In 3807bc some Neolithic folks built a trackway across the marshes in Somerset.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Track?wprov=sfti1
On my way to the litter pick I stopped in the sunshine to drink some coffee and look for birds on a little bridge over an old ditch in the heart of the marshes.
I was sitting looking at the area we’re hoping to plant willow in a weeks time.
One of the drawbacks of wandering around the marsh is that to link the canal to the railway line to make a circular walk involves walking along the side of the A33, a dual carriageway. It’s really unpleasant. Noisy smelly and dirty.
I endure it because it makes me appreciate the area. You don’t realise how nice most of the paths are until you walk along a dual carriageway
Then I had a brainwave. Why don’t we create a path from the end of footpath 7 across the eastern end of the meadow. It could join the Coley Branch line and the Holy Brook.
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We could borrow from the technology of the sweet track builders.
We could wait till later in the summer and it’s a bit drier and plot a route across the marsh. Then we could plant willow branches as the sweet track builders did. And we could fill them in with Reed, Reedmace, Sweetgrass, and Sedges. It wouldn’t be perfect but it would make it possible to get across and avoid the road. It would also help screen it.
Once the willow rooted it would provide shelter and privacy. Nobody would notice there’s a path looking from the road, or even looking across the meadows. It would just look like a line of willows.
When it’s mature someone walking along it would be concealed from view, yet they would easily be able to see through the willow.
Every now and again we’ll be doing some work in the Marsh and if we cut long stems down we can add them to the track. We’ll need wellies I guess for a while but if we keep doing it it will eventually get higher, and easier to use.
And it will hold back water, and where we come to a ditch we can build a dam, which will reduce the flow. As we want beavers to do.
It would cost nothing. Not a penny. Just a bit of time. probably quite a lot of time.
We could add some material from outside of the marsh, organic material we might dispose of via a “recycling” scheme
Wool, cotton, paper, cardboard. Stuff we’ve extracted from the earth could go back, and sink into the marsh. In 3807 years time perhaps the archaeologists of the future will discover it like Ray Sweet did and it will be named after them. Frankie and Benjy’s path?
Rural Reading 