What is a hollow way?

What a hollow way is

Hollow ways form most readily on soft ground such as chalk and greensand, and once formed they tend to stay in use for long periods. Where traffic spread out to avoid a worn route, a hollow way may divide into several parallel or braided channels, as on Twyford Down in Hampshire, where several hollow ways cross the hillside. Hollow ways form the streets of many deserted medieval villages and the routes that linked villages to their fields and commons. Historic England distinguishes trackways, marked on the ground by the passage of traffic over time, from roads, which were deliberately engineered.

How hollow ways look on LiDAR

A hollow way shows as a linear trough, often with a bank on each side, running along or down a slope, and on steep ground several troughs may fan out side by side. Sky-view factor and negative openness are the best views, because they show narrow linear hollows as dark lines whatever their direction, and positive openness shows the ridges between parallel hollow ways. A local relief model shows shallow hollow ways on level ground, such as the streets of deserted villages.

See LiDAR visualisations explained for what each method shows.

What can look like one

Natural gullies and stream channels, drainage ditches, quarry trenches, eroded modern footpaths and tracks, and Second World War anti-tank ditches can look like hollow ways. Following a hollow to both ends usually shows whether it connects places, as a route does.

Protection

Hollow ways are rarely scheduled on their own, but many are included within scheduled deserted villages and other monuments.

Examples on the LiDAR

Where they are

Counties with the most hollow ways that have a page here.

More examples