Sir,—If I have thrown a new light on this matter it is because I have not adopted the usual method of comparing the statements (or guesses) of others with my own guesses or ideas. But that having found a clue to a method, I have rigidly concentrated on its investigation, and without regard to previous conclusions, have given the results.
An overwhelming amount of detail, and far more clues than my physical powers enable me to follow up, have resulted. To indulge in controversy simply keeps me from the real investigation I have started. It is not but what I make blunders—like other people.
So when Mr. Sid Wright sent me a “sheet of suggestions” regarding place names, I made no reply because while all my own place-name suggestions evolve from the fact of the sighted track, his had no such relation, and therefore were outside the subject on which I had concentrated.
For the above reasons I abstain (as I have done in similar cases) from replying to the criticisms in his letter, and only touch on those parts where I can give what I hope is helpful or new information.
I have some special facts and deductions regarding the Whetstone on Hergest Ridge, and it may be useful to give them more clearly than there was opportunity to do in my reply to Mr. Wright’s query at my lecture. I have for some years noticed that about New Radnor (especially up the Harley Valley) I could pick up natural pieces of stone (slips) especially suited for putting a fine edge on knives. An informant there told me that an old man used to come from a distance to collect and take away a supply. Last winter, after discovering the fact of the ley, and seeing both by eye and on the map an especially good example from New Radnor Castle mound to Old Radnor and Kington Churches (passing up the centre of an avenue of trees between Harpton Court to Old Radnor Church), I walked an the hill side exactly on this behind the Castle Mound to investigate. Among some stones I picked up a slip of stone with edges and one end neatly ground flat. It was a broken piece of a coarse-grained prehistoric whetstone—unused.
As I think I had found instances of a mark stone on a trackway bearing the name of some commodity traded at that spot (as the knappers of Wiltshire bringing their flint flakes to barter at the knaps) there seems good reason to think that whetstones from Radnor Forest were traded at the Whetstone; especially as ancient whetstones of various types are sometimes found in ancient burial (or sighting) mounds. I think Mr. Wright has seen this stone, as after the lecture I sent it on for him to see.
I hope that Mr. Wright will persevere in tracing out the Gommond Street ley, for although perhaps not one of the most striking, it is, I think, a real one, and he himself mentions two genuine sighting points through which it passes (Hogg’s Mount and the pond beyond the racecourse). Continue the straight line southwards, it passes through the road junction at the Dinedor end of Green Street (a crossing point of leys), over the river at Lower Bullingham ford, the road junction at the end of Watery Lane (beyond Moorland Villa), Hollow Farm, Dinedor, Bolston Church, and through the lower part of Ross to Alton Court. Northward it passes on to Lingen Castle through ancient homesteads, etc., as Swanstone Court, Venmore, Lower Burton, Lynch Court, Folly Farm, and Lady Pool. I feel certain that a walk out of Hereford on this line would be productive.
Might I suggest to young Scouts that they track down the whole length of the ley that lies on Green Street, which is perfectly straight for a quarter mile. Stand central on it near St. James’s Church, and it will be seen to be sighted on the highest point of Dinedor Hill. Look at Taylor’s old (1757) map hanging on the right in the Free Library entrance, and it will be seen that its line passes exactly through the site (there marked) of old St. Owen’s Church. It seems to run northward through the well in the road junction beyond Pipe Church, which probably gives its name to the parish, and hence through Auberry to Dinmore Church (or Chapel) and the highest part of Dinmore Hill.
Whether Dinedor and Dinmore are the final terminals I do not know.—Yours truly,
ALFRED WATKINS.
Hereford, April 18th, 1922.
Source info: Hereford Times named in letter 31b.