An old sunken path, worn down by foot, hoof and wheel over the centuries. We call these holloways, earth remembering the tread of folk long gone. These green corridors were once the lifelines between hamlets, fields and sacred places.

The word holloway comes from Old English hol weg, literally “sunken way” or “hollow path.” Such paths were sometimes known as herepaths, military roads used by Saxon armies and the fighting ranks, now softened by time and tangled with green. For thousands of years, drovers made use of these holloways, guiding sheep and cattle along their worn, sunken tracks. Many follow ancient burial routes or run beside barrows, weaving the living and the dead together.

These are not just roads, but echoes carved in the earth, places where time pools.

This one held butterflies in the heat. A stillness. As if the path itself was listening.

But not all who walk them walk alone. Folklore warns these are not paths to linger on after dark, wights, will-o’-the-wisps, and older things are said to haunt these ways, drawn to the memory of old footsteps.

-Woodlarking