England -- Description and travel; Icknield Way (England); Thomas, Edward, 1878-1917
it closely resembles, except that it keeps always on the northern
slopes, instead of the southern, and commands throughout its course
views of a wide, fertile valley northward.
Until the enclosures and the metalling of roads the ruts and hoof-marks
of the Icknield Way were probably spread over a width of from a hundred
yards to a mile, according to convenience or necessity; from century
to century its course might vary even more. Thus the modern road
between Kentford and Newmarket is at several points some distance from
the Cambridge and Suffolk boundary, which is supposed to follow the
Icknield Way.
A deed already mentioned proves that the road was known in Newmarket
itself.
Beyond Newmarket the modern road is marked as the Icknield Way, but is
only a parish boundary, or rather close to one, for one mile in the
first eight, and is not authenticated by any known documents. Nor is
any parallel road in the same direction a boundary line. That it is on
an old line of road is certain from the number of tumuli which formerly
dotted the surrounding heath. It goes through three dykes, two,
eight, and thirteen miles from Newmarket, and it has been conjectured
both that the dykes defend the road and that the road was made by an
invader to pierce the dykes; one antiquary asserts that the fosse of
the Brent Ditch “has evidently been filled up to admit the road.”
From a little beyond the eighth milestone and Fleam Dyke the road is
a parish boundary, with very short interruptions between the eleventh
and twelfth, as far as the fourteenth, where it becomes the Cambridge
and Essex boundary. Turning west beyond the fifteenth, it is followed
for some distance by the county boundary, and is thrice rejoined by it,
the third time for two miles before entering Royston. By this sharp
turning to the west it avoids a Roman camp at Great Chesterford, and
passes what Camden called the “ancient little city” of Ickleton, where
in his time traces of the “Burrough banks” could plainly be seen. Near
Abbey Farm at Ickleton are the remains of a priory. Where it is again
a county boundary beyond Ickleton, near “a tumulus opened by the late
Lord Braybrooke,” it is a farm road, and continues as such in a clear
line through arable land and alongside hedges, until it joins the
main road into Royston. Here it goes over Burloes Hill, where many
indications of ancient burials have been found.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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