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Leicestershire's 'skeining' north-south prehistoric routeways
The route described in this entry is mostly due north-south. It starts at Margidunum near Bingham and ends at Great Bowden and St Mary in Arden, Market Harborough. From a Roman small town on the Fosse Way, the route crosses two Roman roads, several salt ways and ends at a pre-conversion ritual site of regional significance.As with many prehistoric routeways they were originally a 'skein' or 'braiding' of interweaving routeways. This was possible because there were no hedges and few natural obstacles. Only one or maybe two of the routes typically evolve into modern roads. This is true of this route as the more westerly of two routes became the B6047 while a more easterly route became lanes and footpaths – and has even been lost for a short distance.
There is a third 'skein' further east which I mention below. This goes through Owston, past Sauvey Castle (a Norman motte and bailey), thence south to Tugby, and on to Cranhoe (which might have been a boundary shrine). However, unlike the two 'skeins' I discuss in the rest of this web page, it does not lead to Great Bowden, instead skirting to the east of Market Harborough.
In about 42 miles this routeway passes through about two dozen places of historic interest, at least three of which were ancient meeting places. It passes close to two Iron Age hillforts, between two putative Anglo-Saxon boundary shrines, over two hills which may have been shrines also, then ending at a definite ritual site.
Two of the villages on the route have churches dedicated to St Thomas à Beckett, strongly suggesting a medieval pilgrimage route, and there was once a pilgrimage chapel – a destination in its own right – alongside the northern part of the routeway.
A preceptory for the Order of Saint Lazarus is ten miles north of the nearest leper hospital operated by the Order at Tilton on the Hill. All three of the 'skeins' of this routeway link these two locations. Google Maps suggests it would take about 3.5 hours to walk between Burton Lazars and Tilton.
Based on England topographic map.
key to the map
All these are links to the relevant sections of this page.4: St Ethelburga's chapel, Langar
11: Footpath due south to Melton Mowbray
15: Sawgate Lane and Burton Lazars preceptory
17: Burrough Hill Iron Age hillfort
20: 'The motherly bosom of High East Leicestershire'
24: Stonton Wyville and Cranoe
28: St Mary in Arden and a crossing of the Welland
1: Margidunum
The Roman small town of Margidunum is at the side of the Fosse Way (A46) halfway between Leicester and Lincoln. Ten miles towards Leicester is the small town of Vernemetum and ten miles towards Lincoln is Ad Pontem, the precursor to Newark on Trent.The location of Margidunum is known but nothing can be seen. Although close to the original A46 and the dual carriageway replacement of recent years, and also close to substantial housing developments (one named 'Romans Quarter'), the core part of Margidunum survives as three fields.
The start of the north-south routeway is now called Chapel Lane. It does not cross the market place at Bingham, but runs due south to the west.
My attempt to superimpose a 1908 sketch plan on an OpenStreetMap of 2026. I cannot guarantee accuracy!
One curiousity is the field-name 'Camberlands' or 'Cumberlands' (to the east of 'Oldwark'). This strongly suggests that Brittonic-speaking people (who called themselves 'Cymru') were living there in the early Anglo-Saxon era. Pure speculation, but they may have been the direct descendants of the Romano-British living at Margidunum.
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Autobiographical aside. Since 2022 I frequently drive along the Fosse Way from the north, through the middle of what is (wrongly) labelled 'Camp', and take the first exit off the roundabout for Chapel Lane to do my weekly shopping at Lidl (just off the bottom of this map).
sources:
Transactions of the Thoroton Society (N.B. Stukeley wrongly identified the site as Ad Pontem. This page is more reliably informative.)
Curiously, there seem to more attempts to understand the origins of the name than for any other Roman settlement. Latin marga means 'marl', or lime-rich clay – certainly a possibility. Dunum is a Celtic word, dunon, used by the Romans to mean 'fortress' or 'walled town'. So a Latin origin is plausible.
However for reasons I have not been able to discover, some historians derive 'margi-' from Celtic words, giving either 'the fort of the king's plain' or 'fort by the edge'. Both are plausible as Margidunum is on the edge of the floodplain of the River Trent.
Bearing in mind that the name Margiduno was in use by the third century (when the Antonine Iter VI was compiled), someone who has insufficient knowledge of history and phonology suggested Margidunum derives from Old English (not used until the fifth century) and the Old Scandinavian geat (not used in England until about the tenth century). At least their anachronous suggestions vaguely make sense: gemaere gaet dun 'boundary road hill' or mere gaet dun 'mere road hill'. Which is more than can be said for whoever came up with an etymology that translates as 'place where sandals go to die'. Woeful 'folk etymologies' are an amusing niche interest...
2: Toot Hill, Bingham
Overlooking Margidunum from a prominent ridge to the south is Toot Hill. The modern A52 runs across the summit. This unambiguously takes its name from Old English tut (pronounced 'toot') which means 'look-out'. The ultimate origin may be from the protective guardian Toutatis, whose name means 'tribal protector', from the Latin tutelarius, 'a guardian'. If so, then such look-outs were also shrines.
I discuss Toot Hills in a YouTube video and two free PDFs: Anglo-Saxon Leicestershire: Expanding on the exceptional available evidence and Rethinking Anglo-Saxon Shrines: a cosmological and topographical view of hohs and hlaws.
3: The 'Long Gar' at Langar
The village of Langar, just on the Nottinghamshire side of the boundary with Leicestershire, takes its name from the 'long gar'. 'What is a gar?' I hear you ask. Very interesting question indeed. After several suggestions which don't really add up, it means 'spear' or 'spear-shaped' – a metaphor for anything or anywhere 'three-sided'.Gar appears is place-names as 'gartree', especially moot sites for administrative Hundreds. There's a Gartree Hundred in Leicestershire (see below) and another in Lincolnshire. Hundredal moots often meet at three-sided locations. But there is no word in Old English which means 'three-sided' or 'triangle'. Triangle enters the English language only in the late fourteenth century. So gar 'spear-shaped' would be an excellent metaphor for such three-sided sites.
Bear in mind the use of 'delta' to refer to 'triangles', based on the shape of the Greek letter, was originally just such a metaphorical reference, as the etymology is from the Phoenician daleth, meaning 'tent door'.
I discuss gartrees in much more detail in this free PDF: Anglo-Saxon Leicestershire: Expanding on the exceptional available evidence.
Back to Langar. The 'long gar' is between two converging minor watercourses. The north-south routeway now runs just to the south of the confluence, clipping the northern tip of the gar.
The long gar is the land between the River Smite and the Stroom Dyke.
The routeway crosses the northern tip.
I have no evidence that this 'long gar' was used as a meeting place but it's location close to a county boundary suggests it could have been a seasonal meeting place. As I will describe next, at the southern end of this gar there was a medieval pilgrimage chapel, so 'something was going on', even if details were not documented.
4: St Ethelburga's chapel, Langar
The gar extends for about 1.5 miles to the south. In the south-eastern corner of the gar, close to the routeway and right beside the eastern watercourse (Stroom Dyke), was a medieval chapel dedicated to St Ethelburga. Over time her name corrupted to St Aubrey and, by scribal error, to St Ambrose.In the seventh century there were three St Ethelburgas. Presumably this church's dedicatee was the one associated with Southwell. We know Southwell Minster was re-dedicated after the Norman Conquest so her remains could have been removed ('translated') to this decidedly remote feld kirk ('field church').
The appoximate location of the chapel added to the 1884 OS map.
The location near the stream is significant. Archaeological investigations of this church reveal it is the successor to a substantial Roman building, perhaps a bath house. The very earliest churches in Nottinghamshire go back to the late seventh and early eighth centuries. They were often little more than baptistries offering conversion to christianity. Roman bath houses being repurposed as early christian baptismal chapels seems to have been fairly common, although there is no evidence to confirm (or deny) that this was the origin of St Ethelburga's.
Furthermore there are finds which suggest before the Roman buildings it was an Iron Age shrine site. This is consistent with the triangular gar being a prehistoric meeting place in a liminal location.
The chapel was a place of pilgrimage until the Reformation. Whatever relics it held clearly had a good reputation and the income sustained a resident priest. But come the Reformation and in 1538 shrines and their relics were banned by Henry VIII. No relics meant no pilgrims. Which meant no income. Which meant no clergy. And no maintenance. Sometime after 1650 it became a ruin and was later demolished. The location was then lost until 1959.
Looking across the flood plain towards the site of St Ethelburga's church. Nothing is visible above ground.
More details (and links to excavation reports) here.
5: Harby
Harby in Leicestershire should not be confused with the one in Nottinghamshire where Queen Eleanor's died in 1290, resulting in twelve Eleanor Crosses all the way to Charing Cross.In the thirteenth century the Harby to Melton section of this north-south route through the Vale was referred to as Le Ferdgate, meaning 'military road'. Such roads were also called a herepath or hereway as Old English ferd and here both mean 'army'.
Best guess is that ferdgates and herepaths were created in the ninth century.
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Another autobiographical aside. There's a herepath running right through the middle of the Neolithic henge at Avebury, from the Ridgeway to Yatesbury. For over five years I lived on the part now known as High Street.
At this point a separate ancient routeway heads off to the south-east. It goes up the scarp of the ironstone ridge to a crossroads with the Salters Way. Until 1963 this crossroads had a markstone, known as the Long Stone, and was a local meeting place. However the stone was used to replace a storm-damaged gargoyle on the south-west corner of the tower of nearby Eaton church.
The south-easterly route crosses the Melton Mowbray to Grantham road (now the A607) at Waltham on the Wolds then becomes a field track to Stonesby. What is little more than a farm track leaves Stonesby and passes north of Coston before joining the B676. This section is known as King Street Lane. (Another autobiographical aside: Do not attempt to drive along this in a two-wheel drive vehicle! I did and miraculously didn't get stuck in the mud… )
King Street Lane goes to the Roman small town at Thistleton then (via a detour around the former airfield at Cottesmore) eventually merges with Sewstern Drift and then Ermine Street (now the A1).
This route from Margidunum to Thistleton and then Ermine Street is clearly a Roman road. And the appellation 'King Street Lane' clearly indicates that it was considered to be a 'king's highway' in the Anglo-Saxon era.
6: Hose
Back to the north-south routeway running south from Harby.The village of Hose takes its name from the plural of the Old English word hoh which denotes a distinctively-shaped hillock. Old English hoh primarily means 'heel'. And hills called hoh have been described as like the heel of a giant. But you need to be aware that the giant is lying face-down.
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Just a pedantic point. Correctly the plural of hoh is hohas. But because hohas was pronounced 'hose' I'll use the plural form hohs.
The heel-like shape of a hoh.
7: Pasture Lane
But the village of Hose is not built on two hillocks. It's totally flat. So the name must have been borrowed from a distinctive landmark in the parish. Lo and behold, at the southern end of the parish there is a very prominent escarpment. And either side of the north-south routeway (here called Pasture Lane) are farm buildings and cottages.
Look south from Hose towards the ironstone escarpment.
Pasture Lane is just beyond the right of this photograph.
8: between two hohs
Looking at the oldest maps with contour lines suggests that a cluster of farm buildings were built on one of the hillocks. As more and more buildings were added then the ground has been levelled. The second hillock has not been built on. But was almost obliterated when, in 1879, the GNR and LNER dug a cutting and a tunnel for their joint railway.
The locations of the two putative hohs straddling Pasture Lane (once known as Le Ferdgate). Long Clawson and Hose railway station closed to regular passenger traffic in 1953 and was subsequently demolished.
While I cannot prove it, to me it seems probable that these two hillocks were the two hohs which gave Hose its name.
The curious thing about hohs is that most of them are found on boundaries. Sometimes it's the boundary between land and sea. More often on the boundaries of hundreds. And hundredal boundaries often evolved into county boundaries. For example, Tysoe (the place that used to have a red horse) is on the boundary between Oxfordshire and Warwickshire. Here at Hose the hohs are close to where five parishes come together (see next section). And the escarpment was almost certainly a prehistoric tribal boundary, and was the original boundary between Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire until AD 950 (see this entry for details).
I have argued elsewhere that before the conversion hohs were both landmarks and boundary shrines. Some hohs evolved into churches and then villages – in Leicestershire there's Hoton and Houghton. In total there are 37 places in Britain derived from hoh tun.
This north-south routeway also passes over Cranoe, originally the 'crane hoh' (see below) and a Galhou (see below). But most hohs just ended up as landmarks. I've provided considerable detail in a free PDF called Rethinking Anglo-Saxon Shrines and summarised it in a YouTube video.
9: Brock Hill crossroads
The farm on one of Hose's hohs is known as Brockhill Hall Farm. Continuing south and climbing to the summit of the escarpment we arrive at Brock Hill.
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Linguistic detour. Brock is 'Celtic' (Brittonic) for 'badger'. For reasons unknown Anglo-Saxons opted to adopt the local word rather than use the Old High German word dahs (which in the eleventh century becomes dachs, as in 'dachshund').
Looking north-east from Brock Hill crossroads.
The north-south routeway forms a crossroads with the approximately east-west Salters Way, a known Roman road (Margery 58a) that probably originated as a Neolithic transhumance route from the Fens to higher ground such as the Leicestershire Wolds and Charnwood Forest.
More about saltways in this YouTube video and also in this LAHS blog: Salt ways in Leicestershire.
How five parishes 'met' at Brock Hill crossroads in 1884. The dashed line is my suggestion for an older arrangement when all five parishes came together.
The intersection of the north-south routeway with the Salters Way is itself significant. But there's something at least as significant. At one time five parishes came to a common point: Harby, Hose, Goadby Marwood, Holwell and Long Clawson. At sometime the eastern parish, Goadby Marwood, moved one field to the east, so now only four parishes meet exactly at Brock Hill crossroads.
There are other examples of parishes coming together like slices of a pie. The Salters Way continues south-west. Where it crosses the Fosse Way is the meeting place of eight parishes. This central place within the Leicestershire Wolds is now known as Six Hills, which is a corruption of Seggs Hill ('the hill where sedges grow'). Close to this central point of the Wolds was the meeting place of Goscote Hundred (the hundred which met at a goose shelter – presumably an impressive goose shelter, just maybe created from a Roman sepulchre).
Six Hills and the surrounding parishes making up the Leicestershire Wolds.
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The Roman small town of Vernemetum is at the northern edge of this wheel-like arrangement. Vernemetum means 'Very Sacred Grove'. Plausibly the grove occupied the whole of these eight parishes, with Six Hills forming the central place. It would have remained as a regionally-important pre-conversion ritual site until the death of Penda in 656.
More about Six Hill and Penda in Anglo-Saxon Leicestershire: Expanding on the exceptional available evidence, The Especially Sacred Grove: Six Hills and Vernemetum and Penda – the last guardian of the Great Sacred Grove.
Map after Harold Fox, 1989, 'People of the Wolds in English settlement history' in The Rural Settlements of Medieval England, Michael Aston, David Austin and Christopher Dyer (eds), Blackwell.
I'd be very surprised if Brock Hill was not also once an administrative meeting place. But, other than the self-evident need to sort out upland grazing rights shared between the five parishes, I've not discovered any other clues as to why this might have been a meeting place. The location on an escarpment would 'go with' prehistoric seasonal gatherings. But I have no proof!
Intercommoning of heathland and woodland along steep slopes was typical in Anglo-Saxon England. Clearly there needed to be agreement not to over-graze. But academics have picked up evidence that it was also important not to under-graze as this would allow unwanted plants and trees to proliferate. Frequent – possibly monthly – meetings were needed to manage the grazing.
10: Goadby Marwood
The Salters Way continues eastward towards Goadby Marwood. The Iron Age ironworking site and subsequent Roman small town was just under three miles from Brock Hill.Just beyond the site of the Roman town the Salters Way forms a crossroads with a different north-south route. In the north-east quadrant of the crossroads is White Lodge. Place-names with 'white' in them are especially common on saltways and were presumably once places where salt could be bought.
11: Footpath due south to Melton Mowbray
Looking south from Brock Hill crossroads. This part of the routeway is now a footpath. It is also the parish boundary between Long Clawson and Hose, suggesting a pre-medieval origin.
Standing on top of Brook Hill the road configuration does not look like a crossroads. This is because the routeway continues south as a footpath for just over two miles. To the east of Holwell there is now a short dogleg before continuing as a footpath running due south.
12: Great Framlands moot site
Two miles north of Melton Mowbray town centre this footpath runs through a field called Great Framlands. This was the meeting place for Framland Hundred (now the Borough of Melton).
The 1884 OS map with Great Framland shaded pink and part of the north-south trackway (now a footpath, but once part of Le Ferdgate).
Looking east at the three-lanes-end at Scalford Gorse, to the north of Great Framlands. A red dot on the map above shows the location from where this photograph was taken.
Scalford Road forms the parish boundary between Scalford and Holwell parishes, suggesting a pre-medieval origin. back to main map
13: Crossing Melton Mowbray
The routeway continues south as a footpath until it is blocked by modern housing developments. However several of the cul de sacs respect the line of the routeway.
Instead the route into Melton is slightly to the east, the road now known as Scalford Road.
And surviving lanes form a third 'skein' from Brock Hill to Scalford, then towards Thorpe Arnold and along Lagg Lane to Burton Lazars where the routes converge. I have discussed elsewhere why Lagg Lane is a 'necessary' medieval north-south bypass around Melton. Sawgate Lane, discussed shortly, also functions as an east-west bypass around Melton. Such bypasses around market towns were needed by traders who were not planning on selling in that town so did not want to pay tolls simply to pass through. See this video for more details: 'Following the money' along medieval bypasses.
The construction of Norman Way in the 1980s destroyed any semblance of the historic approach to Melton town centre from the north.
The historic routeway resumes at the town centre and passes to the immediate east of the parish church in Melton then crosses the river by the Oakham road (A606) bridge.
The whole of this watercourse was known as the River Eye (from the Old English word for 'water') until about the tenth century when the part west of the Leicester Road bridge in Melton was renamed the River Wreake, the Scandinavian word for 'crooked'. There are two bridges across the Eye/Wreake in Melton and both seem to be successors to fords.
The location of Melton's church right where this north-south routeway crosses the river is not accidental. Seemingly the very earliest church along the River Eye was downstream, probably Kirby Bellars. Such sixth and seventh century churches were founded at a time when waterborne transport was far more important than overland travel. However within a hundred years or so roads began to be used again. Presumably this was because the clergy were more accustomed to overland travel. After all some of them would have travelled across Europe to Rome, and returned. The church also had the funds to pay for the restoration of Roman roads and other traditional routeways.
Melton Mowbray church is where the north-south routeway crosses the River Eye (later renamed the Wreake). An earlier church seems to have been created at Kirby Bellars. A large Anglo-Saxon settlement, predating Melton, was excavated at Eye Kettleby. Perhaps coincidentally it was on top of a Bronze Age ritual site.
Note that this map was prepared before the construction of Pork Pie Way, a bypass around the east of Melton.
As a result several new churches were founded where the watercourse was forded by such a routeway. Melton Mowbray is an excellent example. I have also discussed Malmsbury, Wiltshire, in this free PDF: Minsters and Valleys. A summary is in this YouTube video: Why Melton Mowbray needed to called 'middle town'
14: the route bifurcates
Just to the south of the river the routeway turns south-west and rises up Ankle Hill. At the top of this hill the route bifurcates. The western route is now the B6047. The eastern route is called Sandy Lane and heads towards due south towards Burrough Hill.Most prehistoric routeways were originally a 'skein' or 'braid' of interweaving routeways because there were no hedges and few natural obstacles. Typically only one of the routes evolved into modern roads, as is the case with the B6047, with the others usually becoming minor lanes and footpaths, sometimes with breaks (as with Noseley, see below).
15: Sawgate Lane and Burton Lazars preceptory
Half a mile south of this bifurcation, at the southern extent of Melton's housing estates, runs an east-west saltway known as Sawgate Lane. This runs east to Thistleton and west towards the Fosse Way. Both north-south routeways cross Sawgate Lane.
Looking east along Sawgate Lane (here known as Kirby Lane).
Sandy Lane runs north-south immediately behind where I was standing.
The sign for Holygate Farm.
'Sawgate' is a corruption of 'saw gate'. 'Saw' is a contraction of 'salt' with 'gate' here having the Scandinavian sense of a road or path. However we know it was also known as 'Holygate' because, just to the east of the north-south routeway, is Holygate Farm. Holygate indicates that the saltway was used by pilgrims, presumably heading east (for Croyland Abbey or Walsingham) or west (for Leicester Abbey).
The more easterly route, Sandy Lane, goes due south, close to the site of a major medieval preceptory at Burton Lazars.
The site at Burton Lazars is often described as a leper hospital, but it wasn't. The work of David Marcombe established that it was instead the principal house (or preceptory) of the Order of the Knights of St Lazarus. The Order's hospital was near Tilton on the Hill, further south along this routeway.
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See this blog and also David Marcombe, 'The Collegiate Church of Burton Lazars', Acta Historiae Sancti Lazari Ordinis, 2022, 5:30–54 and David Marcombe, Leper Knights: The Order of St Lazarus of Jerusalem in England, c.1150–1544 (Boydell 2003).
The location of this preceptory on this north-south routeway where it passes over a prominent ridge is about three miles north of the scarp slope leading up to Burrough on the Hill Iron Age hillfort (see below). There is a possibility that this location for the preceptory was chosen because the site had previously been of importance – just possibly as far back as the Iron Age. Rather limited archaeological 'assessments' of the preceptory site have resulted in references to 'evidence for prehistoric activity' but published accounts provide no details of what this evidence might be. Presumably worked flint and/or pottery fragments.
16: Gartree Hill
This easterly route then passes over the summit of Gartree Hill. However it's not really a 'gar tree'. The name is a corruption of 'Gallow Tree Hill', as it was described in 1750.
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Source: Barrie Cox The Place-Names of Leicestershire: Part Two Framland Hundred (EPNS 2002) p78.
17: Burrough Hill Iron Age hillfort
The route bifurcates again(!) with the due south path climbing the steep escarpment up to the impressive Iron Age hillfort known as Burrough Hill.
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Yet another autobiographical aside. One summer's evening in 1986 I was staying at Burton Lazars and climbed this path as part of my first visit to the hillfort. It's steep!
But I didn't encounter any of the feral melanistic leopards ('black panthers') which, according to local farmers, seem to be breeding around Burrough Hill – at least around 2000 to 2005. See Mystery Big Cats by Merrily Harpur.
Looking east from Burrough Hill hillfort in 1991.
All three 'skeins' of the routeway with 'nodes' at Burrough Hill hillfort and Tilton on the Hill. The most westerly is the B6047.
This bifurcation through the hillfort exits along a dead straight track to Somerby and then forms a third 'skein' passing through Owston, past Sauvey Castle (a Norman motte and bailey; shown as 17A on the map), thence south to Tugby, crossing the A47 (see below 22) and on to Cranoe (also discussed below; see 24). However, unlike the two 'skeins' I discuss in the rest of this web page, it does not converge on Great Bowden but skirts to the east of Market Harborough.
The 'middle skein' continues along what is now a minor unfenced lane to Burrough Court Farm thence to the outskirts of the hamlet of Marefield before becoming tracks heading for Tilton.
18: Thorpe Satchville
Meanwhile, now following the earlier bifurcation at Melton, this alternative route becomes the B6047 running through Great Dalby, Thorpe Satchville, Twyford and continuing to Tilton where it converges with the routes to and around Burrough Hill.Just to the north of Thorpe Satchville the B6047 crosses the curiously-named Klondyke Lane. This is a former salt way, evidenced by 'Salters Hill Farm' between the B6047 and Burrough Hill. Quite why it became named after the famous Klondike Gold Rush in Canada between 1896 and 1899 is not known to me. Other Klondike place-names in Britain refer to supposedly-remote locations.
I am fairly convinced that the B6047 is an early 'skein' as horse-drawn vehicles would need an easier route than the sometimes steep lanes around Burrough on the Hill. As a result what would become the B6047 became the busier route and helped the villages along it to develop because inns, smithies and such like would have been needed by travellers.
19: Tilton on the Hill
Both routes converge at Tilton on the Hill church but then separate. The B6047 remains to the west of the more easterly route, usually between 0.5 and 1.5 miles apart.
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Tilton is now the highest village in Leicestershire, although nearby Whatborough Hill is higher and once had a settlement on top. But that was cleared for sheep pasture in 1495. See The Deserted Village of Whatborough.
20: 'The motherly bosom of High East Leicestershire'
W.G. Hoskins, the founder of landscape archaeology, once thought Whatborough Hill and Robin a Tiptoe Hill (just over a mile to the south) were the 'motherly bosom of High East Leicestershire'. A lane running due east from Tilton runs through the 'cleavage' of this landscape 'goddess'.
The two hills which form Hoskins' 'motherly bosom'.
If you think of Tilton as being the head of this gargantuan goddess, then her legs would be the hillsides rising up either side of the upper reaches of the River Chater. The source of the Chater is near Sauvey Castle, while the land around the former Augustinian priory at Launde is akin to her thighs.
21: Billesdon Coplow
Both routes run about 1.5 miles east of Billesdon Coplow. This is thought to have once been an Iron Age hillfort, although tree planting around 1790 seems to have destroyed any obvious evidence.An alternative 'version' – based on 1880s OS maps – is that the hillfort was a little way to the east of the 1790s woodland. But that evidence too has been lost to ploughing.
The routeways skirt the eastern boundary of a ring of parishes centred on Houghton. This seems to reflect an Iron Age land unit (see Chapter 19 of Anglo-Saxon Leicestershire: Expanding on the exceptional available evidence). As Houghton is from hoh tun there is a strong possibility it was a pre-conversion Anglo-Saxon shrine. But as an Iron Age central place it would have had much more status than merely a shrine.
Both routes cross what is now the A47 from Leicester to Peterborough via Uppingham. This is a former salt way and probable prehistoric transhumance route.
22: medieval pilgrimage route
The easterly route runs south to Skeffington then Rolleston. The churches in both settlements have dedications to St Thomas à Beckett (as does Frisby on the Wreake to the west of Melton Mowbray, on yet another salt way) suggesting a medieval pilgrimage route.Where were the pilgrims going to? The nearest pilgrimage chapel is the lost chapel at Hallaton dedicated to St Morrell. This is five miles south-east of Rolleston. The site of the chapel, known as Hare Pie Bank, is where the Hallaton Hare Pie Scamble finishes and the Bottle Kicking starts each Easter Monday.
The start of the Hallaton Bottle Kicking in 1999 at Hare Pie Bank, before the remains of a medieval chapel were discovered under the feet of this annual crowd.
The chapel dedicated to St Morrell at Hare Pie Bank being excavated in 2018.
The north-south routeway also passes the chapel dedicated to St Ethelburga, as already noted.
Possibly pilgrims were also using what is now the A47 to get to major shrines at Croyland/Crowland in the Lincolnshire Fens, and Walsingham in Norfolk.
South of Rolleston the easterly 'skein' passes by Noseley Hall. However the posh parkland associated with the Hall means the routeway can no longer be followed. Minor lanes through Goadby (not to be confused with Goadby Marwood, see above) and Glooston lead towards Stonton Wyville (see below).
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The B6047 is still a pilgrimage route. Of sorts…
Well these pilgrims don't walk, or ride horses. They ride motorcycles. Anyone who uses the B6047 regularly is aware of the unusually high number of bikers. This is because the B6047 is considered one of the best motorcycle routes in the East Midlands. Google AI informed me: 'It offers an incredibly fun and varied ride, providing an excellent mix of open, fast sweepers and tighter, more technical corners, while passing through beautiful countryside with big skies and expansive farmland views.'
The section of the road north of the A47 towards Melton Mowbray is known as the 'Big Dipper' due to its rollercoaster-like sequence of blind crests, dips, and sweeping bends.
See: bestbikingroads.com
23: Gartree moot site
Both routes cross a Roman road known locally as the Gartree Road, although in the eighteenth century it became part of the fanciful 'Via Devana'. Academics call it Margary 57a. It runs from Leicester (Ratae Corieltauvorum) to Godmanchester (Durovigutum) via Medbourne. From Godmanchester it continued to Cambridge as Margary 24. However widening of the A14 has removed most of the evidence for Margary 24.The name Gartree Road is because the Gartree Hundred moot site is where the Gartree Road crosses the north-south trackway. The B6047 forms one side of the triangle ('gar') of roads. Do you need any more evidence for the B6047 having some serious historical significance?
The ringed area is where the eponymous 'gar tree' once stood. The north-south routeway, now the B6047, forms the eastern boundary of the gar. The Roman Gartree Road forms the southern boundary. A lane from Three Gates to Kibworth Harcourt (and thus the London Road, now the A6) forms the north-western boundary.
24: Stonton Wyville and Cranoe
The more easterly 'skein' is 1.5 miles to the east and heading for Stonton Wyville. Back in 2007 Time Team discovered an Anglo-Saxon hall close to Stonton, indicating that this was an estate centre.
The Time Team episode featuring the Stonton Wyville dig was first broadcast on 24 February 2008. It was a major milestone for the show because the team finally uncovered an Anglo-Saxon hall – after 15 years of searching.
Two miles to the east of Stonton is the hamlet of Cranoe, which takes its name from the hoh associated with cranes.
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The gray European crane Grus grus was formerly abundant in marshy places in Britain – and prized as food – but was extinct here through much of the twentieth century. Source
Cranoe's church is on a distinctive hillock which might have been the eponymous hoh. There are excellent views south to the Welland valley, the boundary between Leicestershire and Northamptonshire. So Cranoe was the right location for a boundary shrine.
Cranoe church in 2000.
Cranoe is on the third 'skein' of this trackway from Tugby to Welham mentioned above.
There is an old link between Stonton Wyville and Market Harborough. Both have churches dedicated to St Denis. Except Market Harborough is corrupted to St Dionysus. Apart from being the patron saint of France, St Denis is the patron saint of horse fairs on county boundaries. That fits well with Market Harborough. Stonton is approximately three miles from the nearest part of Northamptonshire, the opposite bank of the Welland to Welham. The shortest route between Stonton and Welham follows the summit of a long ridge-like hill called Langton Caudle. Very plausibly a place for medieval horse fairs and prehistoric seasonal gatherings.
25: Tur Langton and beyond
The B6047 passes through Tur Langton and crosses a locally-important east-west lane.King Richard's Well is in the middle of a field to the east of the village. There was another well, dedicated to St Ann, three-quarters of a mile to the south-east on the same spring line.
South of Tur Langton is Church Langton.
In the vestry passage of the church at Church Langton is this curious carving, thought to be Norman but possibly older. It just might depict Saint Dunstan, the patron saint of blacksmiths, as a nearby village is called Smeeton ('smith's tun').
The B6047 continues south to the junction with the Leicester to London road, now the A6. Until 1992 the A6 did not bypass Market Harborough so what is now the B6047 had been the A6 into the middle of the town.
26: Gallow Hill
Approaching Market Harborough from the south the B6047 (formerly the A6) climbs up a substantial hill. This is called Gallow Hill. But this is not a contraction of 'gallows' (even though gallows were typically situated on hill tops) but is from Galhou. Hou/hoh again suggests a possible boundary shrine; Old English galla means a 'barren or wet place'.There is a lane running east from Gallow Hill to Great Bowden.
27: Great Bowden
The easterly route heads due south from Thorpe Langton direct to Great Bowden.Great Bowden may seem like a sleepy outlier of Market Harborough. But Market Harborough didn't exist until 1203. Instead Great Bowden had been a major royal estate centre since maybe the seventh century, perhaps earlier. Some idea of its former importance is Little Bowden, on the opposite bank of the River Welland. Considering that from about the tenth century the Welland became the boundary between Leicestershire and Northamptonshire then we are looking at the remains of an Iron Age or even Bronze Age land unit which consisted of both sides of a valley. The boundaries of prehistoric land units followed watersheds, not watercourses.
Bowden is from Bucga or Bugga's don or hill. Interestingly Bucga or Bugga is a female name, one of only two villages in Leicestershire named after a woman. The other is Witherley, named after Wigthrtyth, plus Old English leah ‘woodland or woodland clearing’.
28: St Mary in Arden and a crossing of the Welland
There is real, physical evidence of Bronze Age and later ritual activity just a little way to the south. On a hilltop to the west of Market Harborough station is the ruins of St Mary in Arden church, with its huge graveyard. The oldest surviving part is a twelfth century south doorway, complete with beaked heads.
The ruins of St Mary in Arden seen from the south.
The origin of 'Arden' seems to be from Arduuina 'the place of a deity known as the high or exalted one'. Antiquarians discovered Bronze Age cremation urns, many Roman coins, and fragments of Anglo-Saxon horse harness near the church.
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Undiluted speculation: was this shrine dedicted to Bucga or Bugga?
St Mary's church went into decline after the creation of Market Harborough in the early thirteenth century and the construction of a town centre chapel (only later the parish church) of St Dionysius. This has no churchyard so burials continued at St Mary in Arden.
Dionysius is a corruption of St Denis, who is especially associated with fairs on county boundaries. We can reasonably assume that Harborough's Lent horse fair, known from the fifteenth century and, by the seventeenth century also famous for cattle and sheep, is the successor to an Iron Age seasonal gathering held, as these so often were, close to the Iron Age tribal boundary which followed the watershed between the Welland and the Nene.
Market Harborough town centre is at the crossing of the former A6 with the A4304 (running from Lutterworth to the west) and the A427 (running east to Corby). The road running south from this crossroads is the A508 to Brixworth and Northampton, thence to Watling Street and London. Although I will not discuss this further, the A508 can be considered a southern continuation of the routeway starting at Margidunum.
Immediately south of the town centre crossroads the routeway crosses the Welland. There is a bridge there now but the topography is ideal for a ford. Indeed much money has been spent in recent decades attempting, with limited success, to minimise flooding either side of the bridge.
Writing up this routeway has been a fun 'exercise'. Local history – and prehistory – is much more rewarding when researching and writing about routes rather than just specific places. I hope you enjoyed 'coming along for the ride'!
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Chronicle entries
home pagethe boundaries and rivers of the Vale
long, long ago
- prehistory in the Vale
- prehistoric boundaries in the Vale
- north-south prehistoric routeways
- Romans roads in the Vale
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long ago
- introduction to Anglo-Saxons
- place-names of the Vale
- waterborne transport around the sixth century
- Orston's early church
- Anglo-Saxon sculpture in the Vale
- why Orston lost out to Bingham and Bottesford
- what the Normans did for the Vale
- Granby's importance in 1086
- Granby's lost castle
- the Vale's watermills in 1086
- Romanesque sculpture in the Vale
- St Remigius
- why Bottesford is in Leicestershire
- the Vale in medieval times
- medieval gargoyles of the Vale
- Eastwell's chancel screen
- St Ethelburga's church
- other early saints
- Elston's old chapel
- Muston and Long Clawson
- saltways of the Vale
- the Vale's medieval tile collection
- the Vale in Tudor times
- Dissolution in the Vale
not that long ago
- the Vale in the C17th
- the 'great and the good' of the Vale
- Bottesford's effigies
- 'wicked practice and sorcerye'
- the whales on the Whalley memorial
- Car Colston's bigoted GP cum JP
- the Vale's very own regicide
- Wiverton Hall
- five rare C17th fonts in the Vale
- pinfolds and pounds in the Vale
- dovecotes in the Vale
- the Vale in the C18th
- turnpiking the Vale
- gravestones and C18th trade routes
- goodbye 'Belvoir Angels'
- C18th gravestone carvers in the Vale
- Daffy's Elixir
- the Marquess of Granby
- Stilton from the Vale
- springs and spas of the Vale
- outstanding organs in the Vale
- Grantham canal
- changes in the Vale's agriculture since 1800
- Eastwell's recusant priest house and chapel
- Colston Bassett's ruined church
seems like yesterday
- windmills in the Vale
- stained glass in the Vale
- village life in the southern Vale 1850 to 1880
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- Flintham museum
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- The Vale's railway stations
- Orston's famous architect
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- Screveton's giants
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