🪵 Did people really build roads from wood?

On this road, our tires roll on something hard and smooth. But long ago, before there were cars, most roads were just dirt. So people built plank roads, roads made of wooden boards laid side by side, like a giant floor! Let's follow one horse pulling a wagon full of things to sell. When it rained, the dirt road turned into thick, gooey mud. The wagon wheels sank down deeper and deeper, until the wagon was stuck tight.

That poor horse probably wished it had rain boots! So people had an idea. They laid long wooden planks across the muddy ground, one after another, like a huge boardwalk at the beach. Now the wheels rolled along on the boards instead of the gooey mud. Our horse could pull the wagon right over the muddy ground. And the idea is super old!

In England, people found a wooden path across a swamp built thousands and thousands of years ago. Guess what the road under us is made of. It is not wood! Wooden boards wore out over time, so builders later made harder roads. But it all began with a wooden floor laid across the mud.