Monday, 2 September 2019

Traitor’s Ford, Warwickshire




Traitor’s Ford is a ford across the nascent River Stour in Warwickshire which eventually joins the Avon near Stratford on Avon. The water today trickles peacefully over a modern concrete crossing but the shallow and stony crossing has been in use for millennia.
The intriguing name is not entirely explained. Local legend states that here were hanged rebel soldiers during the Civil War in the 17th century, but this is probably a recent invention. An antiquarian wrote in 1908 that he could find no local explanation or story for the name at all. More likely it is a corruption of ‘Trader’s Ford’.


           The ancient, sunken routeway


The ford was the crossing point of an ancient trackway, now partly a minor road and partly a footpath, known for some of its length as Ditchedge Lane. This ditch marks the boundary between Warwickshire and Oxfordshire, an indication of its antiquity. The routeway was a trader’s route following the high ground in a near perfectly straight line towards the north and south, linking sites such as the Rollright Stones, Edgehill and the Burton Dassett Hills, all places which have a wealth of folklore and history surrounding them. These routeways were well-used by traders and cattle drovers by the Bronze Age, and are perhaps much more ancient still.


                 Ditchedge Lane

It certainly feels like an ancient and powerful routeway, sunken deep from millennia of feet and hooves, and the entirely untouched woodland in the swampy Stour valley is exactly how the ancient travellers would have known it. It feels like a small part of the past reaching out to touch the present.


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