Most of what we've built so far answers a practical question: where can you legally ride, and what will it actually be like when you get there. That matters, and it isn't changing. But a good ride is rarely just the technical line through a rutted descent. Sometimes it's the ruin you didn't know was there, the view that stops you at the top of a climb, or the fact that the track under your wheels has been a road for eight hundred years longer than the tarmac around it. Not all of that is on the map. Some of it should be.
What's new
A new "Show points of interest" toggle in the sidebar brings up historic sites, ruins, monuments, viewpoints and other landmarks near the map, not just lanes. Tap one and you get a short write-up, a photo, and a "Navigate to this" button, the same one-tap handoff to Google Maps you already get from a lane's own detail card.
It's off by default. This is extra, not essential, and we'd rather you switch it on because you want the story than have it cluttering the map for the rider who just wants to see the lanes.
Why we built it
Holloway exists to help riders find Britain's forgotten roads, the drove roads, the Roman tracks, the byways most people will never know exist. A lot of those roads pass close to things with their own forgotten history, an Iron Age hillfort on the ridge above, a ruined manor at the bottom of the descent, a viewpoint nobody stops for because nobody knew it was worth stopping for. That's the gap this fills. Not a second app bolted onto the first, just the other half of what "discover a forgotten road" was always supposed to mean.
"Some weekends I'll ride out to an old ruin with nothing else planned, just a flask of coffee on the back and half an hour walking round on my own. Sounds like nothing, but after a week that's all work and no play, that half hour is what makes the weekend feel like it actually happened."
— Mat Stuckey, founder of Holloway
Rolling out region by region
Points of interest are live now for a first batch of counties, starting close to home and spreading outward from there, the same way grading a lane properly has always spread: a region at a time, checked rather than rushed. If you switch the toggle on and your own area looks quiet, that almost certainly means it hasn't been added yet, not that there's nothing there. More counties are being added over the coming weeks, and we'd genuinely rather take the time to get a place right than blanket the whole map on day one with something thin.
Every entry links back to where its facts came from, so if a hillfort or a ruined priory catches your interest, the fuller story is one tap away.
Plan the ride, then let it surprise you
None of this replaces the planning you already do. Stringing a proper day of lanes together is still the backbone of a good ride. This just means that somewhere along the way, there's a decent chance of a reason to stop that has nothing to do with fuel or a map check. If you've ever finished a route through somewhere like the Peak District and wondered what that odd earthwork on the hill actually was, this is built for exactly that moment.
Holloway is free to browse, points of interest included, no account needed. Take the long way, and see what's actually along it.