Free The Old Road by Hilaire Belloc Page B

they do come, the knowledge of this habit will lead one always to prefer the straightest of two ways of reaching the summit.
    VII. A similar tendency causes the Road to seek, as immediately as possible, when it is passing from one valley to another, the saddle of the watershed, if that watershed be high.
    Of this there is but one example in the Old Road, that near Medstead in Hampshire. It therefore affords us no particular clue in dealing with this road alone, but as we know that the same phenomenon is apparent in the remaining prehistoric tracks, and in existing trails in savage countries throughout the world, it is a valuable clue, as will be seen later in the particular instance of the saddle between the valleys of the Itchen and the Wey.
    Prepared for such a method; having well marked our maps and read what there was to read; having made certain that the exact starting-point was the site of the North Gate at Winchester, and that the first miles went along the right bank of the Itchen, we two went down from town before December ended, choosing our day to correspond exactlywith the dates of the first pilgrimage. When noon was long past, we set out from Winchester without any pack or burden to explore the hundred and twenty miles before us, not knowing what we might find, and very eager.

THE EXPLORATION OF THE ROAD

    THE EXPLORATION OF THE ROAD

    Winchester to Alton
    Eighteen miles and a half
    Winchester differs from most other towns which the Romans reorganised in that its main streets, the street north and south and the street east and west, do not divide the city into four equal quarters. The point where the two ways cross is close to the western wall, and this peculiar arrangement was probably made by the first conquerors in order to avoid an exit upon the marshy land beside the Itchen; for that river flowed just against the eastern wall of the city.
    Of the four arms of this cross, the northern, a street always given up to commerce, became, in the later Middle Ages, the Jewry. By a process at first perhaps voluntary, but later legal, the Jews wereconcentrated into one quarter, a sort of Ghetto. It is to be noticed that in nearly every case these Jewish quarters were in the very thick of a city's life, and (as in the Paris of Philippe le Bel) of far greater value than any other equal area of the city. [8] Something of the kind was present at Winchester. The whole stream of traffic which passed out from the capital to the rest of England went through the lane of the moneylenders, and we may say with certitude that the north gate, the limit of that lane, was the starting-point of the Old Road.
    The north gate has now disappeared. It lay just south of the grounds now known as North-Gate House. The deflection of the street is comparatively modern; the original exit was undoubtedly (as at Chichester andelsewhere) along the straight line of the Roman road. This passed near the site of the present house, and pointed towards the isolated tree which marks the northern edge of the garden.

    From this point it has been commonly imagined that the Old Road must havecoincided with the modern Hyde Street, and have followed this line as far as the smithy at Headbourne Worthy. Thence it has been supposed to branch off to King's Worthy.
    From the church of that village onwards through Martyrs' Worthy and Itchen Abbas no one questions but that the modern highway is identical with the Old Road; but I think the original track may be shown to have proceeded not along the modern street, but by an interior curve, following up the Monks' Walk, passing under the modern railway embankment near the arch which is just north of the Itchen bridge, and making thence straight for King's Worthy church, thus leaving Headbourne Worthy on the left, and running as the thick line runs in this sketch-map.
    The point evidently demands argument, and I will give the arguments upon one side and upon the other, so that the conclusion may recommend itself to my