THE days are coming round again when the explorer of the countryside turns his thoughts to those very pleasant things, books, walking sticks and maps. To fall in love with the one-inch Ordnance Survey map, and to know how to read it, is to find the key to a new wonderland and to interests that are hidden from other eyes.
The romance of roads—how they began with the tracks of men who made their way about this island long before the Roman legions came—how they were developed by soldier, trader and pilgrim—how they have been the stage for the panorama and procession of history—that must ever grip the imagination of the man who loves maps and the countryside.
Now there has been evolved, on and around these roads, a new theory, or at any rate one that, while it may have floated dimly through some minds, has never been set down so boldly and clearly before.
It is expounded in a most fascinating manner by Mr. Alfred Watkins, in “Early British Trackways,” just published by Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent and Co. (4s. 6d. net).
Mr. Watkins suggests that the ancient earthworks we find about the country, the rough stones whose origin is a mystery, many of the ponds, and other traces of ancient man, are actually the “sighting points” by which he kept on a straight line of march. And he goes on to show, by an examination of maps and the countryside, chiefly around Hereford, that where you get such ancient works in line you find an old track. Often this old track became a road, in Roman or later days, and so may be a highway to-day.
Presume a primitive people (says Mr. Watkins) wanting a few necessities 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 was by sighting, and accordingly all these early trackways were straight, and laid in much the same way that a marksman gets the back and fore sights of his rifle in line with the target. …
Such sighting lines were, in earlier examples, from natural mountain peak to mountain peak. … Such a sighting line (or ley) would he useless unless some further marking points were made, easily to be seen 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 These secondary, and artificial, sighting points still remain in many cases, either as originally made, or modified to other uses, and a large number are marked on maps and are the basis of my discovery.
They were constructed either of earth, water, or stone, trees being also planted on the line. … Earth sighting points were chiefly on higher ground, and now bear the name of tump, tumulus, mound, tiottwt (EBT p. 10), castle, bury, cairn, garn, tomen, low, barrow, knoll, knap, moat and camp. Another form of earth sighting point was in the form of a notch or cutting in a bank or mountain ridge which had to be crossed by the sighting line. …
Mr. Watkins goes on to suggest that sighting points (especially, I presume, where they marked the junction of two or more tracks) became assembly points, and in troublous times were fortified with earth works:—
Practically all ancient churches are on the site of these sighting points, 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.
There, in brief, is Mr. Watkins’s theory, and he support it with a great deal of very interesting data, photographs and maps. Take a one-inch Ordnance map, he suggests, and note “all the earthworks mentioned, the ancient churches, moats, castles, wayside crosses, all cross-roads which bear a place name, all ancient stones bearing a name, all traditional trees (such as gospel oaks), and all legendary wells.” Then, with a ruler find at least four of these points in line, and on that line you will find “fragments here and there of ancient roads and footpaths, also small bits of modern roads. Extend the line into adjoining maps, and you will find new sighting points on it, and it will usually terminate at both ends in a hill or mountain peak.”
Certainly a study of the theory on the ground with a map will add a new interest to the exploration of the countryside.
E. R.
Source info: MS note by AW “Daily Chronicle Mar”.