Review of EBT

A New View of Old Trackways

I SUPPOSE most cyclists who study the character of the roads they travel agree that antiquaries have not told us nearly enough. The fine causeway of the Roman road has led enquirers to ignore the older track, unless its presence as a ridgeway, connecting a string of old camps and diverting even Roman roads to its graceful curves, has led to its vague recognition as a “pre-Roman” trackway. We have a few more detailed pictures, but they are largely founded on examination of the chalk roads, which are the most distinct. So it is possible for a person who has given little previous study to the matter to light upon a series of new facts, and to deduce an entirely new theory of the most startling nature, while we, in our ignorance, can only say that we are not in a position to contradict it.

The theorist is Mr. Alfred Watkins, of Hereford, a famous photographer. His book, “Early British Trackways,” is published in Hereford, and in London by Messrs. Simpkin, Marshall and Co., at 4s. 6d. The text is brief and to the point, and the photographs are excellent in every way. The new facts are these: that pre-historic camps, tumuli, moats, and other earthworks fall into perfectly straight lines which sight on to hill-tops and similarly conspicuous natural features, and that these straight lines pass through bits of old road, old fords, churches, cross-roads, unexplained stones, and a large number of interesting place-names. The theory is that prehistoric track-makers were accomplished surveyors, who planned out tracks along straight lines (except where physically impossible) between distant known points, setting up a series of landmarks, each in sight of the next, and that these tracks were so numerous as to provide the network on which the Romans laid their fine surfaces. The subsidiary theories are many and sensational.

The illustrations given are mainly in Herefordshire, and cyclists who can reach that delectable land will find the book doubly interesting, but the theory can be tested anywhere. I find that it fits the London district with astonishing results. I do not think it fits the chalk, but it is so easy to find the way across the Downs that the “ley,” as Mr. Watkins calls the straight track, is unnecessary; when one descends to a more intricate district, once forest and swamp, the need for the surveyed track with its occasional causeway and clearing, is obvious. There is no doubt whatever about the facts; vast numbers of certain classes of objects fall into remarkably straight lines. The deductions are not so free from doubt. Railway stations can be found in straight lines, but we ask for no explanation. We do not say that the stations at East Finchley, Finchley Road, Notting Hill Gate, West Kensington, and Putney all occupy the sites of ancient camps or tumuli because they happen to lie in a perfectly straight line. All the same, the argument that supposed burial mounds which seldom contain bones were primarily landmarks and only used for burial as a secondary purpose appeals to one’s common-sense almost irresistibly. In modern times, we remember, cross-roads were used for burial of a particular class of individual—what is more likely than that the cycling antiquary of 4,000 years hence will find a highwayman’s bones near a point where four roads met, and assume that the roads were made as approaches to the supposed monument erected to him as a distinguished chief?

Long before I read Mr. Watkins’s book I came to the conclusion that many unexplained earthworks were landmarks, arguing simply from the fact (which is apparent to anyone with an imagination) that they would be the most important work for the C.T.C. of the period; and I readily accept Mr. Watkins’s suggestion that they would become objects of veneration and superstition, holy places to be converted into churches when Christianity was introduced. The theory that roads ran straight between these landmarks may require some restatement when more spade-work is done; it occurs to me that so long as the landmark was in view the track may have taken the best way, not necessarily the nearest. But the route of the Roman roads is most difficult to explain except by Mr. Watkins’s theory. When you have read his book, examine the line of the Watling Street from London to St. Albans.

I am not prepared to follow Mr. Watkins into the treacherous swamps of conjectural philology. His suggestions are fascinating, but not to be compared with his great work in showing us the way to a possible reconstruction of the map of our country as it was before the Romans came. If we accept the theory we must revise our opinions on many things, and however much it may be modified the theory can hardly be rejected. The first need is for amateurs to work on the lines suggested in the book; the deductions can wait. For cyclists there is an especial call to join in this valuable and fascinating work, for if we do not understand our country who can? Whether you work or not a study of the book will give a new pleasure to your rides.
C. W. E.