Journal of Geomancy vol. 1 no. 4, July 1977
{84}
I was interested to read your reference in “The Geomancy of Cambridge”* to the tradition of an underground passage between Barnwell Abbey and St. Radegund’s Nunnery (now Jesus College). These sites are linked by a diagonal of the parallelogram described in my own article. The line runs from St. Clement’s Church, along the north wall of the quire of St. Radegund’s Chapel, and terminates in the Abbey Church (St. Andrew’s the Less).
The heptagon diagonal from Cambridge to the Whiteleaved Oak runs along the north wall of King’s College Chapel but does not pass through Grantchester. There is a blunder in “The Landscape Geometry of Southern Britain”, where I have written Grantchester instead of Coton. Nevertheless, the legend of an underground passage from the Chapel to Grantchester Manor may be connected with the following alinement:–
(1) centre of the Round Church, Cambridge.
(2) West end of King’s College Chapel – i.e. site of the church of St. John Zachary.
(3) Grantchester Manor House. Parts of the present building date from the fifteenth century.
(4) Wimbish Manor House at Shepreth. A house stood on the site in the seventeenth century,
(5) Ardeley Bury, Herts. Moated manor, probably on the site of a twelfth century hall.
(6) Aston Bury, Herts. Another moated manor, supposed to have been built about 1540.
(7) St. Botolph’s church, Shenley, Herts. Rebuilt in early fifteenth century. The line may pass through the site of the chancel, demolished in 1753.
Tyttenhanger farmhouse near Shenley also lies on the alinement, but I do not know how old it is. The underground tunnels at Grantchester are referred to as sewers by the Royal Commission on Historic Monuments. From the published plan, the orientation of the straight tunnel is about 14° east of north, so if continued it would pass several hundred metres west of King’s College Chapel. The manor house was purchased by King’s College in 1452, six years after work began on the chapel – perhaps an instance of geomantically linked sites having the same owner (Information: RCHM West Cambs., VCH Cambs., VCH Herts.).
On a different subject – in “Terrestrial Zodiacs in Britain”** Robert Lord describes the unconventional cyclic order of the signs of the Pendle Zodiac, and notes that the distances between adjacent signs, taken in the range 1 to 6, form a palindromic cycle. He invites readers to work out the probability that this could occur by chance. Unfortunately I couldn’t think of a reasonably short way of doing this, so instead I took a pack of 12 cards and shuffled them 100 times, to see how often a palindromic cycle of differences came up. Not a single instance occurred, which shows that the ordering of the Pendle Zodiac is unusual in this respect.
* I.G.R. Local Study just published.
See P. 74 for details.
** Terrestrial Zodiacs in Britain – Nuthampstead Zodiac and Pendle Zodiac
by Nigel Pennick & Robert Lord. Available from I.G.R. at £1·95
for members £2·65 non-members.
{85}
Robert Forrest’s reply to my letter in IGR 2 only serves to substantiate my opinion of the inadequacy of his statistical analysis of ley-lines. The main point to be emphasised, and which I obviously did not make clear in my letter, is that no matter how convincing the mathematical processes and the validity of the equations used, the whole exercise is irrelevant if all the pertinent data is not included in the initial hypothesis.
Robert states in his letter in Journal 3 “Intervisibility is too complex a factor to incorporate into the statistical model, which considers the map as a plane”, further on in his letter, regarding fieldwork, he agrees that fieldwork uncovers sites not on the map, and then states “a new statistical model then becomes necessary to compute the alignments not just amongst ‘shown’ (on the map) sites but amongst the ‘not shown’ ones as well. In other words fieldwork could be taken into account if we had all the relevant data as to the number of sites missed and left unrecorded on the maps by the O.S.”
Numerous researchers have discovered standing stones etc. by field-work, for example John Michell, Francis Hitching, John Williams, and Janet and Colin Bord. So surely this facet of leyology should <not> be excluded. It appears that as Robert does not have this information it is disregarded. Really this just isn’t good enough! If he considers it is important to have a statistical analysis of ley-lines, then let’s have it done properly. One cannot and should not ignore data because of the difficulties involved.
Presumably Robert’s statistics are designed to show the number of lines that can be drawn on maps that have the appearance of ley-lines but could occur by chance. But this does not prove or disprove the theory. It is, at the moment, a purely mathematical exercise.
In Earth Magic by Francis Hitching, (p. 158) John Williams is quoted as saying “I have also found that the angle of 23½°, or its multiples of 47°, 70½°, and 94° occur repeatedly. By the law of averages, this should occur only about 4 times in 180. But when I sent one of my maps to be checked in America, I received the answer that as many as 60% of the angles were declination angles”. Earlier on page 157 John Williams is quoted as saying that a computer-based analysis of his work that was compiled in an American university has already proved his theories. Perhaps the I.G.R. editor could try and ascertain if this information is available for publication? I am sure most I.G.R. readers (especially Bob) would be most interested.
Since writing the above I have received a copy of Dr Euan Mackie’s latest book ‘Science and Society in Prehistoric Britain’. This is a superb synthesis of Professor Thom’s theories and a consideration of their impact on current archaeological theories. There are one or two relative passages in the book which sum up the way I feel {86} about Robert’s statistics. Perhaps the arrival of the book was an example of psychometry!!
M.H. Moroney writes in ‘Facts from Figures’ – “Averages can be nineteen places of decimals with astonishing ease. When the job is done it looks extremely accurate. It is an easy and fatal step to think that the accuracy of our arithmetic is equivalent to the accuracy of our knowledge about the problem in hand. We suffer from ‘delusions of accuracy’”.
The second example involves the assumption – which might be delusion – that mathematics can be used to infer what happened in the past on the basis of measurement of present conditions. Professor T.H. Huxley in his Presidential Address to the Geological Society in 1869 was concerned to combat the views of William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) that he could show by calculation that the age of earth and the solar system must be much less than had been supposed. “I do not propose to throw the slightest doubt on the accuracy of any of the calculations made by such distinguished mathematicians. … But I desire to point out that this seems to be one of the many cases in which the admitted accuracy of the mathematical processes is allowed to throw a wholly inadmissible appearance of authority over the results obtained by them … so pages of formulae will not get a definite result out of loose data.”
As you can see the above extracts are similar to the points I wrote, except that they are more intelligible!!
I would also like to say that whilst I basically agree with Robert that caution must be exercised in Geomantic research, one must not drift too far away from the underlying spiritual basis of the subject. The inner experience or ‘feeling’ must eventually override any other considerations. One cannot statistically analyse the special ‘vibrations’ one feels on entering certain places, or the sense of peace one finds in walking along some telluric pattern that only you, at a specific time and place can feel. You cannot ‘explain’ it, analyse it, or reproduce it in another person – but you know it exists.
Finally, I would like to make it quite clear that I am not attacking Robert Forrest personally, and that it is only in an atmosphere of discussion and the exchanging of views that any constructive work can be achieved.
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… Vol. 1 No. 2 of the journal has only lately come into my hands, and only now been put down (for it has great unputdownability. Congratulations.
Hudson’s “… or more probably May 8th” interests me. One the places I take a special interest in is Monte San Angelo on the Gargano Peninsula of the Adriatic coast of Italy. There is there a great cave, in ancient times an Oracle centre, now dedicated to St. Michael, who is alleged to have appeared there three times: May 8th; September 28th and 29th. But it is May 8th which is still the great day of pilgrimage the spot. I have seen posters in Malta advertizing it (? excursion fares perhaps). Sep 28 & 29 which I had thought perhaps some Michaelmas dressing, are almost as long after the equinox as May 8th is after May 1st. {87}
The cave and the passage down to it are full of discarded crutches and grateful offerings of the healed. I was told in situ that there is a number of miraculous cures every May 8th.
Since Monte San Angelo is a hill top on an East coast, I could imagine alignments NW and SW of it for noting sunrises.
P. 28 … “The sunrise line from Sidbury Camp … to Stapleford”. Is there not a Stapleford near Cambridge? I wonder if the name carries any alignment connotation.