Mud, glorious mud

When it rains for any length of time it doesn't take long before the local paths become increasingly difficult to negotiate, and these paths, although used are not exactly busy.  I can imagine if they were busy paths it wouldn't be long before they became useless and impassible, as in prolonged bad weather they frequently are. That got me thinking as to how muddy and how much of an inconvenience that mud would have been to past communities. A village, small community or even a farmstead all would have become quagmires in no time, and people must have become resigned to being caked in mud. The first archaeological evidence for engineered trackways in Britain is found in the Neolithic associated with wetland environments and were constructed of timber.  Some were very sophisticated, such as the Sweet Track in Somerset, though most were brush wood or corduroyed timber. We only know about these engineered tracks due the environmental conditions which preserved them, although it's likely that such tracks would have been common. They must have been! You can see why. These engineered tracks would have represented major communal routes, and as was still common until the beginning of the last century, step beyond these 'A' roads and you'd have on your own. I find mud a real pain in the arse, making hard to get about and causing more work, cleaning. It must have been a nightmare for past communities.