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CHAPTER IX.

CONFIRMATION AND MORE TRACKS.

After map-evidence (as here given), if field work follows, corroboration on the ground usually comes. Such as finding unrecorded mark-stones, hollow roads, hill-notches. Or sometimes the ghost of a track, seen in pasture land in very dry seasons, or in ripe corn near harvest. I know of little field-work done in this district, but with the first copy of the map sent out, my son, Allen Watkins, relates of a tramp made in the Royston district: “Leaving Strethall Church . . . . . I met a labourer and passed the time of day. I told him my route from Royston, “Ah, you came by the Roman road. Now when I first came to these parts, the older folk said that there did used to be an old Roman road straight from Strethall Church here, towards Cambridge. I’ve never seen it myself; but when the corn grows, you can see exactly where the old road went, by the poorer crop; I’ve often seen that.” This was a capital piece of confirmation, for the labourer introduced the subject of roads himself; I never said a word about them, and of course the track he saw was the one marked on your map from Cambridge to Strethall Church, No. 4.”

A later instance where my son visited two mark-points (on No. 19 track), “Anglesea Abbey” and “The Abbey.” They were not marked as ancient on the map, but the line (investigated because Chesterton Road pointed straight at the Castle Mound) came through them. My son reported: That Anglesea Abbey, now a modern house, was founded in 1100 A.D. and there is now a rectilinear moat. The Abbey, by Commercial End (Swaffham), is also old; a house is erected on the old foundations, and a bit of old wall still stands, but that local people were not able to give the origin. The map did not mark these as old, but the alinement managed to find them out.

Queer bits of confirmation often come when plotting out maps. No. 12, for instance, sighted through Great and Little Eversden Churches and The Tower, has a fragment of straight road at Weston Colville, coming out of its way to be on the line, evidently a surviving ancient fragment.

{44} Another type of confirmation: On the adjoining Ely map, a most convincing straight line comes through St. Ives and Holywell Churches, the corner of Cottenham churchyard, a Cold Harbour Farm, and the edge of Soldiers Camp. When this map was joined to the Cambridge one, the alinement continued as the line I have marked dotted in the top right-hand corner of Plan II. (47), coming through ExnalExning and Burwell Churches, and to a hill-point above Newmarket.

Another such instance was found on the Ely map in the straight ancient “Causeway” seen to be sighted on Henny Hill, and edging (in the usual manner of tracks), the camp-entrenchments of Soldiers Hill. The confirming point about this is that when extended into the next map, I found the line go through Impington and Coton Churches.

It is convenient to label these extra alinements, and I will call the St. Ives No. 47 and the Henny Hill No. 48.

{Plan IX}

I have found that sharp zig-zags in present-day roads are almost always at places where an ancient alined track crosses the other (perhaps more modern). I noted an instance of such a zig-zag near Caxton Church. Extending the “zig,” I found it go through Toft, Caldecote and Croxton Churches; on to a point near Winteringham, where a “Roman road”—an alined track, crosses it at another “zig,” and on (in the Bedford map) through several corroborations to Hail Weston Church and the Castle Hill and Church at Yelden. This No. 49 (Plan IX.)

No. 50, along the centre of the great avenue of Wimpole, was given in the Ley Hunter’s Manual by a correspondent, who found it confirmed in an adjoining map. I did not insert it in Plan II. because I did not see the mark-points total up to my 5 as minimum. But I am fairly satisfied {45} that it is an ancient line, as I have found cross-lines (not all fully proved) coming through the Pool, the Mansion, and the Tower. It is well worth following up.

After I had the map quite crowded enough, my eye caught a line of a boundary, a track and Vallance Farm pointing to a church, and it provided the striking confirmation of coming to a point near Barley Church, where two lines already crossed—an evident sighting hill-point. This No. 51 is a good track. Hill-point—Heydon Church—Bit of road—Boundary, track, Tumulus, and Vallance Farm—Great Chesterford Church—Cross-road—Hadstock Church.

Another confirmation, this time verifying the actual alinement of an ancient causeway through church sites, is again in the Ely map. Conybeare’s Rides round Cambridge mentions the Soham Causeway, made by Harvey de Briton, first Bishop of Ely, and credited with supernatural sanction. St. Edmund appeared in a dream to a man of Exning, instructing him to suggest the causeway to the Bishop. This causeway, part of a main road now, is straight and sighted through Ely Cathedral at one end and Fordham Abbey at the other. It is only about 18 miles from Cambridge. (No. 52).

I will now give a few other alinements, which, like others in this chapter, are not marked on either of my maps. Some of them have the full 5-point proof.

No. 53.	Moat at Manor Farm, Great Eversden—Grange Farm, Cambridge—St. Peter’s in the Castle Church, Cambridge—Chesterton Moat—Biggin Abbey.
No. 54.	Moat near Hatley—The Tower in Wimpole Avenue—Road-junction near Hauxton—Great Shelford Church—Road-junction, Stapleford—Straight road and field track for 1¼ miles.
No. 55.	Moat at Papworth Hall—Knapwell Church—Eye Hall Moated-house—Swaffham Prior Church. (This alinement is parallel to No. 15 less than a mile apart.)
No. 56.	Papworth St. Agnes Church—Caxton Pastures Moat—Hoback Farm—A second Hoback Farm, with moat—Tumulus near Melbourn—Heath Farm Moat—Barley Church. (The two Hoback Farms on one line called my attention to this well-proved track, but being so close to another, I had to omit marking it on my map, but its points are ringed).
No. 57.	Arbury Camp (corner of)—Donkey’s Common, Cambridge—Road-junction, Sawston—The Spike road-junction—Approximately on about three miles of present road to edge of Roman settlement, ICANUM—Great Chesterford Church—Short road at Littlebury.

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No. 58.	South edge of Arbury Banks (Ashwell)—Goffer’s Knoll with tumulus—Road-junction, Coach and Horses—Cross-roads at Hinxton—Little Linton Moat—West Wickham Church—397 Hill-point.
No. 59.	Cross-roads, Royston—On ¾ mile of supposed Icknield Way—Noon’s Folly (both Farm and sight-point)—Cross-road and approximately on track for a mile)—Ickleton Church—Haw’s Hill, 272 feet.
No. 60.	Wiggens Green—Wigmore Pond—Goldstones—(Byrds Homestead)—Road-junction—Littlebury Church—Cross-road near Calmere End.
No. 61.	Tumulus north of Sturmer Hall—Wiggens Green—Helion Bumpstead Church—Helion Moat—Road-junction and bit of road.

I add these alinements (too many, some will say), not marked on my maps, because some local investigators might find real information in them. Some are quite as well authenticated as those marked. No. 60 is given as having two “Wig” names on it. “Wig” might be Saxon for war, or a corruption of “Weg”—a road.

PROOF OF AN ANCIENT INSTINCT.
Mr. N. Woodhead, M.Sc., of Bangor University, remarks in the notebook of the Straight Track Club: “We well suppose that the ancient folk had this faculty (sense of direction) well-developed. My brother and I have tested ourselves, and find we can keep to a straight course for five miles, and reach a point within 20 yards of our original objective. We have repeated the experiment many times within the last five years. On one occasion my brother and I were leading a party of scouts to the summit of a mountain which was four miles distant. We saw the peak from our base. I led straight for it, the boys following in file and my brother bringing up the rear. A thick sea mist blotted out our objective, which was completely invisible for three-quarters of an hour, and I had no track or intermediate points to guide me. But I held on my way over heather, gorse and rock, making occasional twists to dodge the more unpleasant gorse-bushes. When the summit cairn (Caer Tre’r Ceiri) loomed through the mist, I stopped and noted with satisfaction that my party was alined on to it.”