Hence the vast stores of salted flesh found in the larder of
the elder Spencer in the days of Edward II., even so late in
the spring as the 3rd of May." A note adds that the store
consisted of "Six hundred bacons, eighty carcasses of beef
and six hundred muttons."
It is not difficult to trace the route over which the salt was carried
from Droitwich. Starting thence the track can be approximately
identified by the names of places in which the root, _sal_ (salt),
occurs, and we find Sale Way, Salding, Sale Green, and, further south,
Salford. Crossing the Worcester-Alcelster road at Radford, and
proceeding through Rouse Lench and Church Lench, we reach Harvington,
from whence the track takes us across the low-lying meadows to the
ferry and ford over the Avon, near the Fish and Anchor Inn mentioned
above.
In recent times it has been assumed that the road from Bidford to
Weston Subedge, known as Buckle Street, is identical with Ryknield
Street, but I should prefer to call Buckle Street a branch of the
latter only, for the purpose of joining Ryknield Street and the Foss
Way near Burton-on-the-Water. I consider the real course of Ryknield
Street to be as described in Leland's _Itinerary_ (inserted by
Hearne), Edition III., 1768, in which he quotes, from R. Gale's _Essay
concerning the Four Great Roman Ways_, that "from Bitford on the
southern edge of Warwickshire it (Ryknield Street) runs into
Worcestershire, and taking its course thro' South Littleton goes on a
little to the east of Evesham, and then by Hinton and west of
Sedgebarrow into Gloucestershire, near Aston-under-Hill, and so by
Bekford, Ashchurch, and a little east of Tewksbury, thro' Norton to
Gloucester.
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