Post by Admin on Jun 9, 2009 12:29:55 GMT
I have moved a section of Vales posting, as I think we will all be interested in it........................NOT sure, as Vale found on a good titles........BUT I am sure you will all enjoy the read. Jan 
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This is from an old school project I did. Please excuse the grammar and use of words, I am doing a straight copy type due to the hour of the day.
The Romans made roads wide enough to take a wheeled vehicle and for armies to march in an orderly manner, not in single file.
The Romans needed to move around from place to place so the roads got used.
We the natives tended to stay where we were cutting down trees to make room for our animals to graze and to build our houses, also not many people had any transport so walked.
Around here the first biggest movement came from the drovers, a typical drovers road is the one going over stairs in Oxenhope, it avoids the bogs and the road goes from wide to narrow according to the landscape.
It is believed that the track that runs from Haworth down the valley and up the other side to Oldfield is Roman, the name of the road is Street Lane, the name is also an indicator that it could be Roman.
Because of obstructions such as garages built without planning permission that were not identified in time and remain, the track is now impassable by anything other than foot.
There is a perfect example down at the river of a small ford and the later addition of a packhorse bridge. The local riding organisations have for many years tried to get the obstructions moved and the what is now classed as a footpath re instated as a bridleway.
Now back to the plot:
There is a track through Hollins. A note I made from Harry Speight Chronicles and Stories of Bingley and District in the late 19th century. Speight says he thought it an ancient track which once continued to Currer Laithe and Keighley. I would agree with him, many years ago I walked this and took with me a small trowel and in random places dug down to find stone setts, these being set about 6 feet apart, the distance needed for a wheeled vehicle. If its origins are Roman or not is hard to say, but without doubt a very old highway, and one that at one time was important enough to lay the stones. Around this area there are other tracks, some only rough stone cobbles, again the route must have been of reasonable importance to lay stone, even rough stone.
If you are able to obtain an old map you will clearly see the tracks, on a modern map they are shown as foot paths. There is evidence that some of these tracks were walled in places, the stone now having been removed for building or repairing other walls. It is some 15 years since I walked these tracks, and even then with the amount of over growth it was hard to imagine that once wheeled vehicle rattled along here, and if any of the gentry were visiting each other, and the area had ample people of note living in the area, their horse and carriages would have rumbled along these tracks. If anyone has a copy of Speight’s book I seem to remember that there was a photo of one of the tracks in there. I do not have a copy, hint hint.
Should you wish to try and spot the routes on a map, the area you are looking at is from Ireland Bridge (don’t forget on really old maps this will show as a ford) Currer Laithe Farm, now the home of author Jean Brown and down to Marley. You will see a network of tracks connecting these places and the places in between such has Hollings and Transfield, many of the places sadly now gone. Part of the circuit included a route to Myrtle Park.
The river side path from Ireland Bridge to Marley Hall now has a stile, but should you chose to walk this it takes no imagination to realise that this was once a road.
To the left is a track up Marley Brow, again a stile as been put in place. There was also a cross roads close to Alter Lane area. I did hear tell from an elderly gentleman that has a boy he would site on a way marker that was at the Cross Roads to eat his snap (pack up), he also told how his father would recall to him a story of a gentleman’s carriage that had turned over when the horse had been spooked by deer grazing amongst the shrubs, the gentleman and his lady companion covered in mud and looking like ragger muffins. The horses not stopping until they got to the ford at Beckfoot where the blacksmith there had heard the pounding of hoofs and spotting the horses galloping down the lane pulled his cart across the road as a barricade. The gentleman and his lady offered no thanks or reward for the help they received being more concerned with their appearance and that they were late.
What was once the main entrance gates to St Ives are on what is now the bridleway, this would have been the main road before the present road was built, when new gates and gate house were constructed.
Where Alter Lane comes out on the tarmac road, straight opposite is a bridleway, this again was also a main route which they would have used to get to Keighley, via Hainworth. Again there’s been suggestion that this could be Roman but so far no one as been able to substantiate that claim. Again this is yet another track where a land owner as built an obstruction to stop people passing that way that are travelling by other means than foot.
Vale
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This is from an old school project I did. Please excuse the grammar and use of words, I am doing a straight copy type due to the hour of the day.
The Romans made roads wide enough to take a wheeled vehicle and for armies to march in an orderly manner, not in single file.
The Romans needed to move around from place to place so the roads got used.
We the natives tended to stay where we were cutting down trees to make room for our animals to graze and to build our houses, also not many people had any transport so walked.
Around here the first biggest movement came from the drovers, a typical drovers road is the one going over stairs in Oxenhope, it avoids the bogs and the road goes from wide to narrow according to the landscape.
It is believed that the track that runs from Haworth down the valley and up the other side to Oldfield is Roman, the name of the road is Street Lane, the name is also an indicator that it could be Roman.
Because of obstructions such as garages built without planning permission that were not identified in time and remain, the track is now impassable by anything other than foot.
There is a perfect example down at the river of a small ford and the later addition of a packhorse bridge. The local riding organisations have for many years tried to get the obstructions moved and the what is now classed as a footpath re instated as a bridleway.
Now back to the plot:
There is a track through Hollins. A note I made from Harry Speight Chronicles and Stories of Bingley and District in the late 19th century. Speight says he thought it an ancient track which once continued to Currer Laithe and Keighley. I would agree with him, many years ago I walked this and took with me a small trowel and in random places dug down to find stone setts, these being set about 6 feet apart, the distance needed for a wheeled vehicle. If its origins are Roman or not is hard to say, but without doubt a very old highway, and one that at one time was important enough to lay the stones. Around this area there are other tracks, some only rough stone cobbles, again the route must have been of reasonable importance to lay stone, even rough stone.
If you are able to obtain an old map you will clearly see the tracks, on a modern map they are shown as foot paths. There is evidence that some of these tracks were walled in places, the stone now having been removed for building or repairing other walls. It is some 15 years since I walked these tracks, and even then with the amount of over growth it was hard to imagine that once wheeled vehicle rattled along here, and if any of the gentry were visiting each other, and the area had ample people of note living in the area, their horse and carriages would have rumbled along these tracks. If anyone has a copy of Speight’s book I seem to remember that there was a photo of one of the tracks in there. I do not have a copy, hint hint.
Should you wish to try and spot the routes on a map, the area you are looking at is from Ireland Bridge (don’t forget on really old maps this will show as a ford) Currer Laithe Farm, now the home of author Jean Brown and down to Marley. You will see a network of tracks connecting these places and the places in between such has Hollings and Transfield, many of the places sadly now gone. Part of the circuit included a route to Myrtle Park.
The river side path from Ireland Bridge to Marley Hall now has a stile, but should you chose to walk this it takes no imagination to realise that this was once a road.
To the left is a track up Marley Brow, again a stile as been put in place. There was also a cross roads close to Alter Lane area. I did hear tell from an elderly gentleman that has a boy he would site on a way marker that was at the Cross Roads to eat his snap (pack up), he also told how his father would recall to him a story of a gentleman’s carriage that had turned over when the horse had been spooked by deer grazing amongst the shrubs, the gentleman and his lady companion covered in mud and looking like ragger muffins. The horses not stopping until they got to the ford at Beckfoot where the blacksmith there had heard the pounding of hoofs and spotting the horses galloping down the lane pulled his cart across the road as a barricade. The gentleman and his lady offered no thanks or reward for the help they received being more concerned with their appearance and that they were late.
What was once the main entrance gates to St Ives are on what is now the bridleway, this would have been the main road before the present road was built, when new gates and gate house were constructed.
Where Alter Lane comes out on the tarmac road, straight opposite is a bridleway, this again was also a main route which they would have used to get to Keighley, via Hainworth. Again there’s been suggestion that this could be Roman but so far no one as been able to substantiate that claim. Again this is yet another track where a land owner as built an obstruction to stop people passing that way that are travelling by other means than foot.
Vale
