There was a large attendance of members of the Woolhope Naturalists Field Club on Thursday afternoon, when Holmer Parish Church was visited. Remains of early British trackways, sighting ponds, and paved causeways were inspected. They illustrated a lantern lecture, which Mr. Alfred Watkins gave later, the subject of which was “Early British trackways, moats, moulds, camps, and sites.”
Mr. Watkins, in his lecture, said that he knew nothing in June of what he now communicated.
After visiting Blackwardine, he noted on the map a straight line starting from Croft Ambury, lying on parts of Croft Lane past the Broad, over hill points, through Blackwardine, over Risbury Camp, and through the high ground at Stretton Grandison, where he surmised a Roman station. He followed up the clue of sighting from hill top, unhampered by other theories, and found it yielding astounding results in all districts, the straight lines to his amazement passing over and over again through the same class of objects, which he soon found to be (or to have been) practical sighting points.
It was necessary to clear the mind of present ideas of roads from town to town, or with enclosed hedges, also of any assumption that orderly road planning was introduced by the Romans.
Presume a primitive people, with few or no enclosures, wanting a few necessities (as salt, flint kakes, and, later on, metals), only to be had from a distance. The shortest way to such a distant point was a straight line, the human way of attaining a straight line is by sighting, and accordingly all these early trackways were straight, and laid out by a sighting method.
Such a sighting line (or ley) would be useless unless some further marking points an the lower ground between were made. Therefore secondary sighting points were made, easily to be seen by the ordinary user, standing at the preceding sighting point, all being planned on one straight line. These secondary, and artificial, sighting points still remain in many cases, either as originally made, or modified to other users, and a large number were marked on maps, and were the basis of the lecture.
They were constructed either of earth, water or stone, trees being also planted on the line. Sacred wells were sometimes terminals in the line, and sometimes included as secondary points. Between the sighting points the trackway ran straight, except in cases of physical impossibility, but did not of necessity go as far as the primary hill tops.
In time, homesteads clustered round the sighting points, especially the ponds. The moats and tumps were often adopted in after ages as sites for defensive houses or castles of wealthy owners. Hundreds of place names gave support to these propositions.
Taking all the earthworks mentioned, add to them all ancient churches, all moats and ponds, all castles (even castle farms), all wayside crosses, all crossroads or junctions which bear a place name, all ancient stones bearing a name, all traditional trees (such as gospel oaks) marked on maps, and all legendary wells. Make a small ring round each on a map. Stick a steel pin on the site of an undoubted sighting point, place a straight edge against it, and move it round until several (not less than four) of the objects named and marked come exactly in line.
They would then find thatRead ‘find on that’ line fragments here and there of ancient roads and footpaths, also small bits of modern roads conforming to it. Extend the line into adjoining maps, and they would find new sighting points on it, and it would usually terminate at both ends in a natural hill or mountain peak, or sometimes (in the later examples) in a legendary well or other object.
The sighting line was called the “ley” or “lay.” Numbers of farms and places on sighting lines bore this first name, viz., the Ley Farms, Weobley, Stoke Edith, and many other places. Wyaston Leys, Monmouth, Tumpey Ley and Red Lay, near Letton, and another in Cusop parish.
There were cleverly planned high level mountain tracks which, although on an average sighting line (they could not, being on the side of a mountain ridge) keep straight, but took a serpentine course, in round the cwms, and out round the headlands. But viewed edgeways they were a straight line, as keeping a uniform level or slope. Such were found high on the Malvern ridge, the road (on three leys) through Oldcastle to Blaen Olchon, the lovely Bicknor Walks near Symonds Yat, the Precipice Walk near Dolgelly.
He found various stages of evolution of the tump, the small tump at a road junction for the local road construction, examples of which were to be found at Cross in Hand, Belmont, Hungerston, Shelwick old Turnpike, near Bowley Town (called the Stocks). With most of these the pond from which the earth was dug adjoined.
The sighting cuttings were also used in passing over banks in lower ground. Cullis was one of the names for such an earth cutting, as Portcullis between Withington and Preston Wynne, and High Cullis above Gatley Park, recently visited by the Club.
There was a very neat example of such a cutting at Hungerstone, near Allensmore, where there was a tump at a cross road in the hamlet, and the cutting in the bank allowed the “ley” to be sighted on to a pond an its way to the next tump, the one close to the church at Thuxton. The two fine gaps near Flansford (Goodrich) and Marstow, both with bridges over a bank, were also ancient sighting cuttings.
The word hunger (a common place name element) indicated cutting through a bank, not the bank itself, as now surmised. There were cuttings at most fords, which served as sighting points.
Proceeding, Mr. Watson said that mark stones were used to mark the warfl They were of all sizes, from the Whetstone on Hargest Ridge to a small stone not much larger than a football. He knew of three lying fallen on leys, namely on the wall at the south gate of Madley Churchyard, near the inn at Bush Bank (cross road from Weobley), and one used as a bridge over a ditch near the Field Farm on the Litley-Carrots path.
In studying such crosses, he was puzzled to find several (as at Vowchurch, Hentland, Capel-y-fin) with ancient rough unworked stones as a base. He was now certain that those bases are the original stones marking a ley. Other stones on leys were:—White Stone, Withington (with original stone at the base of an inverted fragment of its successor—a wayside cross); Queen Stone, Huntsham, at Credenhill cross-roads, and at the foot of Froom’s Hill, and on the road near Turnastone Church.
There were sighting tumps at Hogg’s Mount (Castle Green), Mouse Castle (also marked at Scots Hole), Gallows Tump (Belmont Road), Holmer Golf Links, Holmer Lane (top of old brick field), and an important one, Merryhill (in Haywood Forest), now marked as Beachwood. There also had been (now demolished) sighting tumps or points at Castle Hill, Palace Courtyard, Overbury (Aylestone Hill), The Knowle, Tupsley and the remains of one fo rthe Castle ferry was on the line of earthwork bounding the Bishop’s Meadow.
He had found trackways through the sites of each of the ancient churches. St. John’s Street extended passed exactly through the chancel of the chapel of the Knight of St. John of Jerusalem at Widemarsh; Barrol Street through the site of St. Guthlac’s.
After dealing with certain ancient camps, Mr. Watson said that churches—if ancient—seemed to be invariably on (not merely alongside) a ley, and in many cases were at the crossing of two leys, thus appropriating the sighting point to a new use. A ley often passed through a tump adjacent to the church, and a cross ley through both church and tump. In other cases a mark stone site became the churchyard cross, and a cross ley came through both church and cross. In many cases one of the leys went through the tower only, and it was possible that tower and steeple were built to be used as sighting points, although on the other hand a large church did in fact block the road. In almost every old town or village would be found examples of a church built on and blocking an ancient road, although new roads (as at Weobley) were often made on one or both sides. Broad Street, Hereford, blocked by All Saints, Offa Street (a striking example) with St. Peter’s Tower dead on one end, and the Cathedral Tower dead on the other end.
“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 Money Farthing Hill through Whitfield mansion. Another salt ley passes through Henwick and Rushwick (Worcester), over the Storridge pass through Whitman’s Wood, and ultimately gets to White Castle (Mon.), passing over the White Rocks at Garway. Similar leys (or their branch leys) pass through such places as Saltmarshe Castle, Whitewell House, the two White Crosses, Whitcliffe, Whiteway Head. It is plain what the ‘white’ man carried, and a knowledge of the ancient pottery in the Kiln Ground Wood at Whitney enables me to show the meaning of the numerous red banks, barns, and houses. A ley through this pottery is sighted on Newchurch Hill and passes through Redborough, Red Lay (a cottage on main road this side of Letton); the ley is then dead on two miles of the present high road as far as the Portway, and passing through the Home Farm, Garnons (where the ancient road exists), it ultimately reaches the Little Red House, the old Tannery House at The Friars, Hereford; the ley goes on through Woolhope Church, but the small local potter had come to his limit and the reds cease on this road. What the ‘black’ man carried is indicated by the name still given to the smith who works in iron.”
Source info: Not stated, looks like Hereford Journal. Lecture was on Thursday 29 September 1921.
This cutting is an account of the talk to the Woolhope Club in which Watkins first made his ley theory public. It contains nothing that is not in Early British Trackways, but is more detailed than the summary of the talk that was later published in the Club’s Transactions.
The original seems to include a garbled line of type, which Watkins has deleted by cutting along it when pasting the article into the book.