They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.
Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate,
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few.)
You will hear the beat of a horse's feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods ...
But there is no road through the woods.
The Way through the Woods by Rudyard Kipling
What exactly does the term "green lane" mean? To some it may conjure up a picture like the one described in the poem above, of a rural path, often sunken and ancient, providing a habitat for a great many varieties of flora and fauna.
To others it might refer to any roadway or track which is fair game for recreational off roading in 4 x 4 vehicles.
In fact "green lane" is somewhat of an informal umbrella term, with no legal meaning. Under Public Rights of Way law, there are four categories of public right of way:
Public footpaths, Bridleways, "Byways open to all traffic" or BOAT's, and restricted byways.
Valerie Belsey in her book "Discovering Green Lanes" also sets out various aesthetic qualities which can apply to these lanes, their inherent "greenness", due to the foliage, having a variety of surfaces, and having their own natural smells and sounds.
Green lanes often run between hedges or ditches, follow contour lines, natural ridgeways, and can sometimes when looked at as a group can help highlight a previously obscure network of ancient highways.
Examining lanes such as these can help the landscape historian investigate a pattern of land use and settlement which has been preserved in time. They may have had specific uses such as a drovers route, such as the one which runs from Bank Lane at Jenkins Chapel near Macclesfield or Lambert's Lane in Congleton.
Sunken lanes can sometimes be found leading into hillforts, such as those around Beeston.
Others may form part of a lychway or corpse road. These were a necessity in parishes which covered a wide geographical area where the dead would have to be carried from their homes to the parish church to be buried. One such example runs from Bowden Bank Farm to the then parish church for Marthall, at Peover.
Of course, the best way to discover the character of these lanes is to walk them; each one is individual and can provide clues to its origins and uses over the years better than any map.
