence of the track in a modern right-of-way,
preserved as a narrow foot-tunnel under the railway, and an