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TRACKS ROUND CAMBRIDGE

Maps are delightful playthings; and Mr. Watkins has already shown in “The Old Straight Track” what fun one can have with a map, a ruler, and a little—or, perhaps, more than a little—imagination. In Archaic Tracks Round Cambridge (Simpkin, Marshall, 3s. 6d. net) his plan is to note all those objects which he considers might have been used as sighting points and, when five or more of these fall in a dead straight line, to suggest that such a line implies a primitive, pre-Roman, track. His sight marks are, first, tumuli or other mounds on the skyline; which is reasonable, though, when he writes, “it is obvious that the straight line of the Huntingdon Road was laid out by sighting on the mound” of Cambridge Castle, it is legitimate to reply that it is equally obvious that the mound was erected to command the road, and that it is curious that Akeman Street, at right angles, was not also sighted on the mound. Other marks are hill-notches, rare in this district; mark-stones, of which none occur on the map; {col. 4} cross-roads, admittedly of slight value; and moats, of which he says, “the majority, I feel sure, originate from a prehistoric moated enclosure.” The italics are ours; the lack of evidence is the author’s. But his most important marks are churches. Of these he says, “the evidence that practically all ancient ones are built on ‘Pagan Sites’ is overwhelming.” If he had said “many” instead of “practically all” we might have been more overwhelmed. It is certainly curious that five churches do fall exactly on a line running due east and west; but it is equally curious that several others which might have fallen on the same line do not, and that the line does not appear to lead to anywhere particular.

It is, indeed, a weakness of the whole theory that so few of the tracks seem to go anywhere, which is the usual purpose of a track. Was the primitive Briton more intent on mapping the country into neat rectangular blocks, or walking along the exact line of midsummer sunrise, than on getting somewhere definite? Did his astronomical enthusiasm make him disregard all obstacles? For example, three of Mr. Watkins’s tracks intersect in the middle of Fulbourne fen. Again, it is certainly curious that there should be two places called “Noon’s Folly,” fourteen miles apart, one due south of the other. This, says our author, “revealed to me first the midday sighting lines.” Unfortunately, “noon” did not take on the sense “midday” much before the fifteenth century; so that the only part of the name of ancient significance appears to be the “Folly.” Again, when he says that “Helion Moat embodies the Greek word for sun,” some might comment on the coincidence that there was in this district a Norman family “de Heliun.” Reflecting on the instinct of the unregenerate walker to make for the nearest pub, the reviewer took the same one-inch map and, selecting inns as his sight-marks, obtained similar results to Mr. Watkins. His first, and best, effort produced six inns in line; another, four inns and the significant place-name “Two Pots House.” Four lines of four inns can be drawn, each terminating on one of the “Noon Follies”; and considering the original meaning of noon—“about 3 o’clock”—and the impossibility of obtaining a drink at that hour, the result is no doubt significant, and our English road system is to be attributed to Mr. Watkins’s sight-walker, gradually developing into Mr. Chesterton’s “reeling English drunkard.” Still, the problem is not to be solved ridendo, but, as Mr. Watkins urges, ambulando. There is good evidence that primitive tracks were numerous, and that they were sighted.