Boundary Stream and Heath Lane

As you approach the gate at the end of the bridleway it can get very muddy; one of the reasons is that there is a small brook which runs under the track from the north west to the south east, under the motorway and under the road, re-appearing at Brook Cottage in Seagry Hill before it flows into the Avon. The brook was diverted underground when the motorway and new stretch of the road were built, as it was cheaper than building bridges over such a minor brook.

The brook is part of the original boundary of Sutton Benger, as described in a Medieval Charter (originally in Latin):

First where the boundary which is called roe-deer hedge extends to kettle spring. And from there to boundary brook. And along that brook into the Avon.

The 'roe-deer hedge / kettle spring' is more difficult to identify, although it is somewhere just to the north of us, by the Stanton-Seagry Road. But this was certainly the 'boundary stream'.

Go through the gate, follow the boundary of the field straight ahead and then turn right, and you are now following the line of the original track to Harding's Farm. In 1839 this track was called Heath Lane. The farm that we know now as Harding's Farm is actually one of the newest in the parish, and was originally 'New Farm' and then 'Heath Farm'.