Hollow Ways

Using this page to gather examples of such features. Their origin is down to a variety of factors. Nevertheless, they are historically, important routeways connecting settlements right back to prehistory.  The one at Hockenhull Platts, is part of the ancient London to Holyhead route.  It was also a saltway from prehistory, as excavations at Poulton confirm. Here, VCP contained encrusted salt gathered from the mid-Cheshire surface deposits. I maintain early settlers travelled via Hockenhull to gather salt, using the ford at Aldford. In turn, Romans and subsequent cultures followed the same route. Another prehistoric farmstead close to Hockenhull (Brookhouse Farm), discovered remnants of salt distillation.

The Domesday Book records packhorses and oxen being used to transport salt from Middlewich. The Hockenhull route used a packhorse bridge ( two others were built much later) across the Platts in the medieval period. This important route saw all manner of goods moved  across Cheshire to destinations beyond, as far as Derbyshire and Yorkshire, and vie versa.

Recently, a hollow way, in Kingsley, has been studied.