2022
NS9761 : Possible Route of Old Track
taken 2 years ago, near to Loganlea, West Lothian, Scotland
Possible Route of Old Track
This stretch of land, which goes across the far NorthEastern part of Nether Longford Moss, looks far more pronounced when on the ground. Its original purpose is unclear. The at-turns boggy and marshy land is still good enough for occasional grazing, so the two ridges, which now have only occasional and mostly small trees growing on them could have once been a shelter belt for livestock. The ridges, though, seem quite far apart from one another.
The other more romantic theory is that the trees once lined the route to a former house or farm. The flaws in this theory are that what would have once been the track seems unnecessarily wide for its purpose and too low-lying - at its start, by the fence ahead, it is practically a pond. On the flipside however very old (ie pre-Ordnance Survey) maps do show that there was a place called Park Head in this general direction from at least the 1750s to the 1820s. The first OS map from the 1850s just shows what now remains of whatever it once was as a small strip of trees.
It ends suddenly at a former railway embankment and there are no traces of anything on the other side; the land there has fairly recently been rejuvenated, and turned into a small wildish recreational area complete with footpaths.
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