More information : The Marquess of Queensbury set out to make a road to Shrewton. It left the Amesbury road just after Seven Barrows, crossed the valley, went over the Stonehenge avenue and nearly got to the Cursus. It was abandoned when the Marquess decided against connecting Amesbury with Shrewton after finding the workmen drunk at the Shrewton fete on Trinity Monday. (1)
Earthworks of an unfinished road visible from SU 11924287- SU 12904230, comprising a markedly straight alignment NW-SE in two sections defined for the greater part by twin parallel banks, with a causeway across Stonehwenge bottom. The lack of hollowing within the banks suggests the road was little used. Andrews and Dury (1773) show a road along the line of this earthwork, as does Colt Hoare (1826), but it is not depicted on any earlier or later maps (2).
The road is visible as an earthwork on aerial photographs, and has been mapped by both RCHME's Salisbury Plain Training Area NMP and EH's Stonehenge WHS Mapping Project. (5-6)
The north-western section of the Post Medieval road referred to above (1-6) was surveyed at 1:1,000 scale in April 2009 by English Heritage as part of the Stonehenge WHS Landscape Project. It measures circa 235m long and comprises two parallel banks, which extend between SU 1195 4285 and SU 1219 4271. The south-eastern end of these are cut by shallow pits. The road cuts into the north-eastern side of a Bronze Age bell barrow mound (Monument Number 942691), and a corresponding rise is visible where the route crosses the ditch to the north-west of the mound. The route is marked as two parallel lines on the 1877 Ordnance Survey map and is probably the Marquess of Queensbury's unfinished turnpike road to Shrewton. It is not the same route shown on the Andrew's & Drury map, as stated by source 2. (7-9)
The south-eastern section was surveyed in June 2010 as part of the same project (7-9); it is 550m long and includes a causeway across Stonehenge Bottom. Its unfinished nature is apparent and the fact that it never carried traffic is confirmed by the ditches of the Stonehenge Avenue which, although overlain by the banks of this road, are still faintly visible as earthworks across the road. (10)
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