Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/109

This page needs to be proofread.

8* THEHISTORY Book L more diftantly on the left. Then croffing the lane to Ard- wick, and pointing dire&ly through Stanley-barn on the other fide, it muft have fwept along the middle of the two next fields, have flanted along the left-hand fide of the third, and have obliquely defcended the little Hope of the fourth into Ancoats-lane. And in all this courfe, fo contiguous to the grow- ing town, the trace of it is wholly obliterated by the deep bed of artificial foil with which alL the fields are enriched. doffing the Ancoats-lane obliquely betwixt a large houfe and the refting-ftone, it is difcovered in. the firft field beyond it by a ridge of fixteen or feventeen yards in width, three quarters of a yard high in gravel and oAe quarter in marl laid upon it, and Hoping towards Shooters-brook. Upon the right and in the field but one immediately beyond the Brook, it .is evidenced by a ridgfe which is about half a yard in height and four or five in width; and the gravel, 'when the grourid is ploughed , appears powdering the fides of the furrows, In the fourth .field the ridge rifes to a greater height and expands to a greater bread th, and in the fifth returns to its former height of half a yard and its former width of five or fix. And in the fifth ami fixth clo&s the gravel ; is vgry copious, as the ridge of it is pretty plain in the feventh and ftill plainer in the .eighth. The road then relinquishes the fields for a while,, enters the right line ot Butler*s-lane, and paffes along it beyond the fign of the Fire-engine, the left-hand bank of the lane being near its commencement compofed of the gravel pf the road. At the corner of the fecond field on the right beyond the fign, the roafl once more enters the fields, and appears for the whole length of the third or Brickhill-field half a yard in height and five or fix yards in breadth, the left-hand bank of the field being formed with the plunder of the road. Croffing the lane beyond it in a confiderable ridge, it appears in the firft field with an evident elevation, extending eight or nine yards in width, and fringed with a broken line of rufhes on either fide. The ridge is vifible along a part of the fecond inclofure and very plain along the whole of the third. Inter- rupted