Journal of Geomancy vol. 2 no. 4, July 1978

{100}

WANDLEBURY – C.A.E. O’BRIEN REPLIES.

We sent a copy of Mrs. Beamon’s and Mr. Clark’s article to Mr. O’Brien, and this is his reply:–

Thank you for your letter 8th July, 1978 with its enclosed contribution to your Journal.  I am most grateful for the opportunity of replying to the criticisms in that article as the authors do not appear to have understood the basic mathematical and astronomical concepts upon which my work on Wandlebury was based.  And may I say that I do not like being described, at the beginning of the critique, as “the retired head of an international oil consortium”; this has nothing to do with my qualifications for the work that I have undertaken – this lies in 45 years of widely diversified professional science. 

First, let me also say that I am not responsible for the article in the Sunday Telegraph Magazine of 19th March, 1978.  This was written by a professional journalist after reference to my monograph on Wandlebury, and after discussion with me.  However, I did not see the article before publication, and even he was not fully responsible as his original writing was cut, editorially, to one quarter of its length with consequent alterations of emphasis, and non sequiturs. 

That aside, I have to explain that Wandlebury exhibits a number of elements which make it most improbable that its origins were as late as the Iron Age, or that its purpose was solely that of an Iceni Fort.  These elements are:

1.  The striking symmetry of two eccentrically placed, accurately executed circles, with a bulge in the E.S.E. is not consistent with an Iron Age Fort on an irregular hill top.  It would not have been the best configuration for such a purpose. 

2.  The astronomical parameters of the alignment from the geometric centre through the bulge and Gap D are duplicated in non-circular stone circles, elsewhere in Britain, where a much earlier date than Iron Age (ca 2000 B.C.) is not disputed.  The alignment was probably calendrical, and may have been associated with a pre-Celtic festival of Samhain. 

3.  The Gaps now existing in the eroded outer bank have alignments with the geometric centre which are so significant, astronomically, that there is a basic mathematical probability of less than 0.0002 that their positions are random.  This is a fact and cannot be summarily dismissed – it has to be faced and explained.  The explanation which I put forward in my monograph is that these Gaps, admittedly modern in their present form, were cut where elder gaps were already in existence. 

4.  In association with a line of ancient monuments, stretching south-southeastwards, and with a stone buried in its surface, the Wandlebury Circle exhibits a series of fascinating geometric features which greatly lengthen the odds against a random construction.  This.stone, of which your correspondents make great play, was not found by them.  The “cement covered brick plinth”, which they mention is some 30m away from the “Wandlebury Stone” which is covered by grass, and hidden beneath bushes.  I must state that I resent the implication that I broke my work to the Preservation Society by breaking-off a piece of the stone; I informed Mr. Tibbs that I examined the stone under a lens (a hand lens) and found it to be a shelly limestone.  If this critique is to be published, I wish it to be made clear to the Cambridge Preservation Society that no such vandalism as breaking-off a piece of the stone ever took place. 

That said, it remains for your correspondents to disprove the mathematics and/or astronomical considerations of my theory, and so show that the placement of the existing Gaps is likely to be random.  If they can do this, I should be most interested to hear from them; the monograph has been internationally discussed over the past 18 months, and neither astronomers nor mathematicians have {101} sought to amend it. 

There are two other points that I should like to make:

(a) that the present Warden should have dug a hole right through the causeway over the ditch at Gap B is most praiseworthy, but if the results were as your correspondents state this suggests that this causeway was another modern walk-way placed where an old gap made access easy.  I am very grateful for this information and shall certainly visit the digging as soon as I can;

(b) your correspondents are completely wrong over the hole ‘capable of seating a monolith’.  Contrary to what they say, the hole was on the north side of the Circle, and was pointed out to me by the Warden who was in office in 1974; it has nothing to do with any brick-tunnel found by the present Warden with whom I have scarcely exchanged a half dozen words. 

I trust that you will be able to find room for this reply to the critique, for which I am very grateful as it seems that a number of incorrect statements have been made verbally, and in the press, without my having the opportunity to correct them.