Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/110

 <?hap. IV. OF MANCHESTER, 83 Tupted by a lane, the road fteals along the fourth field juft traceable from the loofened gravel and juft vifible from the lowered ridge. But in the boggy extent of the fifth the gravel becomes copious and the ridge very plain. And in the fixth it prefents a width of fix or feven yards to the eye. In the fe- venth juft petceivahle by its flight ridge, it difappears in the eighth, but is difcovered by the gravel in the ninth and along the (loping fide of the right-hand rill And in the tenth the ridge of the road is once more confpicuous, and the body of the gravel is even with the horizon. The road then croffes the lane which leads to the Med- lock and Bradford with a fair elevation, but immediately lofes it, and i9 only difcovered by the fpade in the firft field and along the left-hand edge of it. Thus paffing another field and a croft, it is cut through by one of the wafhing-pits at Richard Rothwell v s houfe, and now furnifhes a ftrong hard bottom of gravel to the ftagnant water. Qrofling the pit and paffing through the fold beyond it, the road enters the broad line of the neighbouring lane, and reaches the miry expanfe of New- ton- heath. Mounting the gentle afcent of the heath, it points direftly upon the chapel above. But obliterated for the firft hun- dred yards, it becomes very plain for the next hundred and fifty, the gravelled ridge rifing more than half a yard in height and fpreading eight or ten yards in breadth, and the brown- green colouf of the beaten track in winter being ftrongly con- trailed by the. light hue of the withering rufhes along it. For a few yards immediately on this fide of the chapel the courfe of the road is effaced, but appears to have gone dire&ly into it, and through th? whole length of the fbuthern fide, and was there difcovered upon the recent ere&ion of the prefent ftruc- ture. On the other fide of the chapel the elevation appears again, but lefs confpicuous and of a fhorter extent, the ridge being only about a quarter of a yard in height and feven or eight yards in breadth, and* /continuing only about one 'hundred yards in length*. Here the Jine of the road points vifibly through the right-hand* extremity of the, houfe which ftands upon the eaftern margin M 2 of