Blackstone Edge route, which, as the map[1] shows, is a less direct and more circuitous though easier and therefore an older track road than the one viâ Castleshaw. The latter road is a more elaborate road (see Whitaker's description) leading over the difficult and extensive mosses of Newton Heath, Failsworth, and Hollinwood that proceeded from the eastern gate at Castlefield station.
The two roads proceeded between Halifax and Huddersfield, and describe the district where the inscriptional stones alluding to the gods and goddesses of the Brigantes have been found, as at Longwood, Greetland, Honley, Adel.
To judge from the direction of the various Roman objects found between Littleborough and Castleshaw, as at Tunshill, Slences, these two lines seem to have interocmmunicated by a short cross road.
I also believe that before the construction of that part of the Ribchester road, which issues from the north wall at Castlefield to Hunt's Bank, laid as it was through the marshy and swampy ground, an anterior and older track road was used, which led up to Hunt's Bank, more on a line with the present Deansgate, which proceeds on higher levels.
It is also very probable that the Romans spread across to old Salford[2] (at the ancient ford on the Manchester side Roman coins, 306–340 a.d., were found), and that a vicinal road went across Broughton ferry (see Green's map) to Broughton,[3] where at Grecian Street and Albert
