Extract from Alfred Watkins of Hereford

{37} The next advance in Ley-thinking came from Cambridge. Professional work had taken me to the town of my old University (very pleasant it was to resume residence there) and my father visited my house for a few days. Characteristically, he was quite indifferent to the University life and buildings, but mightily excited by an obscure mound of common earth in the urban district which called itself Cambridge Castle, and spent the whole of his time ferreting round it. That was Alfred Watkins all over! He had discovered on the local map that Cambridge was an intriguing Ley-centre, so he had no time for rival attractions.

In about two incredible months of feverish map-searching he had actually completed another book! Archaic Tracks round Cambridge was published in 19291932. It is an astonishing book especially to anyone who knows its origin: he might have lived in the district all his life. The amount of local information crammed into its 60 pages is staggering. My father had an appetite for local information; he just ate it up.

For some strange reason this book has attracted almost no attention, yet it has many claims to be considered the best he ever wrote: it was also his last. His mind was wider and more mature than when he was writing Early British Trackways in the first flush of enthusiasm, and he was reaching out into the future, discovering, discovering. His new discovery in this book was cardinal-point alinements, and here he anticipated by several years the grid patterns later emphasized by Major F. C. Tyler. One Cambridge {38} reaction is worth noting. The late Mansfield Forbes, Fellow of Clare College, said to me, “Your father’s name will live for ever.”

This new finding of Ley-patterns was destined to dominate Ley-thinking for twenty years after my father’s death in 1935. So his day of written work went out in a blaze of glory. Now, from his last peak, he could look serenely on the promised land.