2. Wergins Stone.
3. Churchyard Cross, Vowchurch (Inset, Hole in Shaft, Bitterley).
4. Churchyard Cross, Capel-y-Fin.
A knowledge of the ancient pottery in the Kiln Ground Wood at Whitney enables me to show the meaning of the numerous red banks, barns, and houses. A ley through this pottery is sighted on Newchurch Hill and passes through Redborough, Red Lay (a cottage on main road this side of Letton); the ley is then dead on two miles of the present high road as far as the Portway, and passing through the Home Farm, Garnons (where the ancient road exists), it ultimately reaches the little Red House, the old Tannery House at The Friars, Hereford; the ley goes on through Woolhope Church, but the small local potter had come to his limit and the reds cease on this road. Another ley from this pottery runs through the Red Gates and Eardisley Park.
What the “black” man carried is indicated by the name still given to the smith who works in iron. Whoever carried to or from the local forges, whether it was ore, charcoal, or iron, would be black.
The earliest trade (before metals were worked) must have been in flints, and as a man who wanted such would not have gone across Gloucestershire to the nearest chalk districts to fetch them, the flint chippers, or knappers, would come on the road to sell them. The sighting tumps called the Knap are common, and if I wanted to search for flint flakes, I should go to the base of the Knaps, their earliest market. Tin Hill, Tinker’s Hill, and Tinker’s Cross have a similar meaning.
HEREFORD TRACKWAYS.
More than a score come through Hereford. There are sighting tumps at Hogg’s Mount (Castle Green), Mouse Castle (also marked as Scots Hole), Gallows Tump (Belmont Road), Holmer Golf Links, Holmer Lane (top of old brick field), and an important one, Merryhill (in Haywood Forest), now marked as Beachwood. There also have been (now demolished) sighting tumps or points at Castle Hill, Palace Courtyard, Overbury (Aylestone Hill), The Knoll, Tupsley. And remains of one for the Castle ferry is on the line of earthwork bounding the Bishop’s Meadow.
A riverside track sighted over Hogg’s Mount and Holmer Lane Tump is illustrated in [Plate VIII].
I have found trackways through the sites of each of the ancient churches. St. John’s Street extended passes exactly through the chancel of the chapel of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem at Widemarsh. Barrol Street through the site of St. Guthlac’s. In evening light a trackway can be seen from the Castle Green terrace, running through the large elm stump in the Bishop’s Meadow to certain railings on the river bank, it runs by Vaga House, Quay Street, site of Blackfriars Church, northwards to Brimfield Church, and southwards through a moat this side of the rectory at Upper Bullingham. Other straight trackways are visible through an orchard behind Kilburn (Aylestone Hill), on this year’s show-ground near the Three Elms, through Litley orchard, and descending the meadow on the north slope of Aylestone Hill to pass by the Burcott Pool, and on to Tenbury.