Winding up
Where does it leave us?
The conclusions that readers of this book will reach about the Danes' Pad will, perhaps, depend on the comparitive weight they give to the various strands of evidence presented here. In the writer's view the whole subject revolves around the Weeton Moss and Main Dyke “double-lined” sections; the rest could be regarded as random noise. There was definitely a feature to be seen in the 19th. century across Weeton Moss, but there is no strong reason to conclude that it was a Roman road. Its physical links with any road emerging from the fort at Kirkham are too tenuous for that, and the evidence for a destination of such a road is even more unsatisfactory.
What's in a name?
Little attention has been given until now to the name “Danes' Pad” itself. “Pad”, of course, is merely an old word for a track or path, but it has been pointed out that the Scandinavians who settled in the North West were not Danes but Norsemen, the former having concentrated their efforts on the eastern side of the country. However, included in a list of land-holders in Staining at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries (Coucher Book of Whalley) is “the wife of Richard Dane”. In addition, the Poulton Parish Registers show a Jane Dane to be living in Staining in the late 17th century. Even without knowing whereabouts in Staining the Dane family farmed, it seems more reasonable to assume that the Pad's name relates to them rather than to a horde of Viking invaders some 800 years earlier. Could it even be that the Pad was a track made across Weeton Moss in the 17th century by a Mr. Dane?