Page images
PDF
EPUB

THE WOLF IN BRITAIN.

ON page 252 of Transactions, 1894, Mr. Thomas Hutchinson read a paper on the subject of extinction of the wolf in England. In the time of Camden and Holinshed we have upon their authority the fact that all parts of Scotland abounded with wolves. Although Camden says there were not any wolves in England (Magna Britannia, Gough's edition, Vol. iii., p. 16), yet we must infer that they existed in England from the writings of Sir Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, 1606, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Kings Bench, 1613, author of The Institutes of the Laws of England, &c. In reference to the Forest Courts in the above work the following extract occurs :—

"There be many beasts of the Forest by the laws of the forests of England. The hart in summer, the hinde in winter, and all that proceed of them; the buck in summer, the doe in winter, and the proceed of them; the hare, male and female, and their proceed; the wild boar, male and female, and their proceed; and the wolf, male and female, and their proceed; the fox, male and female, and their proceed; the martin, male and female; capreolus the roe, as it appeareth before, is no beast of the forest, but it is a beast of chase."

It must be remembered that Coke, a most accurate writer, wrote in the time of Elizabeth, by whom he was made Solicitor-General in 1592, and it must be borne in mind that he employs the present tense in the above abstract.

The best work to consult on the extinction of the wolf, &c., is Harding's "Extinct British Quadropeds." He has treated the matter exhaustively.

THE KELTIC LANES OF SOUTH HEREFORDSHIRE. BY THE REV. M. G. WATKINS.

AN interesting study for dwellers in the rural districts of Herefordshire consists in tracking and mentally reconstructing its old roads. Many of these go back to the earliest historic population of the island, the Kelts. Before them the origin of these lanes is lost in remote antiquity. They are generally to be found winding along the sides of hills, with perhaps a preference for dipping into the valleys below. As for cutting a path as straight as may be over moor and moss, and running with few deviations over the tops of lofty hills, as may be seen in the case of the great Roman roads in Lancashire and the North, this was furthest from the mind of their makers. For these roads were not all at once surveyed, and then cut out; they grew from the force of circumstances. The primitive men who first trod them possessed few or no tools-perhaps did not know the metal, iron-and being in all probability but small dissociated tribes, only too glad to be left alone, did any more powerful neighbours live near them, saw no object in levelling rocks and engineering a straight road at the cost of much labour. With regard to a conquering people like the Romans, another policy suited them. It was enough for the aborigines if they and the beasts of burden (chiefly mules and small sized horses or ponies) could pass along by the loops of road which festooned as it were, the hills. The straighter the road, on the other hand, the less time was wasted by the Romans in pushing on conquest or suppressing rebellion. To the Kelts, natives of the country in general, time meant nothing. A little of this feeling still clings about the country. A Mr. Loveden, of Moreton-on-Lugg, in 1799, contributed some notes on the agriculture of the county of Hereford to be published in Arthur Young's "Annals,” and amusingly writes-"the labourers here partake in the Welch languid manner of work."*

Seven or eight of these Keltic lanes may be found near Kentchurch. One formed until quite recent years the direct road to Hereford, and has been used in the memory of man. Another runs down to a ford in the river, and maintains a right of way, passing up Garway Hill. In Monmouthshire, in the adjoining parish of Llangua, two very good examples may be seen. One is still used by pedestrians and runs from the Great House, the site of the old Benedictine Monastery, to the lower road by the Church. It is known as Tabernpwylch Lane, from an old tavern which formerly stood at the lower end by the river. This lane is in every respect a typical example of such roadways. It is deep, yews bend over it, and ferns cling to the sides. Throughout the winter a stream runs down it; its floor being formed of solid native rock. In some respects a finer example, in that it is both deeper and narrower, runs between Pentwyn Farm and Great Marlborough, in Llangua. Tabernpwylch Lane raises curious thoughts of those who used it in past centuries. First came savage races bearing rude stone

* Annals of Agriculture, Vol. 35, p. 103.

weapons, in the course of numberless generations giving way to neolithic man, and then to bronze and iron using peoples. The Romans do not seem to have entered this district. A bronze coin of theirs was found last year at Llancillo, but no traces of them exist on the right side of the Monnow. Englishmen of Mercia must have passed up and down the lane; also Saxon churls and villeins. Then came the Benedictine monks. Before 1183 A.D., Llangua Manor and Church were given to the Normandian Abbey of Lire, and a cell dependent upon it was raised at the head of the lane. It is easy to fancy the monks in their black habits passing up and down the lane, perhaps visiting their brethren at Llanthony, and returning in the summer eve as the westering sun cast their lengthening shadows before them. Every now and then a mediæval knight might come down it in armour, with a goodly band of followers, and the country folk made it the ordinary road for centuries. After the dissolution and the destruction of the Monastery, the lane must have seen something of the Civil War. Charles I. is known to have been in this district. Hawking parties would use it as a short cut. Then it settled down into the placid monotony of last century and the first half of this. Since then-strange contrast to its roughness and the character of the animals and vehicles which used it for centuries-the Great Western express trains daily rush past, in front of its exit upon the Monnow.

The Roman writers have left such fragmentary notices of Britain that I have not been able to find more allusions to the Keltic or indigenous lanes, than Cæsar's "secreti calles," which suggest lanes overhung with brushwood; and another allusion-"Omnibus viis notis semotisque."* These " semotæ viæ " might well represent the primitive lanes, running like a thread through the hills among forest and coppice-growth, branching off in some places, in others opening on moorland, and only to be discovered at the further side by people well acquainted with the country. It may easily be understood how useful hidden lanes of this kind were to poachers and outlaws in such a district as was Archenfield (in which Kentchurch is situated), and which was probably not cleared and opened up until the end of the 17th century.

[ocr errors]

The growth of these lanes seems to have been much as follows:-First, the most convenient tracks over a district were marked with large stones, put down some twenty feet from each other, as the coastguardsmen on the cliffs of South Devon still mark out the paths over the commons facing the sea. The trackways," however, to be seen on Dartmoor at the present day appear to have been boundaries rather than paths. In the course of centuries, it may have been, these stones gradually sank into the earth, and the path which resulted also cut its way lower. A little labour was then seemingly bestowed upon it-rough stones thrown out on each side and the like-to make it serve, not man only, but ponies as well, and, thanks to the constant moisture which prevailed in these ditch-like roads, vegetation began to grow along the sides. The exchange of commodities and convenience of carrying corn and firewood on rude pack-saddles upon these beasts caused the lanes to assume the width which they now present, and which they have certainly borne for ages, say, about half the width of modern roads. * Cæsar de bello Gall: "loci impediti atque silvestres," Vol. 19.

In Devonshire curious lanes are occasionally to be seen deeply cut into the ground and overhung by bushes, but only half the width of the Herefordshire Keltic lanes, in fact just wide enough for a man to pass through. These are known as "Church lanes," and probably do not date further back than Saxon or Mediæval times. To return to Herefordshire lanes, modern needs have dealt with them in three ways. New roads are often made on one side of them, and the old lanes are then left as deep ditches half choked with rubbish and vegetation, but easily tracked by the curious. One old lane thus treated at Rowlstone forms at a corner a convenient horse pond. Or, secondly, modern roadmakers have incorporated part of the lanes when it suited their needs, and at certain places left the old tracks of the lane to tell of the operation. There is a beautiful road in Surrey, running from Cold Harbour to Dorking, which has been thus treated. The old lane itself has been widened here and there into the modern road, but evident traces of the primeval lane still remain at several places on the left side. Thirdly, the lane was wholly abandoned, and traffic carried over a new road often in an entirely different route to the old lane.

One interesting feature in these old lanes, in itself vouching for their antiquity, is that on either side fringes of aboriginal greenery run along with them. Yews, and especially hollies, alders, butchers' broom, all the most ancient brushwood of the native flora may thus be seen, presenting a strong contrast to neighbouring fences which are modern and singularly free from these indigenous plants. Every here and there, too, from the depth of solid rock or pebbles seen on the side of the lane, some notion may be formed of the extreme antiquity of these lanes, where the slow tide of human life has cut its way in the course of ages, much as the rivers of the country have also deepened their channels during the same long centuries.

Kingsley, whose eye few features of a district escaped, attributes the formation of some of these lanes to human labour rather than the slow course of time, thinking that the ground was so hollowed for the purpose of concealment from enemies; and he states that he has seen many ancient roads of this kind, long disused, around the Spurs of Dartmoor. He contrasts them somewhat fancifully, in a moral point of view, with Roman roads constructed on the scientific lines prescribed by Vitruvius. "It marks strongly the difference between the two races," he says, "the difference between the Roman paved road with its established common way for all passengers, its regular stations and milestones; and the Keltic trackway, winding irresolutely along in innumerable ruts, parting to meet again, as if each savage (for they were little better), had taken his own fresh path when he found the next line of ruts too heavy for his cattle."* And then he terms the Kelt "a sneaking animal." The Kelt may have been a fickle character, but he was not cowardly, as the Romans themselves had to confess in old days when Brennus and his Gauls vanquished them at the River Allia, and then sacked Rome. Aristotle, too, tells how the Kelts would dare even the

waves.

In any case, these old lanes, undoubtedly among the most ancient * Prose Idylls, p. 171, 168-170. (Ed. 1873).

monuments of Herefordshire, will well repay careful inspection. They transport us to a distant antiquity. They are beset with interests on all sides. Their long slow growth may be paralleled with the geological formation of the mountains above them. They wind along in juxtaposition with modern improvements, as if to bring out the wide contrast between them, and to challenge investigation. These remarks are a small contribution towards the more particular study.

« PreviousContinue »