Sweet Track
| Sweet Track | |
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| Location | Shapwick Heath, Somerset Levels, England |
| Coordinates | 51°09′51″N 2°49′35″W / 51.16417°N 2.82639°WCoordinates: 51°09′51″N 2°49′35″W / 51.16417°N 2.82639°W |
| Built | 3807 or 3806 BC |
| Designated | 13 June 1996 |
| Reference no. | 27978 (was Somerset 399) |
| Designated | 22 April 1996 |
| Reference no. | 27979 (was Somerset 400) |
 Location of Sweet Track in Somerset
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The Sweet Track is an ancient causeway in the Somerset Levels, England. It was built in either 3807 or 3806 BC and was the oldest timber trackway discovered in Northern Europe until the 2009 discovery of a 6,000-year-old trackway in Plumstead, London. It is now known that the Sweet Track was predominantly built over the course of an earlier structure, the Post Track.
The track extended across the now largely drained marsh between what was then an island at Westhay and a ridge of high ground at Shapwick, a distance close to 2,000 metres (6,600 ft). The track is one of a network that once crossed the Somerset Levels. Various artefacts, including a jadeitite ceremonial axe head, have been found along its length.
Construction was of crossed wooden poles, driven into the waterlogged soil to support a walkway that consisted mainly of planks of oak, laid end-to-end. The track was used for a period of only around 10 years and was then abandoned, probably due to rising water levels. Following its discovery in 1970, most of the track has been left in its original location, with active conservation measures taken, including a water pumping and distribution system to maintain the wood in its damp condition. Some of the track is stored at the British Museum and a reconstruction of a section was built at the Peat Moors Centre near Glastonbury.
In the early 4th millennium BC the track was built between an island at Westhay, and a ridge of high ground at Shapwick close to the River Brue. A group of mounds at Westhay mark the site of pre-historic lake dwellings, which were likely to have been similar to those found in the iron age Glastonbury Lake Village near Godney, itself built on a morass on an artificial foundation of timber filled with brushwood, bracken, rubble and clay.
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