England -- Description and travel; Icknield Way (England); Thomas, Edward, 1878-1917
Messrs. Woodward and Wilks, in their history of Hampshire (1861-9), are
well acquainted with the many theories of the road, and “on the whole
see most reason” for agreeing with Drayton, but also for giving the
name to the Roman road from Winchester to Cirencester and Gloucester,
or another Roman road running north-west of Basingstoke. They speak
of the allegation that in ancient deeds the road to Gloucester
is designated as Hicknel or Hicknal Way; but these have not been
identified.
C. C. Babington, in his _Ancient Cambridgeshire_ (1883), speaks of
the road as easily traced from Thetford to Kentford, and he regards
Woodward’s British way from Norwich by Wymondham and Attleborough to
Thetford as a continuation. But he has no documentary evidence, no
tradition, and no local name to support his conjectures at any point
between Norwich and Royston, except at Newmarket. He could not find
Bennet’s road from Newmarket east of the turnpike. Probably the bishop
meant the roads west of Westley Waterless, past Linnet Hall, west of
Weston Colville, West Wratting and Balsham; it is improbable that
he did more than fly over them in fancy. He is satisfied that where
the parish, and afterwards the county, boundaries coincide with the
present road from Newmarket it is the Icknield Way, especially as at
Stump Cross the county boundary follows the sudden turn out of the
main road along a little-used lane leading over the Cam to Ickleton.
From Ickleton to a point near Chrishall Grange and a tumulus--where
for a mile the lane is a county boundary--it is uncertain; but from
that point to Noon’s Folly he is content with the “nearly disused
track,” which near there again becomes a county boundary. Thus he
connects Newmarket and Royston by a road of the same character as the
well-warranted parts of the Icknield Way without any evidence but
probability.
The Rev. A. C. Yorke (_Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian
Society_, 1903) prefers the road known as Ashwell Street, which runs
for some miles nearly parallel with the supposed Icknield Way and is
most clear from Ashwell, north of Baldock, to Melbourn, north-east
of Royston. In a lucid and vigorous article he says that “there can
be no doubt” that “Ashwell Street is the original Icknield Way.” He
is willing to give up the name of one road, take away the name from
another road which has borne it since 1695, and in one place since
Henry the Third, and give it to the first which has never borne it, so
far as he knows. He thinks the so-called Icknield Way from Newmarket
to Hitchin, Roman; just as others think his Ashwell Street Roman, Mr.
F. Codrington, e.g., holding that Ashwell Street was an alternative
course, leaving the Icknield Way at Worsted Lodge and returning at
Wilbury Camp.
[Illustration: Wilbury Camp.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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