Sir—I agree with your reviewer that, in Norfolk and Suffolk, the passing of a straight line over the sites of three or four churches or homestead moats is without conclusive significance. Much more than that is needed to establish the existence of a ley system. We want evidence heaped on evidence, and it must be physical, historical, archæological, and philological. Very much must be done before all this evidence can be accumulated and the results obtained in different parts of the country compared with one another. Meanwhile, here are a few facts upon which disbelievers in the leys can exercise their ingenuity in the direction of discovering some other explanation of them.
Taking Tasburgh Camp as a centre, and working with the aid of Ordnance survey maps on the scale of one inch to the mile, I find that.
1 A straight line drawn westward to Ickburgh passes through Attleborough.
2. A second passes through Hillborough to Oxburgh.
3. A third through the Ovington Camp to the earthworks at Wormegay Castle.
4. A fourth, through the Wymondham Moot Hill to Mileham Camp.
5. A fifth, through Wheatacre, Burgh and Burgh St. Peter to Roman Hill at Lowestoft.
6. A sixth, through Bergh Apton to Burgh Castle.
7. A seventh, through Smallburgh to Happisburgh.
8. An eighth, through Mattishall Burgh, the earthworks at North Elmham and the South Creake Camp to Brancaster.
9. A ninth, through Rumburgh to Dunwich.
10. A tenth, through Dickleburgh to the earthworks at Eye.
Along these lines there are nearly a hundred churches, fords, artificial mounds, round moats, hill names and place names suggestive of wayfaring.
In view of this evidence, the argument of accidental coincidence can have little weight so far as the Tasburgh leys are concerned. Considering how few are the ancient defensive earthworks of Norfolk and Suffolk (apart from moats), the “lining up” of so many of them with Tasburgh seems to me particularly significant.
Mr. Rye thinks it inconsistent to use Roman places “like Burgh and Tasburgh” in a discussion on British trackways. I explained in my first letter that fortified sites might represent the defensive work of more than one period without affecting the relation of sites one to another. Mr. Rye calls Tasburgh a “Roman place.” The “Victoria History of Norfolk” considers the earthwork pre-Roman, and there seems to be now general agreement that it is a prehistoric hill-fort. The discovery of a few Roman relics there is only significant of Roman occupation. Humanly worked flints are plentiful within the camp. I brought some home from there a few weeks ago. The plan of the earthwork is in agreement with those of other prehistoric camps in England. In several instances British camps were utilised by the Romans, who sometimes constructed typical Roman earthworks within or adjoining them. It is highly improbable that the Romans who constructed the imposing defences at Caistor by Norwich would fortify so extensively another site only about four miles away. I take Tasburgh to be a British fort and, probably, tribal centre, and Caistor a Roman stronghold constructed to keep watch over it. Such a conclusion is in agreement with the military methods of the Romans in other parts of Britain, where several British and Roman earthworks have an analogous relationship.
Mr. Rye remarks “if there are any early British trackways other than the Peddars Way.” I have no doubt that
there were British trackways all over Norfolk and Suffolk. There were British settlements everywhere, and is it likely
that the inhabitants of each always stayed at home? The inhabitants of this part of Britain from
55 b.c. to 61 a.d. were a warlike people who were capable of inflicting sudden
and heavy defeat upon the Romans, and it is incredible that such a people were without earthwork defensive positions of
their own. Some of these defences seem to have been on the sites of existing ancient earthworks; but many of
them—as must naturally happen in a district where there are no high hills—have been obliterated by the
plough.
W. A. DUTT.
July 22nd.
Source info: Cuttings agency; checked in library.
See cutting 67a for a note on W.A. Dutt.