Though there are indications that Stone Age peoples travelled long distances in search of suitable flints for their tools and weapons, it was during the Bronze Age that the first trackways were regularly used. They are still marked by the numerous round barrows of that time. The trackways were on high ground, avoiding the densely wooded and marshy river-valleys, until forced to descend and cross them. They have been given the name 'ridgeways' because they keep, as far as possible, to the ridges of the long hill ranges that cross the county. For centuries they provided an important means of communication, some as routes through the county like those, now converted into modern roads along the Blackdown and Brendon Hills, linking the ridgeways of Dorset and Wiltshire with those of Devon, others as local routes, like the tracks along the ridges of the Quantocks, the Mendips and the Poldens.

The remains of a special kind of wooden trackway have been found by archaeologists in Somerset. Dating from prehistoric times, these trackways were built of logs and branches of birch and alder, laid lengthwise and covered with brushwood, pegged securely into the marshy ground with wooden stakes. They provided dry and secure crossings in the swampy lands between Shapwick, Meare and Wedmore,

The Romans established their planned system of roads, surveyed and built with great engineering skill, soon after their arrival. Carefully constructed, with good foundations and a stone surface, not necessarily flagged, sometimes even of gravel, and well drained with ditches at each side, these roads compare quite favourably with some modern by-roads. The Fosse Way, which crossed Somerset from Bath to Ilchester, and then towards Chard to link with Devon, was one of the most important roads in Britain. It was used at first as a military road and frontier, but later became the route between the South-West and the Midlands and North. Much of it is covered by modern roads, but there are still a few places where the old Roman road is lost in open country. From the Fosse, branch roads went out to Dorchester, to the lead mines of Mendip and to the coast near Combwich, at the mouth of the Parrett, and near Uphill, at the mouth of the Axe. There were also lesser roads connecting the villas with the Fosse and its branch roads.

Though the Saxons continued to use the Roman roads, especially the Fosse Way, they lacked the skill to maintain them. Their villages were almost completely self-supporting; only a few things, such as salt and iron, had to be brought from a distance. Nor did they make much use of wheeled vehicles. So the Roman roads were allowed to decay and those people who had to travel used the old ridgeways.

During the Middle Ages there was a considerable amount of traffic on the roads, the great majority of which was on foot or on horseback. Most heavy loads were carried as far as possible by sea and then in river craft up the navigable rivers. They were then unloaded and taken by waggon or sled to their destination. On the roads, the pedlars and the packmen, with their wares on their backs or on pack-horses, joined with pilgrims, players, tinkers and friars making their way slowly on foot. Those travelling on horseback, the important and the wealthy, were limited in their journey to the speed and endurance of their horses, usually to about 20 miles a day. The old ridgeways came into use again with drovers herding cattle, sheep or pigs to markets or fairs in the county. At White Down Fair, in South Somerset. the main trading area was within a radius of 16 miles, but cattle were herded for sale from as far away as Weymouth and South Wales. Sometimes cattle were driven as far as Winchester or even to London. With this traffic, the ridgeways became 'green' roads, and at intervals along them enclosures were made where the animals could be rested for the night. Until the coming of the railways considerable numbers of stock of all kinds, bred and reared in Somerset, were driven 'on the hoof' to towns and cities in the South of England, where they were sold to the butchers.

Considerable quantities of all kinds of goods were carried in packs or bales on the wooden framework of pack-horse saddles. Farm produce, including woollen yarn spun by the women in farms and cottages, was brought to market in this way. Over longer distances the pack-horses travelled in teams in single file, and the lanes they used were gradually, over the centuries, worn into deep 'hollowways', especially in hilly districts or where the ground was sandy or soft. Pack-horse bridges, built to accommodate this kind of traffic, still survive at Allerford, Dunster, Taunton and Rode (near Frome). Celia Fiennes, in describing her journey through England on horseback at the end of the seventeenth century, comments on the packhorses carrying coal from Ham, near Creech St Michael, where it was unloaded from the river barges-'the pack-horses come and take it in sacks and so carry it to places about. The horses carry two bushell at a time, which at the place of disembarkation cost eighteen pence and when its brought to Taunton cost two shillings. The roads were full of these carriers going and returning'.

Wheeled traffic did not become common until the sixteenth century when the problem of maintaining the roads led to the passing of an Act of Parliament in 1555. This act placed the burden of maintenance, for all the roads which passed through, on the parish, which had to elect two surveyors or waywardens annually. All householders were obliged to give four days 'statutory' labour to keep the roads in repair, and farmers had to provide horses and carts to assist in this work. During the reign of Elizabeth I the obligation was increased to six days. For local roads this was good enough, but for main roads, in which the parish had little interest, the enforced and most unwilling labour, without any skilled direction, proved to be quite inadequate. Roads continued to be the subject of constant complaints. They were reported to the Justices of the Peace as being full of holes and waterlogged. There were few hedges, and travellers wandered off the track to find harder ground on which to travel. The idea of a road as a made surface is comparatively modern, and, in the past, after the departure of the Romans, it provided only a legal right of passage. This could include trespass on crops in order to find a suitable surface on which to travel when sticky clay or soft mud made the way difficult, and accounts, in part, for the wandering English road-it was not made-up. In some parts of Somerset it was claimed that it would be easier to convert the roads into canals than to make hard and dry surfaces for them.