WATKINS’S REVELATION

by JOHN MICHELL

The most authoritative account of Alfred Watkins’s discovery of the ley system is in his son, Allen Watkins’s book, Alfred Watkins of Hereford (Garnstone Press, 1972), p. 28.

“The actual discovery was made on 30 June 1921, and it all came about in this wise. A chance visit to Blackwardine caused him to look at the map for features of interest. He had no particular object in mind, but was just having a look around. He noticed on the map a straight line that passed over hill tops through various points of interest and these points of interest were all ancient. Then without any warning it happened suddenly. His mind was flooded with a rush of images forming one coherent plan. The scales fell from his eyes and he saw that over many long years of prehistory, all trackways were in straight lines marked out by experts on a sighting system. The whole plan of the Old Straight Track stood suddenly revealed”.

Allen goes on to emphasize the revelational nature of his father’s discovery. “Such was the detail which flashed into consciousness instantaneously in every detail (except for beacons which were not understood until later). I repeat ‘instantaneously’. That was the essence of the experience. ‘The whole thing came to me in a flash’ he told me afterwards.” And later “My father regarded the knowledge that came to him as a revelation and told me so.”

When I first called on Allen, before writing The View Over Atlantis, he told me all this. I made some lamentable slips in writing it down, including spelling Allen’s name ‘Alan’ (corrected in later editions) and writing Bredwardine for Blackwardine (but made some amends for this by organizing, with help from Paul Screeton and Allen himself, the Hereford meeting and picnic near Blackwardine on the 50th anniversary of Watkins’s revelation). Then the horse detail. I thought that ‘outrider’ meant someone who rides out. In fact it simply means ‘trade representative’. No horse. A pity, but there it is. It has proved an attractive myth. In Stuart Holroyd’s book on the occult there is a delightful painting, specially commissioned, full colour, spread over two pages, of Alfred Watkins, bearded as in the photograph, viewing from the back of his horse the astonishing spectacle of luminous rays descending from the heavens and flashing from ley point to ley point across the Herefordshire landscape. It is a myth I started, or elaborated, by mistake, but no matter as long as there are decent scholars like Allen Watkins and David Adams to make available the recorded facts. All history soon turns into mythology. I don’t really believe that Alfred burnt cakes or that Charles hid in an oak, nor am I entirely convinced that the world was saved when they nailed a Jewish guru to a wooden post two thousand years ago. But I have nothing against these myths and enjoy them as much as anyone else, and I’m also fond of Holroyd’s picture of Alfred Watkins and the horse and the luminous ley system. As an approximation to truth I find this impressionistic view of Watkins’s revelation at least as good as David Adams’s description of Watkins as a “methodical figure” in a steam motor car.

My view of Watkins and David Adams’s in reaction to it are both mythological in the sense that they reflect our different approaches to the man and his discovery. David likes his methodical side, and so do I. But for me the fascination of Watkins’s character was the quiet, natural mysticism which he combined so admirably with his disciplined manner and appearance. He was far too sensible and balanced a man to play the prophet and claim ‘psychic visions’. But recognition of the ley system came to him as a revelation, and many people since his time have experienced the same effect. There is a strong mystical side to ley hunting which Watkins acknowledged in his much-quoted “Imagine a fairy chain …” passage in the OST and elsewhere in his writings.

It was Blackwardine, there was no horse and it may not have been a particularly sunny day; but there was a revelation, and to that not uncommon phenomenon we owe the rediscovery of the ancient ley system and the revised view of history which was thus opened. To David Adams, thanks for the corrections and please send details of how to apply for membership of the Alfred Watkins Society.