[13] The balance of evidence is certainly against it. In favour of the antiquity of New Alresford we have the phrase restored applied to Bishop Lucy's market, and the three churches attached to Alresford in Domesday, and supposed to show that more than one village was attached to the manor. Against, we have the immediate presence of the artificial head of water established by the Bishop; the name, and the fact that the medieval road from Alton went not to New but to Old Alresford. Again, while there is no special mention of New Alresford in Domesday, there is mention of Sutton, close by, and a Bishop's palace stood there for some centuries.
[14] Their passage is an excellent example of the Reversion of the Pilgrimage to an ancient road. The regular road in the thirteenth century was presumably that by Chawton Wood and Bighton, mentioned by Duthie, who finds it in a charter of Henry III.'s. (This charter, it is only fair to add, was never discovered by his executors.)
[15] Thus West Street and Broad Street near Lenham, Dun Street at the edge of Eastwell, the old name for Albury (Weston Street), etc.
[16] The point where the line leaves the modern road is east of Bury Lane, just past a farm called Dean Farm. The ridge is first noticeable in the field marked 134 in the 1/2500 inch Ordnance Map for Hampshire [XLII. 7, Old Series, 1870, Ropley Parish].
[17] These fields are marked 191, 192, and 194 on 1/2500 inch Ordnance Map, Hampshire, Old Series, 1870, XLII. 8.
[18] The boundary between the fields marked 201, and 202-3 in map cited above. The track is again lost for a short distance in crossing the field marked 205.
[19] The last few yards of the alignment follow the boundary between plots marked 219 and 216 in map already quoted.
[20] Moreover, from this same point the medieval road to Old Alresford mentioned above left Alton.
[21] Though the valley is full of clay the road avoids it with remarkable success. Of the eight miles between Alton and Farnham the first three have chosen a narrow strip of good gravel, the next one and a half miles are on green-sand. At the entry to Bentley village the clay is unavoidable, but after a mile of it the road takes advantage of a patch of gravel as far as the Bull Inn. It has then to cross a quarter-mile belt of gault, but beyond this it uses a long, irregular, and narrow patch of gravel, and at the end of this, just east of the county boundary, it finds the narrow belt of sand which it keeps to all the way to Farnham. The whole is an example of how a primitive track will avoid bad soil.
[22] This field is marked 37 in the 1/2500-inch Ordnance Map for Surrey, l. xxxi.