It does not appear on any modern map, and from ground level there is little to see. But from the air, a linear cropmark traces its course clearly, the differential growth of grass and grain above the compacted soil betraying a path that medieval feet and cart-wheels wore into the ground long ago. This is a hollow-way, a sunken track formed gradually by repeated use, where the surface erodes downward over time until the road sits noticeably lower than the surrounding land.

The hollow-way runs through what was once the medieval settlement of Earlstown, a manor parish on the north bank of the Kings River whose physical remains are spread across several modern townlands. A church, a graveyard, and a tower house still mark the area, but the settlement that connected them has otherwise largely vanished. A survey carried out by L. Shine in 2005 as part of an interdisciplinary study of the manor identified the hollow-way through a combination of topographical and geophysical methods. It runs roughly north to south, immediately east of the graveyard extension, for approximately 180 metres before turning south-west for around 50 metres toward a meandering stream that joins the Kings River at Newtown bridge. Satellite imagery captured between 2011 and 2020 extends the picture further, showing the cropmark continuing northward from the graveyard extension for an additional 200 metres or so, suggesting a route of some significance within the medieval settlement rather than a minor track.

The cropmark is best appreciated through satellite imagery rather than a site visit, since the hollow-way is shallow and the surrounding landscape offers little visual drama at ground level. What it represents, though, is a kind of palimpsest: the ghost of a functioning medieval road embedded in farmland that has been worked ever since, visible now only because the ground itself remembers the weight of use.