Kate's Pad

by Hugh Sherdley

The ancient trackway across Pilling moss known locally as "Kate's Pad" is undoubtedly of consider- able antiquity. When it was constructed and for what purpose still remains a subject for speculation amongst archaeologists and historians.

The earliest documentary record we have of Kate's Pad is in a paper published in the Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Historical Society in 1851. The article was written by the Rev. W. Thornber, who was vicar of Blackpool at that time. Mr. Thornber had a great interest in archaeological matters in the Fylde and in his report, in which he calls the trackway "Danes' Pad", he states that the Pad is "formed of riven oaks laid upon sleepers, through which, by square holes, the planks are staked into the ground. Sometimes it is composed of one huge tree, at others two or three, and its width varies from 20 inches to something more. It has been traced by Mr. Bannister and myself for a mile and a half into the interior of the moss".
Mr. Bannister was the vicar of Pilling, and like the Rev. Thornber, was a keen antiquarian. He (Bannister) described the Pad as consisting "of a narrow bridge of rudely riven oaks, all literally scooped out by long usage, and lying on cross sleepers alternately pegged through them in the centre of a twelve foot deposit of peat.

W. Porter, in his History of the Fylde (1870) mentions Kate's Pad and says it ran roughly in a south west direction between Pilling Hall and Hales Hall, Out Rawcliffe. His comments on the Pad appear to have been taken from Thornber's account.

Another writer, James McKay F.R.H.S., makes the following comment in his book The History of Pendle Hill. He speaks of seeing a section of Kate's Pad at Bull Foot Farm, Out Rawcliffe, and goes on to say, "the peat had been cut away for a considerable distance. This, of course, has included the road, which has been cut away with it. Along the western side of the field the still untouched peat rises up like a wall, and at the bottom of this wall at a certain point in it, level with the field, the section of the road is distinctly visible. Whole trunks of trees were laid down, end to end in two parallel lines a few feet apart, upon these were laid transverse slabs about six feet in length, side by side. Over this road, no doubt, wheeled vehicles could travel".

This account differs in an important fact from that of Thornber's and Bannister's. They state that the track was laid lengthways on cross sleepers, whereas McKay reports that the trackway surface the site Thornber and Bannister saw, it is possible that the trackway McKay described was not Kate's Pad, but an entirely different structure.

In 1950 some members of Pilling Historical Society undertook an excavation of the only known remaining length of Kate's Pad. This was a seventy-yard length of the trackway situated in a field to the west of Moss Cottage Farm (SD 410446), known locally as "the Iron House", and occupied at that time by Mr. T. Ronson. In this field the trackway was only one to two feet below the surface as some peat had been removed from the field. The northern end of this length was exposed in the face of a pit from which peat had been cut, and from this point the timbers were traced by means of a probe in a south westerly direction. Upon excavation it was found, at this point, that the trackway consisted of riven oak planks, in lengths between nine and seventeen feet. They were laid end to end in the peat and there was no sign of the cross sleepers described by the Revs. Thornber and Bannister, although at one point where the underlying peat was very wet the planks had been laid on birch brushwood.

The timbers varied in width between 8 in and 15 in, and in no place were there two or more planks laid side by side. Four of the planks, out of a total of seventeen, had a hole cut in one end. These appeared to have been chopped out with an axe, as the cuts made by the blade were clearly visible. They had been chopped out, first from one side, then the plank turned over and chopped from the other side, the holes being approximately 5 in by 3 in on the surface, tapering to 2 in square in the centre of the plank. One of the planks had a shallow groove cut from the hole to the end of the plank. Each large tree had been split into three planks, the smaller trees into two. The timbers were laid down both flat side and round side uppermost.
The trackway itself was laid and partly embedded on a layer of decomposed giant rush (PHRAG- MITES); at one point, where the peat had not been removed from the field, the timbers were about halfway down a six foot deposit. There was no indication of "the scooping out by long usage" of the planks referred to by Mr. Bannister, neither was there any sign of pegs in the holes of the four holed planks.

There has been much speculation about the age of Kate's Pad in the last hundred years. Thomas Mawson, in his local government report on Amounderness (1937) gives it a brief mention and says it was probably constructed by the Romans in the reign of Severus about the year A.D. 207, but he gives no authority for this statement.

The canons of Cockersand Abbey have also been credited with it as a means of getting from their Grange at Pilling to their property at Rawcliffe.

It has also been suggested that it is of prehistoric origin, and this theory is given some credence by the report on a fragment of timber from Kate's Pad which was subjected to a Radio Carbon dating test at Cambridge University in 1959, the age given being 2760 years before present (1959), plus or minus an error of 110 years. This would give a date of about 800 B.C., or about the end of the Bronze Age in general terms.

It is important to point out, however, that this date is not necessarily the date when Kate's Pad that material ceased to have life, in the case of Kate's Pad this would be when the trees from which was laid down in its present position. Radio Carbon dating of organic matter gives the date when it was constructed were cut down, and there is no evidence to suggest that the timbers of Kate's Pad were new when it was first laid down. The holes cut in the ends of some of the planks, for no apparent purpose, seem to indicate that the timber was used for some other purpose before it was laid down as what we now know as "Kate's Pad".

Kate's Pad is only part of the evidence of early man in the Pilling locality in prehistoric times. Stone implements, bronze axes and other artefacts have been found in good numbers in and around Pilling, and the recent discovery of a possible Bronze Age settlement site on Pilling Moss would seem to indicate a comparatively large population in prehistoric times.