Charterhouse/Uphill - 3 July 2018 >

Bev,Gavin,Martyn. Vince unable to come.

We decided to follow Tratman’s ‘ideas’, starting at Tynings farm and proceeded West.

1. Tynings farm.   

Tratman:’ just to the north of Tynings farm flat bottomed hollow way ‘

A footpath leads north from the farm. The pic shows about halfway up the path a pale line from left to right. When we went up the path, there was certainly a flattening of the downward slope but hardly a hollow way, and very wide. Also it pointed north of East whereas Charterhouse is south of East from here. The field to The right had some interesting faint features which we were not able to examine.

2. Proceeding along West Mendip way, to the west of the farm buildings the track level extended to the south by a flattish shelf before falling away. Eventually this shelf merged with the track and was bordered by an ever deepening gulley; this is illustrated by the picture with oblique farm gate in the foreground.

3..Where the track entered the trees we noticed a possible agger roughly parallel and a few yards to the north of the track. Where a fence crossed the supposed agger at right angles there was a clear hump to be seen on it. However we were not able to get into the field to examine it closer, which certainly needs to be done. It has to be said that there was a further hump to be seen on the fence further up the slope of the hill so perhaps both humps were simply geological features. Of course the only way to determine this would be by excavation or geophysics. We are building up quite a list of sites that need this type of determination and hopefully this can be organised soonish.

Four. We next proceeded along the west Mendip way as it proceeded obliquely down the side of a hill. This section of the supposed Road is described by Tratman as ‘ lost in the the forest ‘. The West Mendip way certainly follows Tratman’s general line but the Way was established nearly 20 years after Tratman’s investigations. It is by no means certain that the Way consciously followed a proposed line of the road. The path is well metalled but this may simply be the construction of the Way. The road may well be to one side or the other of the track but the vegetation is so dense that only lidar could find a solution.

We proceeded along the track for about 100 yards or so. Then we returned and this was all we could manage today.

Tratman’s course , When explored on the ground, is a good deal less clear then might have been hoped!