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MAPS.
One is absolutely necessary to tramp the alinements. And that one MUST
be a one-inch Ordnance sheet. The half-inch or quarter-inch maps as used
for motorists are quite useless, as they have not the details required.
In fact for villages or towns it is difficult to do without consulting
the six-inch maps.
The POPULAR folding map (Cambridge), No. 85, at 2/6, conforms in area to my Plans II. and V., so do not accept the 3/- “Cambridge District” map, which is poorer value, and does not conform.
BOOKS.
Ancient Mark-Stones of East Anglia (W. A. Dutt, Flood and Son,
Lowestoft, 2/-). This by one who has confirmed by field-work the
pre-Roman. sighted tracks, and it throws light on the system.
Stonehenge. (Sir Norman Lockyer, Macmillan, 12/6.) Details the pioneer work of this skilled astronomer in finding sun-alinements in most of the British megalithic monuments.
Either The Ley Hunter’s Manual (2/-) or The Old Straight Track (18/-), my own text-books, which are detailed in a page after the index. The first-named the most recent, and it has fresh matter on camps.
Archæology of the Cambridge Region. (Dr. Cyril Fox, Cambridge University Press, 31/6.) Indispensable, being crammed with reliable topographical facts detailed by a brilliant expert, and dating, where possible, the many finds and “monuments.”
DR. CYRIL FOX’S BOOK.
Cambridge is exceptionally fortunate in this skilled compendium of the
local knowledge bearing on my theme. I, therefore, glance at several
points, noting first that I had finished both maps and text in these covers
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before I saw Dr. Fox’s book, and have not altered, omitted, or added
anything to my own personal observations in consequence.
The book is absolutely necessary to the real investigator. The author naturally adopts the orthodox opinion (I think, wrongly), that straightness and alinement is an exclusive sign of Roman engineering, all earlier ones being sinuous. This excepted, I find his attitude and information as to pre-historic tracks and their mark-points amazingly full, up-to-date, and open-minded. Contrary to many stiff-back authorities, he notes the abundance and importance of pre-Roman tracks other than ridgeways. For instance, p. 156, “The whole area is so seamed with tracks new and old, that accurate determination of a pre-historic route is well nigh impossible.” Then he notes (p. 320), that “the Romans are seen to have made extensive use of these earlier ways”; and p. 219, “Occupied areas had, when the Romans came, a network of reasonably good roads, and these, hardened and straightened in places, became vicinal ways, and occasionally, it would seem, main roads.”
Ermine Street, Dr. Fox, I gather, classifies as pre-Roman, yet referring (p. 164), to its “Distinctive Roman method of setting out. Great stretches are laid out on the same alignment, changes in direction coninciding with hill-crests.”
There is an interesting note on p. 30 concerning upland barrows (these in commanding positions are, I think, so placed for sight-marks), “ Our Bronze Age Barrows are all bowl-shaped. They are here, as in similar districts in England, confined almost entirely to the uplands. No primary interment of Roman date in an upland barrow is known to me.”
Dr. Fox gives routes for several surmised pre-Roman trackways, and it will be interesting to compare these with mine.
The orthodox dictum that the mounds on which Norman keeps have been built must always be classified as “Norman Mottes” and dated for that period, seems to be completely thrown over by Dr. Fox as regards that of Cambridge Castle, for he treats it as a mound to which the Romans alined their tracks, both in his sketch map on p. 246; and on p. 166, speaking of Roman roads: “On a clear day one may see how the alignment on Castle Hill, Cambridge, was taken from Fox Hill north of Orwell. The road coincides with a straight line joining the two points.” This, by the way, I make to be a good alined track, through Barton Church and several moats as mark-points, lying on the stretch of road seen, and another bit further on.
While I noted an apparent absence of “Dod” names in this map, Dr. Fox supplies the deficiency in noting near Barton a Deadman’s Way, and a Deadman’s Hill. This name always originates from the “Dod,” “Did,” or “Dud” element.
A most interesting fact, perhaps, bearing on my cardinal-point track alinements, is brought out (p. 199). “The fact that the Bartlow tumuli lie in exact lines north and south conforms to ancient custom, the Chronicle {49} Hills (tumuli) at TriplowAlso called Thriplow having been, in the Early Iron Age, so aligned.” Dr. Fox mentions two other groups of tumuli so alined north and south, namely (p. 197), Six Hills Stevenage, and (p. 193) at Rougham, east of Bury St. Edmunds. Three of these groups he puts down as probably Roman.
ALINEMENT.
For spelling this word I now follow the New English Dictionary:
“The English form, alinement, is preferable to alignment,
a bad spelling of the French.” In the Herefordshire village, Linton, is
a road called “The Line,” which follows a straight sighted
track, well confirmed between hill-points, and passing through a
“Lynders Wood.” A few miles away is a house called
“The Lea Line.” Through Linton Church (Cambridgeshire) I
find three alinements.
BOOK PROPORTION.
This book is King Octavo, using an ideal paper size (17 x 24), which has
the only proportion (1 to the square-root of 2; the diagonal of a square
to its side; or 1 to 1.414) which remains unaltered in proportion in
folding down through folio, quarto, and octavo. Its handsome proportion
was known and used by early printers.
THE SPADE.
This, I think, is the future means for proof of the reality of alined
tracks where mark-points indicate them to be. I have done no work on
this, but in several cases have seen in sewer and other cuttings such
proof where I had, beforehand, surmised tracks to be. It might be but a
small indication, where, not being through a wet place, the track was
not stoned. Depth I find to be from 18 to 30 inches underground,
possibly deeper in places, or less in uplands.
AEROPLANE PHOTOGRAPHY.
I am inclined to think, that however valuable this method will be for
fairly recent (as mediæval) tracks, and for the heavily stoned
Roman roads, it may fail to show the lighter and older tracks, two feet
below the surface. Consider that this method succeeds in recording
otherwise unseen tracks by only two methods: (a), by registering
when side-lighted very slight hollows. (b), by the differences in
colour or growth of surface vegetation caused by a layer of stoned road
below the surface. I do not think that the oldest tracks, two feet below
ground, show the faintest
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hollow above it. And when, as usual, they are not
stoned, I cannot see how they will affect surface growth.
It jars on one who has copiously photographed illustration for many books, to issue this one with maps and plans only. It is half-a-century since I first provided the illustrations to a book by my field photography. The probable two years’ delay needed to follow my custom I cannot face this evening time. So, end this book I must, as I began, incomplete in full proof, with field work lacking as yet. Will the reader who starts on it gladden the heart of an old scout with a note on his finds?
Adventure lies lurking in these lines where I point the way for younger feet than mine. Detective work of sorts; unnoticed mark-stones almost buried in the banks of cross-roads, in the field, or on a town pavement; the edges of an unrecorded camp; a faint mound almost levelled; or, again on the ley of the land, as the eye looks straight on, the point of a distant beacon-hill as a mark on the sky-line.
Who will strike the trail?