Hidden beneath tarmac, ploughed into fields, or faintly visible as hollow ways through woodland, lies an intricate network of routes that once formed the commercial arteries of medieval England. These paths and trackways connected market towns across the country, facilitating the trade that fuelled England's economy from the 12th to the 16th centuries.

While our motorways and A-roads command attention on modern maps, these medieval trade routes quietly shaped the landscape we see today and determined the prosperity and decline of countless communities. Understanding this lost network helps us read the landscape in an entirely new way, seeing beyond modern development to the historical fabric beneath.

The Rise of the Market Town

The Norman Conquest of 1066 brought significant changes to England's economic structure. The new Norman lords, eager to generate income from their extensive landholdings, established a system of market towns at strategic intervals across the countryside. These settlements required royal charters to hold markets, and by the 13th century, over 2,000 market charters had been granted throughout England.

These market towns typically followed a distinctive pattern: a wide central marketplace (often triangular or rectangular), surrounded by burgage plots – narrow strips of land with houses fronting the market square and long gardens extending behind. Many of these layouts remain visible in town plans today, even as the markets themselves have disappeared or diminished.

"The market town network represented one of the most sophisticated commercial systems in medieval Europe, with regulatory frameworks, quality controls, and complex trading relationships that laid the foundations for England's later commercial success."
— Professor Christine Hammond, Medieval Economic Historian

These chartered market towns were typically established at day's journey intervals (approximately 12-15 miles) along major routes. This spacing was no accident – it allowed farmers, craftsmen and merchants to travel to a market, conduct their business, and return home in a single day. This pattern can still be traced across the English landscape, particularly in areas like the Cotswolds, where the wealth generated by the wool trade supported an unusually dense network of market towns.

The Highways of Commerce

Connecting these market towns was a complex web of routes, ranging from major highways used by long-distance merchants to local paths used by farmers bringing produce to market. Unlike Roman roads, which were often strategically straight and engineered for military purposes, medieval routes tended to follow the path of least resistance through the landscape, winding along ridgeways, following contours, and seeking out the easiest river crossings.

These routes carried a diverse stream of goods and travellers:

• Wool merchants moving the valuable fleeces that were England's primary export
• Grain merchants transporting the staple food from agricultural regions to population centres
• Drovers herding livestock (often identifiable by unusually wide lanes with broad verges for grazing)
• Pedlars and chapmen carrying small manufactured goods and luxuries
• Pilgrims travelling to shrines and religious sites
• Royal messengers carrying communications between administrative centres

Many of these routes left distinctive marks on the landscape that can still be detected today. Hollow ways – sunken lanes worn down by centuries of use – can be up to 15 feet lower than the surrounding land. These dramatic features formed as thousands of feet, hooves, and cart wheels eroded the surface, especially on hillsides where water accelerated the erosion.

Identifying Ancient Routes in the Modern Landscape

For those interested in tracing these lost commercial highways, several clues can help identify medieval routes:

• Parish boundaries often follow ancient paths and tracks
• Place names containing elements like 'street', 'way', 'gate', 'path', or 'port' can indicate old thoroughfares
• Linear woodland sometimes preserves the route of old roads that fell out of use and were encroached upon by trees
• Ancient bridges or the remains of stone fords indicate crossing points on important routes
• Roadside chapels, crosses, and wells were often placed along significant medieval highways

The survival of these features varies dramatically across Britain. In areas like the Cotswolds, where economic prosperity peaked in the medieval period and then declined, many routes were fossilized in the landscape, preserved as hollow ways or green lanes when newer transportation networks bypassed them. In contrast, in areas of continued growth and development, medieval routes were often widened, straightened, and ultimately paved over, becoming the A-roads and high streets of today.

The Cotswold Wool Routes

Perhaps nowhere in England offers better opportunities to explore medieval commercial routes than the Cotswolds. The wealth generated by the wool trade between the 12th and 16th centuries created an exceptionally rich landscape of market towns, connecting routes, and associated infrastructure.

The Cotswold wool industry depended on a complex network of routes serving different purposes:

• Packhorse routes connecting shearing sites to market towns
• Drovers' roads bringing sheep to pasture or to market
• Merchant routes carrying wool from local markets to major commercial centres like Cirencester and Northleach
• Export routes connecting to ports on the Severn Estuary or to London

One of the most evocative walks in the region follows the old wool route from Northleach (home to a magnificent "wool church" built with profits from the trade) to Cirencester, once the region's primary wool market. This route passes through a landscape shaped by centuries of commerce: sheepfolds, hollow ways worn deep by thousands of pack animals, and the occasional merchant's mark carved into boundary stones.

Walking the Saltway

Another fascinating route to explore is the Cotswold Saltway. Salt, essential for food preservation in medieval times, was transported from the wiches (salt works) of Droitwich inland along a network of routes collectively known as saltways. The main Cotswold Saltway ran from Droitwich southeast through Broadway and Stow-on-the-Wold to join the Thames Valley, with numerous branches serving smaller market towns.

Today, portions of the Saltway survive as green lanes, bridleways, and even modern roads. Walking these ancient routes, often high on the Cotswold Edge with expansive views across the Severn Valley, provides a tangible connection to the medieval merchants who once used them. The route is particularly atmospheric at dawn, when low-angled sunlight highlights the contours of hollow ways and the mist often settling in valleys echoes the conditions medieval travellers would have encountered.

Market Town Architecture: Reading the Evidence

The market towns themselves contain abundant evidence of their commercial past. Beyond the obvious market squares and halls, many subtler architectural features speak to their trading history:

• Undercrofts - semi-basement storage areas beneath merchants' houses, often with vaulted stone ceilings
• Wide doorways on ground floors to facilitate moving goods in and out
• Exterior staircases leading to first-floor living quarters above commercial space
• Projecting upper floors that increased living space while creating sheltered areas for displaying goods below
• Buttercrosses - covered structures in marketplaces where dairy products were sold

Towns like Chipping Campden, Tetbury, and Burford preserve many of these features, offering windows into the medieval commercial system. Their prosperity, though centuries old, remains visible in the fine stone buildings, elaborate market halls, and impressive "wool churches" built with the proceeds of trade.

The Decline of the Medieval Market Network

The intricate network of market towns and connecting routes began to fragment in the 16th and 17th centuries. Several factors contributed to this decline:

• The dissolution of the monasteries, which had been major market participants
• The rise of larger commercial centres at the expense of smaller markets
• Enclosure of common land, which disrupted traditional routes and forced new roads to follow field boundaries
• Improvements in transportation technology, particularly turnpike roads in the 18th century and railways in the 19th

As larger towns became dominant and transportation improved, many smaller market towns lost their commercial function. Paradoxically, this economic decline often preserved their medieval character, as the absence of prosperity meant less redevelopment. This is why many of the most picturesque and well-preserved medieval market towns are those that experienced economic stagnation rather than continued growth.

Exploring the Lost Network Today

For modern explorers seeking to connect with this lost commercial network, the Cotswolds offer unparalleled opportunities. Our "Medieval Merchant Routes" tour specifically focuses on tracing these historical commercial arteries and understanding how they shaped the landscape we see today.

Particularly rewarding are the less-visited market towns like Northleach, Cricklade, and Fairford, which retain much of their medieval character without the crowds of their more famous neighbours. Walking between these settlements along ancient hollow ways, packhorse bridges, and green lanes offers an immersive experience of medieval commercial geography.

These paths witnessed not just the movement of wool and grain, but the spread of ideas, technological innovations, and cultural changes. They were the information superhighways of their day, and walking them offers a unique perspective on how medieval communities were connected to the wider world despite their apparent isolation.

The lost network of medieval market routes may be obscured by centuries of change, but enough traces remain for us to reconstruct this forgotten commercial geography. In doing so, we gain a deeper appreciation for the ingenious ways our ancestors navigated and utilized the landscape, creating a sophisticated commercial system that laid the foundations for England's later economic development.