Pathways of the past are brought to light

Dorset is one of England's often overlooked gems: rolling countryside, ancient thatched-roof villages, the birthplace of 19th century novelist Thomas Hardy and a sea that breaks on a World Heritage Site coastline.

But if you ask me, the county's most startling treasure is its least-known: holloways.

Holloways are paths sunk deep below ground level by centuries, perhaps millennia, of passing feet, cartwheels and livestock. Dorset conceals many within its bucolic folds. Long since abandoned as thoroughfares, and overgrown with brambles and bushes, they are often unknown to all but the very local. When I asked the tourist office in the market town of Bridport how to find one, no one there knew what I was talking about.