Verges & Slip-fields

The animals had to eat continuously as they moved, so drovers chose wide roads wherever possible (60-90 feet) to allow them plenty of grass.  (The Enclosure Acts specified the width according to predicted traffic.)


Occasionally the stretch is hedged off from the road - an overnight pound or stance which the drover might have to pay to use (#3) if he failed to find an inn. If the field was too big for one herd, I imagine wattle fencing would have been used to divide it into more manageable chunks.


These 'slip-fields' are called, variously: sling, slang, slinget, slinket, all meaning a long winding field. The 'slinket' in #4 is on Radbourne Lane near Ladbroke in Warwickshire¹; #5 shows a vast one above Bourton-on-the-Hill in Glos. on the much-used route from Tewkesbury & Wales.

¹ The map of 1830 shows how Radbourne Lane joins up with the Welsh Road at Priors Hardwick to the east.  So there would have been plenty of traffic.