Sir—During the last two months I have spent much time in testing the ley system discovered by Mr. Watkins by applying it to the earthworks and burgh sites of Norfolk and Suffolk, and I must say that the results arrived at have surprised me. I am convinced that if Mr. Watkins had a more intimate acquaintance with East Anglia, he would have been able to give us much stronger local evidence in support of his ideas than he gives us in his letter.
For instance, taking the Tasburgh hill-fort as a high sighting point, he would have found at least fourteen leys connecting it with ancient earthworks at Attleborough, Ovington, Wormegay, Wymondham, Mileham, North Elmham, South Creake, Smallburgh, Ilketshall St. John, Bungay, Denton, Rumburgh, Eye, Kenninghall, Garboldisham, Lidgate, Bunwell, New Buckenham, Burwell, and perhaps Ringland. Fifteen of the ancient burgh sites of the two countries are connected with the same centre in the same way. Two Roman castella, at Burgh Castle and Brancaster, are terminating points of two of the leys, while several artificial mounds, marked on the maps as “tumuli,” are on these Tasburgh leys.
So far as my investigations have gone at present—and I have dealt with parts of Essex and Cambridgeshire as well as Norfolk and Suffolk—I have almost daily found fresh evidence in support of the ley theory, and I am inclined to believe that it will help us to solve some of the problems which have puzzled us for a long time. The acceptance of Tasburgh as a pre-historic hill-fort must necessarily have its bearing on the question of the origin of the other ancient earthworks along the Tasburgh leys. Some of these earthworks seem to represent the defensive efforts of more than one period—late comers taking possession of the works of earlier occupiers, and adding to and improving upon them. The evidence of the Tasburgh leys is that their initial purpose was to connect as directly as possible a central tribal stronghold with other important related settlements. Some of these settlements, there is good reason for believing, were also fortified sites, while the persistence of the ley system—which seems proved by the repeated occurrence of place names along them bestowed at later periods—would tend towards the occupation of these fortified sites by later settlers, and the construction of later defences along the leys. In this way a prehistoric barrow or sighting mound might easily become a mote castle; a mote castle krow into a mound of the imposing dimensions of Thetford Castle Hill, and comparatively low ramparts attain the height of those of Warham Camp and Rising Castle. Several place names prove that earthworks were already in existence in Norfolk and Suffolk when the Anglian settlers arrived on the scene, but very few of our earthworks have the characteristic features of Roman work. Two of the leys, as I have said, terminate at Burgh Castle and Brancaster respectively; but the roots in the Roman names for these two places indicate that they were British settlements before the Romans occupied them.
The subject is a wide one, and has many interesting side issues. I have written a good deal about it which may be
printed—some day! Let me say now, however, that a study of the inch to the mile maps of the whole of Norfolk and
Suffolk reveals innumerable place-names supporting the ley theory.
W. A. DUTT.
Carlton Colville, July 20th.
Source info: MS note by AW “Eastern Daily Press”; checked in library.
William Alfred Dutt was a writer of books on East Anglia who became, as this letter shows, a supporter of Watkins’s ley theory. In 1926 he published a booklet The Ancient Mark-stones of East Anglia.