LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

From Jim Kimmis, Glastonbury:

I was excited by the possibilities of David Adams’s “Patchwork Principle” until I realized that Herefordshire is something of an ideal case. The county has a neat shape and a fairly stable history (I believe the present boundaries are more-or-less those of the Magonsæte in the “Dark Ages”, though that could be a false conclusion). Also, of course, it was the county where Alfred Watkins discovered all those beautiful alignments, suggesting a degree of landscape planning which may not be matched in other parts of the country. I guess that where Saxon shires were meted out to cover old (Iron Age) land-holdings, there’s more of a chance of finding the “patchwork”, but it’s less likely in ‘new’ counties.

From Alan Gardiner, Lewes:

In JOG 4/2 in ‘Matters Arizing’ you mentioned the erosion of a tumulus due to roadworks. Although the A27(M) Brighton by-pass is not due for construction until 1985 its path is set to go through, near, or disturb 19 archaeological sites! {30}

In ‘The Fowlmere Tunnel’ (JOG 4/2) this brought to mind the legend mentioned in the Bords’ Mysterious Britain, p. 19, which tells of an underground passage from Cissbury Ring to Offington Hall. One sidelight on this, which may account for these legends, comes to mind. During recent excavations in South Street by-pass here in Lewes, work was stopped for quite a while when 3 large cavities (the size of a large hall) were encountered by workmen. This caused subsidence of above residences – maybe such subsidences on the Downs led to the legends of underground tunnels.

The article most interesting to me in JOG 4/2 was ‘Numerical Snarks’ by Bob Forrest because it summed up a lot of the confusing issues that bedevil me. Primarily, one has to decide at the outset whether the approaches to the subject in ‘awe’ of a race possessing superior capabilities to our own, or whether one treats it in an earnest ‘scientific’ mode of investigation. In other words, if one starts out with a precept, all investigations will be judged by or geared towards that precept.

However, after such investigations and having apparently established a common factor validated by corroborative evidence and statistics, this does not necessarily mean it establishes the inherent truth of the common factor.

I always reckon all these factors, whatever field you pursue, reduce to perception and accepted standards. The builders of Stonehenge, Avebury, etc. existed in a different social and ecological environment and must have had perception different from our own and used other standards to what we are aware of. So, until such a time as a common unit of measurement has been satisfactorily established (and to do so it must be accepted by the scientific establishment orthodoxy) the conclusion must remain a possibility. {35}

Which is why I get confused when reading articles in this field. One purports to prove standard measurements in Imperial standard feet/yards/miles etc. while another proves the same in metres/kilometres. So who is right, all, both, or none? This is not meant as a criticism, but merely to show how people like me, who are convinced of the logic of the subject, can get confused when empirical proof is produced.

As the quote goes “there are lies, damned lies, and statistics”, so, I think, one has to keep in mind that figures can <be>, and are, used to prove the sometimes unproveable.

Finally, the West Sussex Gazette of 13.3.80 carried a report headed “Strange tale of village’s Rolling Stone”, which tells of the search by Mrs Violet Jarvis, 90, who has lived in Upper Reeding for 30 years, to find the derivation of the name “Roundstone Inn” at East Preston. “The sign shows on one side, a road going downhill and a large, round stone rolling remorselessly down the hill”. On the reverse side the stone is painted, lying at the foot of the hill with a skeleton crushed beneath it. An unsigned and undated handwritten notice, framed and hanging in the lounge bar of the hotel, suggests the sign refers to the ‘laying’ of a ghost. It reads “It is said that a malefactor or suicide was buried at the cross-roads, now obliterated by a railway.

For fear of, or because of a tendency on the part of the deceased to haunt the neighbourhood, a millstone was placed upon the body and a stake driven through the hole in the centre of the stone.”

It is not recorded whether this grim procedure proved an effective way of laying the ghost.”