The so-called Sweet Track, an ancient causeway…

The so-called Sweet Track, an ancient causeway in the Somerset Levels, England, discovered in the course of peat digging in 1970, and named after its discoverer, Ray Sweet, is the oldest known engineered roadway in the world.

It extends across the marsh between what is in about 3807 BCE or 3806 BCE an island at Westhay, and a ridge of high ground at Shapwick, a distance close to two thousand meters (over one mile).

One of a network of tracks that once crossed the Levels and today the worlds oldest timber trackway, it consists of crossed poles of ash, oak and lime (Tilia) which have been driven into the waterlogged soil to support a walkway that mainly consists of oak planks laid end-to-end.

Due to the wetland setting, the components must also have been prefabricated.

The track will only used for a period of around ten years and then abandoned, probably due to rising water levels.