Churches : CHURCHES. These--if ancient--seem to be invariably on (not merely alongside) a ley, and in many cases are at the crossing of two leys, thus appropriating the sighting point to a new use. A ley often passes through a tump adjacent to the church, and a cross ley through both church and tump. In other...
Proof : PROOF. The facts I have discovered, which lead up to the conclusions, can be verified for the most part on an inch to mile ordnance map with aid of a straight edge. Taking all the earthworks mentioned, add to them all ancient churches, all moats and ponds, all castles (even castle farms), all...
Hereford Trackways : HEREFORD TRACKWAYS. More than a score come through Hereford. There are sighting tumps at Hogg's Mount (Castle Green), Mouse Castle (also marked as Scots Hole), Gallows Tump (Belmont Road), Holmer Golf Links, Holmer Lane (top of old brick field), and an important one, Merryhill (in Haywood Forest)...
Endword : ENDWORD. I close up my patchwork pages for this booklet, and a tired brain finds relief in two memories. The one of the day, just on half a century ago, when, a lad on a trader's route for my father's brewery, I pulled up my horse to look with wonder at the Four Stones, standing like sentinels...
Water Sighting Points : WATER SIGHTING POINTS. I have suggested how these might have developed from the tump, and shown where pond and tump were used together. Moats are a similar arrangement on a larger scale. The trackways go straight for the island part of the moat. It is not the least amazing part of p. 16 this...
Maps : PLATE XIX. MAP OF TWO LEYS (A. & B.) AND PARTS OF C. & D. SEE CONTENTS TABLE (Based on the Ordnance Survey with the sanction of the Controller of H.M. Stationery Office). PLATE XX. MAP OF EIGHT LEYS THROUGH CAPEL-Y-TAIR-YWEN, HAY. SEE CONTENTS TABLE (Based on the Ordnance Survey with the sancti...
The Ley : THE LEY. The sighting line was called the ley or lay. Numbers of farms and places on sighting lines bear this first name, viz., the Ley Farms, Weobley, Grafton, Stoke Edith, and many other places. Wyaston Leys, Monmouth, Tumpey Ley and Red Lay, near Letton, and Redley in Cusop parish. There were...
A Few Leys : A FEW LEYS. ("Additional to others detailed in text and maps"). Colva Hill to Birdlip Hill, via Parton Cross, Breinton Camp and Ford, Red Hill, Holme Lacy House, Caplar Camp, Yatton Church, Moat and Camp beyond Newent, and dead on "Ermin Street" for five miles. Gwaun Ceste Hill to Brimpsfield...
Castles : CASTLES. Every castle in this district has a ley passing over it, and originated in a sighting tump, upon which the keep was afterwards built when some lord selected this as a desirable site for a defensive home. If a large tump, there were usually some excavations which were developed and extended...
Introduction : p. 9 EARLY BRITISH TRACKWAYS. MOATS. MOUNDS, CAMPS AND SITES. INTRODUCTION. I have read of a lad who, idly probing a hill-side rabbit hole, saw a gleam of gold, then more, and in short had found a royal treasury. And he could not show all to those interested, but only samples, and he made mistakes...
Roman Roads : p. 26 ROMAN ROADS. The exact relation of Roman roads to the earlier leys is a matter for future investigation, but our co-member Mr. Jack is on the right lines when investigating the surface construction to find whether a road can be called Roman. It is not easy to realise that many British roads...
Discovery : DISCOVERY BY PLACE NAME. I have experienced this in several cases, and will detail one. A local antiquarian (Mr. W. Pitley) always maintained that there had been an ancient spring--the Bewell spring--close to Bewell House and the Hereford Brewery within the City. When I lived there with my father...
Earth Cuttings : p. 15 EARTH CUTTINGS. Where a mountain ridge stood in the path of a ley, the surveyor, instead of building a tump on the ridge as a sighting point, often cut a trench at the right angle and in the path of the ley. This shows as a notch against the sky and makes a most efficient sighting point...
Table Of Illustrations : p. 4 TABLE OF ILLUSTRATIONS. FRONTISPIECE. Top. Castle Tomen, Radnor Forest, 1,250 feet above the sea, and is supposed to be the Cruger Castle of the Itinerary of Giraldus. Background. A glade on a ley. Bottom. The Four Stones, New Radnor, the easterly pair lined up for sighting over. PLATE I...
Traditional Wells : TRADITIONAL WELLS. The ley brings to mind or discovers many of these, for a straight track went to or past all of them. There are Holy Wells at Dinedor, between Blakemere and Preston, and under Herrock Hill. As children, living close by, we used to call the Coldwell at Holmer the Holywell...
Mounds : MOUNDS. The mounds whose many names I have mentioned are artificial. I do not question the fact that they were often used as burial mounds, and perhaps even built with that end in view; but the straight leys on which I find practically all in this district line up (in connection with other sighting...
Mark Stones : MARK STONES. These (Plate IX.) were used to mark the way. They were of all sizes, from the Whetstone on Hargest Ridge to a small stone not p. 17 much larger than a football. Some were long stones or menhirs, but few remain upright in this district. I know of three lying fallen on leys, namely...
Sighting Stones : SIGHTING STONES. Mark stones may be on one side of the track, as are the whitewashed stones which mark a coastguard's cliff walk to-day. But there also appear to have been sighting points of stone exactly on the ley, so constructed as to indicate its direction. p. 18 The Four Stones near Harpt...
Camps : CAMPS. I find that every camp seems to have several leys over it, and that these usually come over the earthworks, not the camp centre, as with moats. Also that camps almost always show signs of part of their earthworks being tumps. At Sutton Walls are four unmistakable tumps, in one of which...
Hints To Ley Hunters : HINTS TO LEY HUNTERS. Keep to the discovery of lines through undoubted sighting points, as artificial mounds (including castle keeps), moats and islands p. 32 in ponds or lakes. In practice churches can be treated as sighting points, but in some cases a ley passes through a tump or well close...
Title Page : EARLY BRITISH TRACKWAYS, MOATS, MOUNDS, CAMPS, AND SITES. A Lecture Given To The Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, At Hereford, September, 1921, By ALFRED WATKINS, Fellow And Progress Medallist (for 1910), Of The Royal Photographic Society; Past President (1919) Of The Woolhope Club. With...
Untitled : This was the first book about ley lines. Ley lines are alignments on the landscape of natural and artificial features, some of which follow perfectly straight tracks for miles. First discovered in Britain by the author of this book, Alfred Watkins, a photographer and inventor, ley lines were...
Acknowledgments : p. 41 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. Six of the photographs are by Mr. W. M. McKaig, helper in many miles of ley-hunting. This page is King 8vo. in the Ideal series of paper sizes, wherein octavo and quarto have the same proportion, and three master sizes give a full series of uniform shape. The letterpress...
Individuality Of A Ley : INDIVIDUALITY OF A LEY. Each ley or track was as separate and distinct from other leys as each animal or tree is an organism distinct from other animals or trees. As they crossed each other, no doubt users often transferred from one to the other at the crossing, and struck out in an altered...
Previous Data : p. 25 PREVIOUS DATA. A number of observers have recorded confirmatory facts. Mr. G. H. Piper ("Woolhope Club Transactions, 1882," p. 176) says: "A line drawn from the Skerrid-fawr (mountain) northwards to Arthur's Stone would pass over the camp and the southernmost point of the Hatterill Hill, Old...
The Ley Men : THE LEY-MEN. The fact of the ley, with its highly skilled technical methods, being established, it must also be a fact that such work required skilled men, carefully trained. Men of knowledge they would be, and therefore men of power over the common people. And now comes surmise. Did they make...
Advertisements From Original : The following historical advertisements appeared on page 41 of the original book. They are included for completeness.--JBH.
Place Names : PLACE NAMES. The ley and its sighting points were earlier than homesteads, hamlets, or towns, and as the latter evolved on the tracks, place names naturally bear traces of their origin. It is no reflection on philologists that, not knowing of the ley, they have made misinterpretations, and have...
Trees : p. 19 TREES. I find that practically all the named historic trees (including Gospel Oaks) stand on leys. Such as King's Acre Elm, Eastwood Oak, Great Oak at Eardisley, Oak near Moreton-on-Lugg Bridge, etc. Place names (which in my previous articles on Crosses I too hastily held to signify the site...
Foreword To The Average Reader : p. 7 FOREWORD. TO THE AVERAGE READER. I judge that you pick up this booklet with much the same ideas on the subject that I had a few months ago. The antiquarians had not helped you or me very much, but had left us with vague ideas and many notes of interrogation. On early trackways they alternated...
Antiquity Of The Ley : ANTIQUITY OF THE LEY. The word "ancient" covers a vast period. If--as I have proved--the tumps or burys are sighting tumps, excavations also prove that they usually date back to the Neolithic age, which, according to Mr. Ault's recent "Early Life in Britain," cannot be later than 2,000 B.C...
Traders' Roads : TRADERS' ROADS. Salt was an early necessity, and "Doomsday Book" records Herefordshire Manors owning salt pans at "Wick," namely Droitwich. The salt ley for Hereford came from Droitwich through the White House, Suckley, Whitwick Manor, Whitestone, Withington (site of present chapel), White House...
