The Harrow Way (also spelled as "Harroway") is another name for the "Old Way", an ancient trackway in the south of England, dated by archaeological finds to 600–450 BC, but probably in existence since the Stone Age.[1][2] The Old Way ran from Seaton in Devon to Dover, Kent. Later the eastern part of the Harrow Way become known as the Pilgrims' Way in the 19th century: the latter was a route invented by Albert Way of the Ordnance Survey, who imagined it (without evidence) to have been a pilgrimage route which ran from Winchester, Hampshire, via Farnham, Surrey, to CanterburyKent.[3][4] The western section of the Harrow Way ends in Farnham, the eastern in Dover.
The name may derive from herewag, a military road, or har, ancient (as in hoary) way, or heargway, the road to the shrine (perhaps Stonehenge).[5] It is sometimes described as the 'oldest road in Britain' and is possibly associated with ancient tin trading.[6]
The Pilgrims' Way, diverts from the Harrow Way and continues from Farnham to Winchester. This pilgrimages route helped the growth of Winchester. Winchester, apart from being an ecclesiastical centre in its own right (the shrine of St Swithin), was an important regional focus and an aggregation point for travellers arriving through the seaports on the south coast.[7] (See Early British Christianity).
Farnham, was a second aggregation point for travellers joining from the south coast.[7] Gibson reports the section going eastward just north of Farnham ran through the area now Farnham Park and continued its course along the chalk outcrop, crossed the Bagshot Road where the Six Bells pub now stands and continued past Badshot Lea, Surrey where an important Neolithic Long Barrow burial mound (tumulus) was found. The Harrow Way then continues to the crest of the Hog's Back where the ancient trackway is known to have run.[8] There are several barrows along the Hog's Back.
^Alexander, Matthew; Tales of Old Surrey ISBN 0-905392-41-8
^Hooper, Wilfrid (1936). "The Pilgrims' Way and its supposed pilgrim use". Surrey Archaeological Collections. 44. Guildford: Surrey Archaeological Society: 47. In their train have followed the host of guide-books and popular writers who have expanded and embellished ad libitum as fancy prompted
^Grinsell, Leslie (1958). The archaeology of Wessex. London: Methuen. p. 298. OCLC400319.