Only centuries of habitation and cultivation could have changed the three feet of surface soil in Blackbanks from a stiff unworkable clay to a black friable garden mould, and it is probable that the British occupation had lasted for a very long period before the Romans took possession. The settlement must have been a place of importance, because it was approached from the north by a track, still existing though practically disused, probably British, from a ford over the Avon, near the present Fish and Anchor Inn. This track passes to the west of South Littleton, on through the middle of the Blackminster land, and immediately to the east of Blackbanks, joining what I believe to be the Ryknield Street at the bridge over the stream on the South Littleton road. Near the present Royal Oak Inn it formerly crossed the present Evesham-Bretforton road, and became what is still called Salter Street. It appears to have given access to two more sites on which Roman coins and relics are found--Foxhill about 9-1/2 acres, and Blackground about 4 acres--and passing east of the present Badsey church, proceeded through Wickhamford, and by a well-defined track to Hinton-on-the-Green, and on to Tewkesbury and Gloucester. The occurrence of the name Salter Street gives a clue to one of the original uses of the road, at any rate in Roman times, for salt was an absolute necessity in those days, as may be gathered from a passage in _The Natural History of Selborne_, written in 1778: "Three or four centuries ago, before there were any enclosures, sown grasses, field turnips, or field carrots, or hay, all the cattle which had grown fat in summer, and were not killed for winter use, were turned out soon after Michaelmas to shift as they could through the dead months; so that no fresh meat could be had in winter or spring. Hence the vast stores of salted flesh found in the larder of the elder Spencer in the days of Edward II., even so late in the spring as the 3rd of May." A note adds that the store consisted of "Six hundred bacons, eighty carcasses of beef and six hundred muttons." It is not difficult to trace the route over which the salt was carried from Droitwich. Starting thence the track can be approximately identified by the names of places in which the root, _sal_ (salt), occurs, and we find Sale Way, Salding, Sale Green, and, further south, Salford. Crossing the Worcester-Alcelster road at Radford, and proceeding through Rouse Lench and Church Lench, we reach Harvington, from whence the track takes us across the low-lying meadows to the ferry and ford over the Avon, near the Fish and Anchor Inn mentioned above.