Celtic road and place names

The Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire  have now made freely available on their website, transactions from their journals from 1848 to 1999.  These are fully searchable by keyword, and are a rich source of detail about local history subjects, written by eminent scholars.

http://www.hslc.org.uk/

One particularly interesting article which stood out whilst browsing was "Cheshire in the Dark Ages" by Dorothy Sylvester, published in 1962.   She mapped out occurrences of Celtic place name elements to see if it was possible to trace pre-Roman trackways, to question  how influential the pre-Roman Celtic settlement was on the geography of the Roman occupation. 
Did the Romans pave some of the existing tradeways and link roads between Celtic settlements, or merely follow their general direction but cut a straighter route to avoid the hamlets, something which the author thought more likely?
Roads and trackways can be very difficult to date, so place name evidence can be used as supplementary evidence.  For the purposes of this study, she looked at place name elements indicating roads, principally strata (Roman), ford (English) and heol (Welsh) , as well as the Anglo-Saxon term burh, meaning 'fortified place ' to see if this threw up any patterns.

Between Nantwich and Hale she highlights a series of ford and possible heol names: between Nantwich and Middlewich there is Old Hoolgrave, and Cledford.  On current and earlier editions of Ordnance survey maps, a roman road is marked in this general direction, but there is no sign of it on tithe maps, so it is unsure where this information came from. North of Middlewich she cites Allostock and Knutsford by way of Lower Peover, on the current B5081.  Could this possibly be a  Roman Road heading for Manchester?

She also points out a striking line of possible Celtic road and place-names leading from Holford, east of Northwich, which in itself is a significant combination of the two words heol and ford . This runs east to Knutsford, Crosstown, Warford, Mottram, Prestbury, over to Saltersford, which she thinks can be interpreted as a saltway.
As a possible southerly divergent form Holford she links together the Peover villages, Chelford, Henbury, via Macclesfield it then continues to Eddisbury Hill and then on to Buxton., which had previously been marked as a possible Roman road.

It would be interesting to closely examine extant road and footpath networks to see if anything can be seen to back these claims up!

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog!

Here you will find my thoughts on the historical landscape and character of Cheshire.

Over the centuries, many communities have made their mark here, leaving behind fascinating clues as to previous land use.
Remnants of medieval field systems indicating deserted settlements, ribbons of ancient woodland and evidence of early exploitation, the geographical impact of established industries such as coal mining and salt extraction and of course a wealth of archeological remains and historic buildings provide us with tools to analyse the fascinating landscape around us.
Much has been written about some of the largest towns in the county, such as Chester, Northwich, Congleton and Macclesfield.  Rather than duplicate this, it will be my intention to concentrate on more rural communities, particularly in the east, but a particularly interesting topic may lead me further afield!
I will endeavour to reference and quote sources as much as possible; any inaccuracies in opinion or analysis beyond this are my own.  I do not own to be a professional in this area, merely an enthusisatic amateur!
Feel free to follow this blog and leave your comments!