Maps

Roads, tracks and paths have appeared on maps for centuries. One of the early maps was published in 1773 by John Andrews, a geographer, surveyor, engraver and map seller, and Andrew Dury a publisher and bookseller. A copy of this beautifully drawn map is held in the County Record Office at Trowbridge and is well worth looking at, showing as it does so many of the tracks that are still evident today. Some, of course, have evolved into roads. Later maps continue the story, for example those accompanying the Fovant Enclosure Award in 1785. With the coming of the Ordnance Survey, maps were based on carefully measured baselines and accurate triangulation, but, as a glance at their successors today will prove, they are no less works of art than their predecessors. An example of the care taken in producing these maps is evident from a first edition (1817) of our area that shows the original baseline from Beacon Hill, near Amesbury, to Old Sarum being measured, in feet, to an accuracy of four places of decimals. The end of the baseline at Old Sarum was marked until recently on O.S. maps as "Gun, End of Base" a phrase which puzzled me for years before I went and looked at it and found that there was indeed the barrel of a gun buried vertically in the ground. The spot is now marked by a commemorative stone and the mysterious phrase has been replaced on the 1999 map with the more prosaic "Mon". Where has historical romance gone?

Until the 1950s the phrase "The representation on this Map of a Road, Track or Footpath, is no evidence of the existence of a right of way." was tucked away, in very small print, in one corner of each Ordnance Survey map. However, in 1947 a Special Committee on Footpaths and Access to the Countryside recommended that all public rights of way should be surveyed and recorded on maps. Recommendation was one thing, achievement was quite another and government proposals for the completion of this task are still under way, more than fifty years later. However, it did enable Ordnance Survey to amend their proviso and current maps now bear the legend, in bolder print, "The representation on this map of any other road, track or path, is no evidence of the existence of a right of way." A warning to users is also printed to the effect that rights of way are liable to change and may not be clearly defined on the ground.

What about the history of these paths. As usual, I turn to the late Dr. Clay on these matters ¹ . He considered that Green Drove (BW 17) was very ancient, writing " … in this district the prehistoric roads all ran north and south. Green Drove is probably an extension of Sigewine's Dyke, which descends the downs to the east of Chiselbury and curves westwards at the foot of the hill". Certainly, Sigewine's Dyke is mentioned in an Anglo-Saxon charter of A.D. 901, the one by which King Edward the Elder gave Fovant to a nobleman of King Alfred's court.

That charter also mentions BR 18 as it describes one of the boundaries of Fovant "Thaet swa uest on Here Pathe anlang Hrygges" or "Then so west on the Highway along the ridge". The Herepath is variously described as a military or army path – a road along which several mounted men could ride abreast. Later this became a turnpike road, indeed according to one source it was the first turnpike in England. In a map of Cranborne Chase, drawn in 1618, a gate is shown across the road opposite the south-western corner of Chiselbury Camp. In Dr. Clay's day there was a small grass covered rectangular excavation that was the site of the turnpike house, but I haven't been able to find it today. Still evident though are banks and ditches which were erected to prevent travellers from nipping across the slope and evading payment of the tolls. A bit difficult with a coach and horses though, I would have thought.

The Enclosure Awards in 1787 mentioned several of the existing paths and, as many villagers will be aware, have been used in the recent past to challenge the status of some of our paths. BW 13 and BR 14 were reclassified in 1997 after a Public Enquiry was held in the village. Others mentioned in the Enclosure Awards were BW 8, part of FP 11, FP12, part of BW 17 and BR 18, and also the roads which are now the A30 and Dean Lane. BW 8 was known as the Limbway and that continued up over the hill as the present road to Fifield Bavant. Most of the others noted are no longer visible.

Dr. Clay mentioned other paths, some of which still exist, such as FP 2 to Teffont Mill, part of which was called Leatler Lane and FP 15 (Hole Lane). Others are no longer rights of way and some are not even apparent on the ground. They include Nightingale Lane that now forms part of the private road to the sewage plant, Middle Hill Drove that went into Fovant Wood from halfway down Catherine Ford Hill, and Wood Lane which ran in a westerly direction from the foot of that hill. There was also Tanner's Lane that went eastwards from Green Drove and Mansion Lane from Turnbridge to the top of Mary Barter's Lane. The latter was made at some time between 1773 and 1787.

Page last updated: 9 October 2002