My article ‘The Lost Roads of Wessex’ published a few weeks ago has resulted in this follow-up article by Robert Chalke.

Where are the lost roads around Salisbury? It depends on which century or millennium we are looking at. Certainly, we are close to Prehistoric trackways, Roman roads, Saxon roads and Mediæval roads, Packhorse ways, Drovers roads and Toll roads to modern Trunk routes.

The Racecourse Way was an extension of the South Hants Ridgeway coming from Winchester via Michelmersh, Dean Hill, Pepperbox, Alderbury, Britford, north of Salisbury Odstock Hospital and behind Harnham Hill to White Sheet Hill at Donhead where it became the (now) A30 route to The West Country. It was used from earliest times as a route from South East England and was probably part of the first Land's End road in the 5th Century AD.

It was turnpiked in the 1750s and had three inns: Compton Hut, Fovant Hut (now a house) and The Glove Inn (now also a house) at the foot of White Sheet Hill, Donhead but was not a popular route for coaches: White Sheet Hill had a drop of about 1 in 4. There were certainly fatalities with descending coaches overturning; the standard brake of drug shoes or drug rollers would have been hard-pressed to steady a coach on a wet, slippery chalk surface. Its steepness can also be gauged by the necessity to stable trace horses at The Glove Inn to help pull coaches uphill.

In 1787 use of the Racecourse Way was discontinued when the Lower Valley road from Barford over Gaul (Horse) Bridge, which had been built earlier in 1750, past Fovant and on to White Sheet Hill and Shaftesbury became the official coach road and was turnpiked - the current A30. The Lower Valley road had existed from 1702 but, at its eastern end before Gaul Bridge was built, had run along Burcombe Lane to Bulbridge, Wilton.