Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/182

Chip.'V. O P . 4 MjA N <C H E S T E R. 155 ther from' Coc'cium, and a third from Mancunium. The ap- proach of the the firft to Warrington is clearly marked by the name of Stretton and Stretton-chapel betwixt the third and fourth, meafure'd mile from the town. The Mancunian road muft have iffued out.qf the road from Manchefter to Blackrode about the termination of Hodge-lane, have pafled by Eccles, and have ranged through Barton to Warrington. Within the compafs eyen of the prefent century, Hodge4ane remained the one great Tpa4 to Old Tr^ffotd and to Manchefter from, this quarter of the country. And. tmtf the bridge of : Barton the Roman highway has configned the -appellation of the Streets or the Street-fields to four meadows that range fucceflively along the northern mar- gin of the Irwell, at ooce the memorial of its exiftence and the indication of its.cburftu r.The laft muft have certainly com- menc^d from> the .ftatipiX »t Blackrode, as the Roftians had cer- tainly a ft at ion at it, and as it was about the ftationary diftance of eighteen Roman miles from Warrington, and muft have courfed, I fuppofe, by Strangeways in the townfhip of Hindley '. And j juft beyond the village of Afhton and clofe to the hall of Haydock, 6a a flight deviation of the prefent road to the right, it very plainly appears/ Entering the paddock at a large afh, it continues along it aboiit fix hundred yards, and then regains the redtified line of the prefent road. Running about three hundred yards along the. edge of the paddock, it Cfofles the back-avenue to the hovL&jiind is< levelled to admit the plane of it. About three hundred yards lof tHe road are very* perfeft, and an huft- dfedrdnd fifty ;in the middle almoft as perfect. as they were ori- ginally. For thefe hundred and fifty yards the road is ftill very fairly rounded, . and has a fharp flope. of nine or ten yards oa feither. fide. from: the crown to the borders. , AH thefe roada muft have met, at the old ford, over the Merfey. There r the northern and fouthern road always met* and there was. always the way into the town from Chefhire, even to the days of our Seventh Henry and the ere&ion of the prefent bridge. And the above-mentioned Stretton, tfhich points out the courfe of i the' fouthern road near - Warringtony lies di~ X redly