History Shorts: snippets of local history

Roads cut through landscapes. They fragment wildlife habitats. They take us places. They connect neighbourhoods. Some seem like permanent fixtures but over time they've been re-aligned or blocked off or closed completely. Sometimes a hint of a road's former existence can still be found in the landscape. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland. Click on the image to go through to the wonderful side-by-side viewer on their website The road name 'Lane End' in Crowmarsh Gifford, Oxfordshire today reminds us that it once served as the junction of Broom's Lane (now Clack's Lane) with the Wallingford-Henley Road. It was removed when the A4074 road was built, with Clack's Lane finishing at the Port Way roundabout instead. From aerial views a faint trace of its former route can be glimpsed, a ghost road if you like. A whisper even remains on the ground.

"One Blake hung upon an oak in the way to Abingdon, beyond the half-way gate. This traitor betrayed three Christian kings, and would have betrayed the fourth ; upon which he was hanged, within two days after his design was discovered, upon the said oak, which is still called 'Blake's Oak.'  The wood was formerly a haunt of robbers, and here St. Edward of Abingdon was once attacked by them, but his protestations of poverty being found to be true, he was allowed to proceed unharmed."  A Handbook for Travellers in Berks, Bucks, and Oxfordshire , London: J. Murray, 1860 A very small copse named Blake's Oak exists on land north of Abingdon near to where a proposed large housing development will be built. It lies relatively close to the slightly bigger Sugnell Copse and is adjacent to the main Oxford to Abingdon road. The OS Six Inch map (1888-1913) shows what is still effectively the modern extent of both copses (though I wonder if both copses were once join