A routeway linking two or more places together which has not been deliberately constructed but has been worn down through prolonged use. They are visible as sunken linear features, double lynchets, parallel boundaries or corridors defined by usage.  They are often clearly visible on aerial photographs as earthworks or cropmarks, but also visible at ground level as depressions, sometimes cut down to such an extent as to form hollow ways.

Trackways are very difficult monuments to date, and can often only be dated if they are associated with the settlements and monuments that they served; occasionally a trackway may be stratified with earlier or later features and thus may be datable.  Trackways can also be associated with the earthworks of deserted settlements.

Trackways were in use throughout the whole of the medieval period for the movement of goods and livestock. All rural settlements probably had a complex system of trackways linking villages with other settlements, fields, pasture, woodland etc.  Most were probably used for agricultural purposes and may date back into prehistoric times.

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