Evidence of Old England.

There’s an interesting feature of the English countryside called the sunken lane. These are lanes whose road surface is substantially lower than the fields on either side, effectively forming a gorge. Received opinion as to what caused them seems unanimous. They’re said to have been created over hundreds of years by the daily practice of driving herds of pigs to the woods where they could forage for truffles. Country lanes had soft surfaces until relatively recently, and the weight of people and animals across a span of centuries caused them to sink gradually. The loss of woodland, changes in farming practices and modern tarmac road surfaces have now set this phenomenon in stone, as it were.

What I find fascinating about them is that by plotting their location, it’s easy to see which routes the mediaeval smallholders used in taking their pigs out every day. And, further, it’s possible to guess where the woodland was in those days.

We have several where I live, and the best of them is a short lane leading downhill from the main village. It’s called The Hollow, and the land surface towers up to fifteen feet above the road in places. The sides are precipitate, fit only for negotiation by the more agile animals like squirrels and badgers, and they’ve been colonised by wild plants. There is a spread of wild primroses in the lighter stretch near the top, but most of the sides are swathed in that most ubiquitous of woodland plants – wild garlic. The flowers are just starting to come out, so in a couple of weeks or so it will be awash with white.

Circumstances being conducive, I’ll take a picture and post it here.