Village Web October Online 2020

Edward Thomas’s The
Icknield Way
Part 1 - Ickleton to Chrishall Grange
The poet Edward Thomas was fascinated by ancient roads and over the
course of 10 days in 1911 walked the length of the Icknield Way from
Newmarket to Wantage in Oxfordshire. Taken from his book ‘The
Icknield Way’, published in 1913, this is the first of three excerpts from
his route through our parishes, from Ickleton to Royston.
Ickleton
Leaving Ickleton by its chief street, Abbey Street, I entered an open country
rising on all sides. I took the south-westerly road towards Elmdon, and then
a right-hand turning out of that which went in a straight line to Ickleton
Granges. This is probably a new country road, with hedges and only the
narrowest of green strips beside it: it is not the Icknield Way. The old road
possibly ran along the gently rising ploughland half-way up it, past Rectory
Farm. There is still a footpath from near Abbey Farm and the Priory remains
to Rectory Farm, which may represent the course of the Icknield Way,
continued by a broken line of thorns reaching almost to Ickleton Granges
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