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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