“Out of what appeared a tangle, I got hold of the one right end of this string of facts, and found to my amazement that it unwound in orderly fashion and complete logical sequence.” Thus writes Mr. Alfred Watkins in the preface to a work bearing the above title, which has been published by the Watkins Meter Company, Hereford, jointly with Messrs. Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent and Co., Ltd. The little volume contains the full text of a paper read by its author in September last, to which we referred at the time, as well as much additional matter and a number of illustrations from photographs by the discoverer. The substance of Mr. Watkins’s find is that long before the Romans came to this country there was a well-defined system of roadways and tracks along which the Britons carried out their trade and other intercourse. If such a statement is established and proved it will be a fact of great antiquarian interest and will go far to explain many things that are not understandable on previous data. The work deals with the various means by which “sighting” was carried out in the designing of roads, and is clearly reasoned throughout. As the author says: “My deductions may be faulty. 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 book should provide a new objective for field ramblers. If its reasoning be true, it not only reveals for the first time a systematic planning of prehistoric trackways, but throws a flood of light on the evolution of defensive camps, of the sites of castles and churches, and on the meaning of place-names.
Source info: Cuttings agency.