Alfred Watkins

“ In practice churches can be treated as sighting points, but in some cases a ley passes through a tump or well close to the church. Avoid for a time the temptation of taking every bit of narrow straight road and extending it into a ley. Scrap every ley you think you have discovered if it does not pass through at least four undoubted sighting points exclusive of roads.
You must use Government ordnance maps. One mile to the inch is the working scale. ”

“ 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 a huge mass of corrections to make. In particular they will find a past neglect in translating place names in the light of traders coming along the road and meeting the buyers at settled points. ”

“ Did they, as the ley decayed, degenerate into the witches of the middle ages. Folk-lore provides the witches with the power of riding through the air on a broomstick, the power of overlooking, that of the evil eye. They (in imagination) flew over the Broomy Hills and the Brom-leys. It may be that the ancient sighting methods were condemned as sorcery by the early Christian missionaries. ”

“ When I told you to use your pole as a sighting staff, I didn’t tell you to see nothing else. Now we have found the ley, I think we shall see a bit of the old track in that far grassy field this side the moat; it’s narrow and straight, and there are many who never find it because they look for a broad way like our present wheel tracks. ”

“ At Didley is an instance of the simple homestead against it. Thus sighting produced the sites, this being only one of many instances where the record of the ley is embedded in the English tongue. The generic name of Merry Hill applied (as near Hereford) to many tumps gives a clue to their use as assembly points for recreation, confirmed by folk lore and surviving customs of dancing in a circle with hands linked. The folk-mote was held at a tump with a dry moat, so admirably adapted for seating. ”

“ Just as the sighting stone—ton became the site of our modern town, so the mound evolved into the borough.
Low—the universal name for the mound in Derbyshire—is not so common here. But Wormlow Tump, Ludlow, Warslow, and Bradlow indicate sighting points.
Bury is used alone as the name for a tump, as in the many Bury Farms, or as at Ivington Bury. A farmer still calls the earth covered tump in which he winters his roots a bury. Towns like Ledbury first grew round a sighting mound. ”

“ I show photographs of a fine stone at Red Lion, Madley, having a flat top, and of the type which developed into market stones. The market stone at Grosmont Town Hall (on which the first market basket placed on market day paid no toll) is the successor of such a mark stone. Two marking stones (with ancient brick houses built partly on them) stand unnoticed in the short Wye Street, just over Wye Bridge at Hereford. They mark the Palace Ford, and a ley from Castle Hill to Hunderton. They are of the same peculiar stone (not “old red”) as at Madley, Colwall, etc. ”

“ I have found that the persistent things down the ages are not the courses of the roads or tracks, but their sighting points, and that cross roads with a place name are such. Place names are also persistent, some of them going back to prehistoric times, but others evidently mediæval. But the real dating of the leys and when the system fell into decay is for future investigation.
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. ”

“ The leys came first, and the present camp was then merely the site of two or more tumps. There came a period of organised raids and war, and where a group of tumps gave the first elements of defensive works, they were joined by earthworks into a complete enclosure for defence. Here again sighting settled the sites of camps. Hereford Castle Green with Hogg’s Mount the only remaining sighting tump, others (as at the Russian gun) being now levelled, is an example. Many groups of tumps, never developed into camps but sufficiently near to be so, are to be found on the map. ”

“ And between Malvern Wells and Hanley Swan are three symmetrical triangular woods (see Map, Plate XIX.) , which I find indicate parallel roads, one-sixth mile apart, running northwards, and with a collecting road here at right angles, which comes over the ridge and through Mainstone Court. There are six of these equidistant parallel roads.
The fact of the ley is embedded in the rural mind. A country man in directing your path will invariably bring in the now misleading, but once correct, “keep straight on.” ”

“ About four drawing boards, a light 24-inch straight edge, a T square for pinning down the maps accurately to line with the boards, a moveable head T square to adjust to the angle of the ley, so as to transfer to the next map, and a box of the glass headed pins used by photographers (in addition to the usual drawing pins) are the minimum essentials for real work. A sighting compass for field work used in conjunction with a special divided quadrant on the moveable head of square are aids I have found valuable. ”

“ A feature in most of these avenues is that, as far as present roads or tracks go, they “lead to nowhere,” and the discovery of the ley solves this puzzle. A striking instance can be seen from the Castle Mound at New Radnor, from which Harpton Court and Old Radnor Church are in line, and the eye looks up the centre of an avenue of trees climbing to the church. ”

“ Mr. Thos. Codrington (“Roman Roads in Britain,” 1903) says: “Between the extreme points there are many straight pieces not quite in the same line, generally pointing to some landmark. There are several instances where a barrow or tumulus was the landmark, the road passing round it on nearing it. Silbury affords one example, and Brinklow, on the Foss, another.”
Mr. James G. Wood (“Woolhope Club Transactions, 1910,” p. 146) says: “The origin and purposes of these tumps associated with Roman roads will well repay investigation. ”

“ And I have shown how the white (salt) man gave the first element to innumerable place names on his route. There is a Silver Tump and a Brass Knoll in the Olchon Valley, both proved sighting tumps.
The names Bowley, Bowling Green (farm, also a quarry near Ewias Harold) , Bolitree, Bolstone, Bollingham, Bal Mawr, Balls Cross, Ballgate, Bellgate, Bellimore, and Belmont, all seem akin to the rounded outline of an inverted bowl, or to boils, bowels, and belly of animal life, and indicate the rounded tump. ”

“ Actual trees are shown at the cross roads in two of the above in Taylor’s fine county map of 1757.
The Oak in the horse-shoe meadow at Ross is on the ley passing over Over Ross (the place name indicates it) and Wilton Castle. The steep little street coming down to the river from the Swan Hotel is dead on this ley.
Where a natural hill came under a ley it was often made a sighting point by the planting of a single tree, hence the numerous “one tree” hills, as at Backbury and on the Holmer Golf Links. ”

“ It was much like the Chamber well near the mill at Weobley. The Golden Well near Dorstone is on a ley running through Arthur’s Stone, the Gold Post (a mountain cot) , and terminating in Pen-y-Beacon. The two “golds” on one track indicate a trader’s way. Leys go straight to, and not beyond, many wells in the Malvern ridge—St. Ann’s, Holy Well, Walms (there is a Walmer Street named from a ley in Hereford and a surname Walmsley) , St. Pewtress, and one (whose name I do not find) near the Chase Inn, above Colwall, which village itself is the Cole’s—or magic man’s—well. ”

“ I will make no surmises on these interesting points. The sighting system may have been in decay or the tracks abandoned when the churches were first built on the sighting points. I do not think it probable that leys were made to provide sites for churches. [22] In almost every old town or village will be found examples of a church built on and blocking an ancient road although new roads (as at Weobley) are often made on one or both sides. ”

“ As regards the place name element “broad” (also brad and bred) , a ley passes through Broad Green (Orleton) , The Broad, north of Leominster, Broadward, south of Leominster (dead on the main road at each of these two) , and on to Broadlands at Aylestone Hill, Hereford. It was the road, not the place, which was broad, constructed for wheel traffic, for which the previous pack-horse tracks were too narrow. Mr. Allan Bright, of Barton Court, Colwall, wrote me, pointing out that a ley from the Wych through his house to Ledbury Church, also ran through a meadow of his called Broadley Meadow. ”

“ Practically all ancient churches are on the site of these sighting points (tumps or stones) , usually at a cross of tracks, and there is evidence that in some cases the churchyard cross is on the exact spot of the ancient sighting or marking stone. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It has well defined edges, and lies at the bottom of a small sighting pond. In the crevices of its stones I found fragments of crude red pottery, with a bit of early (Anglo-Saxon) ornament, a bit of iron slag, and a bit of iron. This ley is sighted on the North Hill, Malvern.
I cannot say that passengers walked through the bottom of these ponds (most of them have one shelving edge, with the opposite bank steep) , but to this day an ancient road (at Harley Court, Hereford) does go through the bottom of a small pond, being sighted through the Cathedral. ”

“ I show a photograph of one of these at Bridge Sollars, with the trench of the road beyond.
A beautifully constructed causeway of even pitched stones is to be seen at the foot of Holmer Hill (Plate VI.) . ”

“ Where the word castle is part of a genuine place name, there was a sighting mound.
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, Tupsley, Hogg’s Mount, Hereford, and on to its terminal on Mynydd Ferddin Hill through Whitfield mansion. ”

“ But the facts are physical ones, and anyone can test in their own district whether moats, mounds and churches do not line up in straight lines with a hill peak at one end, and with bits of old tracks and antiquarian objects on the line. ”

“ The common suffix—ley—indicates a ley of the character denoted by the first element in the name, and “meadow” is not, I think, the right interpretation. The numerous Leys Hills are not likely to be so called from meadows.
The suffix—ton originated by a mark stone on the ley becoming the nucleus of a homestead, and perhaps later a town.
The suffix—bury clearly indicates a mound which was a sighting tump. It is a strange development that these tumps were coveted both as places to be buried in and to live on. Mrs. ”

“ The trackways are chiefly 6 feet 6 in. to 9 feet wide. I illustrate two pitched causeways at Longtown, a fine one through the Monnow near the Tan House, and the other close to a ford over Olchon Brook (Plate VI.) . Another through the farm yard at Ingestone (Ross) going to the centre of the sighting pond (Plate VII.) .
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. ”

“ Mountains. And the note of unsatisfied wonder struck that day has lingered through nearly fifty years’ unusually intimate knowledge of our beautiful West Country border land, and I know now that my sub-conscious self had prepared the ground and worked at the problem I now see solved. ”

“ Another ley is seen crossing the meadow in a straight line just where “the lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea.” 2, Tre-fedw Mound (see Plate II.) , shown at top of sighting line down present road to ancient Monnow ford (alongside present bridge) at Llanvihangel Mill.
PLATE V. SIGHTING CUTTINGS (all telephotographs) . 1, Notch with earthwork at Trewyn Camp above Pandy (Black Mountains) . 2, Cutting through top of ridge at Marstow, a bridge now spans it, and the sighting line down to a ford on the Garron is indicated. The road beyond the cutting is on the ley. ”

“ B, Mouse Castle to Tumpa, passes through Maes-coch (red field) , Priory Wood, and the ancient “red” pottery, Whitney. C, Merbach to Llanelieu Church. D, Mynydd-brith Tump to Talgarth Church. E, Castle Tump, Dorstone, to Moat at Felin-fach. F, Snodhill Castle to Aberllynfi Gaer; beyond Snodhill it passes to or through Holy Well, near Blakemere. G, Michaelchurch Escley to Llanigon Mound. H, Black Hill (Olchon) to Painscastle Mound. ”

“ Gwaun Ceste Hill to West Tump, via Colva Church, Brilley Green, The Scar Rock (Brobury) , down Monnington Walks (central) , Monnington Church, The Chantry, Perrystone, Mullhampton, Anthony’s Cross, Tibberton Court, Llanthony (Glos.) Abbey, and dead on a Gloucester street.
Little Mountain (Westbrook) to St. ”