Part 2

I find various stages of evolution of the tump. The small tump at a road junction for the local road construction, examples at Cross in Hand, Belmont, Hungerstone, Shelwick old Turnpike, near Bowley Town (called the Stocks). With most of these the pond from which the earth was dug adjoins. When much larger tumps were wanted the trench of earth to make them was dug in the form of a ring, and a moated tump resulted, as at Eardisland (with water), Pont Hendre, Longtown (dry). The water in these excavations proved to be splendid sighting points by reflection from higher ground, and the moats with no tump but a flat plateau within a ring of water evolved. Many tumps on banks, as at Tre-Fedw, near Pandy, show no excavations. Many tumps were at the junction of leys, showing the technical skill of the early surveyors, who must have moved a temporary sighting point on one ley until it fell in the line of a second ley. A sighting tump always commanded a fine, clear view in at least two directions, and in after ages was coveted as a dwelling spot. At Didley is an instance of the simple homestead against it. Thus sighting produced the sites, this being only one of many instances where the record of the ley is embedded in the English tongue. The generic name of Merry Hill applied (as near Hereford) to many tumps gives a clue to their use as assembly points for recreation, confirmed by folk lore and surviving customs of dancing in a circle with hands linked. The folk-mote was held at a tump with a dry moat, so admirably adapted for seating.

EARTH CUTTINGS.

Where a mountain ridge stood in the path of a ley, the surveyor, instead of building a tump on the ridge as a sighting point, often cut a trench at the right angle and in the path of the ley. This shows as a notch against the sky and makes a most efficient sighting point from below. I have counted eight such artificial notches in the mountain ridge when on the road from Llanvihangel Crucorney to Longtown. Each notch can only be seen on the line of sight, and disappears when a quarter of a mile right or left. They are sometimes emphasised (as at Trewyn Camp) by an earth work thrown up on one side. The Wych on the Malvern ridge is an instance.

The two fine gaps near Flansford (Goodrich) and Marstow (Plate V.), both with bridges over them, are also ancient sighting cuttings.

The sighting cuttings were also used in passing over banks in lower ground. Cullis is one of the names for such an earth cutting, as Portcullis between Withington and Preston Wynne, and High Cullis above Gatley Park, recently visited by the Club.

There is a very neat example of such a cutting at Hungerstone, near Allensmore, where the cutting in the bank allows the ley to be sighted on to a pond on its way to the next tump, the one close to the church at Thruxton.

The word hunger (a common place-name element) indicates, I think, a cutting through a bank, not the bank itself, as now surmised. There are cuttings at most fords, which permit the water to be seen from above and serve as sighting points. The cutting near Charing Cross, which gives the name to the present Hungerford foot-bridge, probably came down through Inigo Jones’ beautiful Water Gate.

Mr. Codrington in his book on Roman Roads describes the method used by Roman engineers “well known to surveyors for laying out a straight line between extreme points not visible from each other, from two or more intermediate points from which the extreme points are visible. By shifting the intermediate points alternately all are brought to lie in a straight line.” This method was evidently used for all the leys.

WATER SIGHTING POINTS.

I have suggested how these might have developed from the tump, and shown where pond and tump were used together. Moats are a similar arrangement on a larger scale. The trackways go straight for the island part of the moat. It is not the least amazing part of this revelation that I find practically all the small horse or cattle ponds in field or homestead which are marked on a 6in. ordnance map have leys running through them, and that examination in dry seasons shows signs of the road passing through them. “And when we cleaned the pond out we found it cobbled at the bottom” is a frequent report made by a farmer. I show a photograph of one of these at Bridge Sollars, with the trench of the road beyond.

A beautifully constructed causeway of even pitched stones is to be seen at the foot of Holmer Hill (Plate VI.). It has well defined edges, and lies at the bottom of a small sighting pond. In the crevices of its stones I found fragments of crude red pottery, with a bit of early (Anglo-Saxon) ornament, a bit of iron slag, and a bit of iron. This ley is sighted on the North Hill, Malvern.

I cannot say that passengers walked through the bottom of these ponds (most of them have one shelving edge, with the opposite bank steep), but to this day an ancient road (at Harley Court, Hereford) does go through the bottom of a small pond, being sighted through the Cathedral.

When there is a large central island on a moat I surmise early dwelling houses--a subject for spade research. There evidently came a wish for roads not running through the water, and a pair of ponds or lakes with a causeway between, such as we find at Holmer fish ponds, is frequently found on the map, and is the sure indication of an ancient trackway. Probably the square moats are later than the circular ones. I saw in the grass the track of a 15-foot road (probably Roman construction) making straight for the centre of Yarkhill Moat.

Many ponds (as at Belmont, The Burcot, and adjoining Ledbury Churchyard) not known as moats are really such, their islands being sighting points.

The causeway to the centre of the moat evidently suggested their use (many ages after they were made) as a defensive ring of the house of a rich owner, as at Brinsop, Badesley Clinton, Gillow, etc.

I think that the word lake, now used for large sheets of water, was originally applied to small reflecting sighting ponds as well. The place names of Sutton Lakes, Withington Lakes, Letton Lakes, and Tumpy Lakes are explained by this theory.

MARK STONES.

These (Plate IX.) were used to mark the way. They were of all sizes, from the Whetstone on Hargest Ridge to a small stone not much larger than a football. Some were long stones or menhirs, but few remain upright in this district. I know of three lying fallen on leys, namely on the wall at the south gate of Madley Churchyard, near the inn at Bush Bank (cross road from Weobley), and used as a bridge over a ditch near the Field Farm on the Litley-Carrots path.

I show photographs of a fine stone at Red Lion, Madley, having a flat top, and of the type which developed into market stones. The market stone at Grosmont Town Hall (on which the first market basket placed on market day paid no toll) is the successor of such a mark stone. Two marking stones (with ancient brick houses built partly on them) stand unnoticed in the short Wye Street, just over Wye Bridge at Hereford. They mark the Palace Ford, and a ley from Castle Hill to Hunderton. They are of the same peculiar stone (not “old red”) as at Madley, Colwall, etc.

Wergin’s Stone (Plate X.) is a late type of mark stone which was the prototype of the churchyard and wayside crosses, all of which I think are on the sites of original mark stones, as I find leys passing through them.

In studying such crosses, I was puzzled to find several (as at Vowchurch, Hentland, Capel-y-fin) with ancient rough unworked stones as a base. I am now certain that these bases are the original stones marking a ley. The Pedlar’s Cross near Pen-y-lan Farm above Llanigon (mentioned in Miss Jacob’s fine story, “The Sheep Stealers”) has been chipped into a rude suggestion of a cross without taking down, and a flat mark stone on which Archbishop Baldwin is said (by tradition) to have preached when on his tour with Giraldus in 1188, has had a cross inscribed on it. It stands close to St. Ishaw’s Well at Partricio.

There is a striking marking stone on the Rhiw Wen route in the Black Mountains.

Other stones on leys are:--White Stone, Withington (with original stone at the base of an inverted fragment of its successor--a wayside cross); Queen Stone, Huntsham, at Credenhill cross-roads, at the foot of Froom’s Hill, on the road near Turnaston Church, marking a ford at Bartonsham Farm, Hereford, and Crossways, Bollingham. The stone that all the Kings of England are crowned on is certainly a mark stone.

SIGHTING STONES.

Mark stones may be on one side of the track, as are the whitewashed stones which mark a coastguard’s cliff walk to-day. But there also appear to have been sighting points of stone exactly on the ley, so constructed as to indicate its direction.

The Four Stones near Harpton, New Radnor, are four upright boulders (see Frontispiece) in an irregular quadrangle, and no one has explained their purpose.

I took sighting lines over successive pairs of stones, five lines being possible, and although the work on the map is not yet completed, I can definitely say that the “Four Stones” are directing posts which point out at least two leys, proved by passing through other good points. The first goes to the highest point in Deerfold Forest (The Camp, 940ft.) in one direction, and in the other through The Folly and on the main road at Llanvihangel-nant-Melan, over Bryn-y-Maen Hill, here appearing to strike another “four stones,” and through Llansaintfraed in Elvel Church to some peak beyond.

The second ley starts from Bach Hill (one of the highest parts of the Radnor Forest); through the Four Stones, dead on main road through Walton village, dead on main road past Eccles Green, through Upperton Farm and Kenchester Church, and dead on the present road which is the S.W. boundary of the Roman station of Magna; then going over the Wye through Breinton Church.

Bitterley Churchyard Cross has a circular hole through its shaft at a convenient height for sighting. Mr. J. C. Mackay kindly had the exact direction of this taken for me by sighting compass. It is 28½° E. of Magnetic N., and this on the map exactly strikes Abdon Burf (or Barf), the high point (1,790ft.) of the Brown Clee. Southwards the line runs through Stoke Prior and Hope-under-Dinmore Churches, is confirmed in other ways, and goes over the Wye at Belmont House.

Bitterley Cross is of 14th century date; it must be the successor of a sighting stone which in some way pointed the direction of the ley, and it suggests that sighting along a ley had not quite died out by the 14th century.

These two proved instances of sighting stones, together with the cases of stone rows on Dartmoor, and sighting columns on Sutton Walls, will give the clue to the hitherto unknown purpose of many important ancient stone monuments.

It is probable that the flat face of a mark stone, as in Wergin’s Stone (Plate X.), pointed out a ley. There is a Dial Post near Tewkesbury which, with the Dial Carreg near Cwm-yoy, seems to denote the above purpose, and the last stone is an upright shaft of rectilinear shape like the supposed cross at Capel-y-fin (Plate X.).

TREES.

I find that practically all the named historic trees (including Gospel Oaks) stand on leys. Such as King’s Acre Elm, Eastwood Oak, Great Oak at Eardisley, Oak near Moreton-on-Lugg Bridge, etc. Place names (which in my previous articles on Crosses I too hastily held to signify the site of a cross) also indicate trees as marks. Such are Lyde Cross Tree, Cross of the Tree at Deerfold, Cross Oak, Cross Ash, Cross Colloe (hazel tree cross), and two leys cross at these points. Actual trees are shown at the cross roads in two of the above in Taylor’s fine county map of 1757.

The Oak in the horse-shoe meadow at Ross is on the ley passing over Over Ross (the place name indicates it) and Wilton Castle. The steep little street coming down to the river from the Swan Hotel is dead on this ley.

Where a natural hill came under a ley it was often made a sighting point by the planting of a single tree, hence the numerous “one tree” hills, as at Backbury and on the Holmer Golf Links. All places called “The Grove” seem to be on a ley, and a small group of trees (as at Ladylift) was also used to mark a sighting point. Existing trees are probably successors of original ones.

I see evidence that at one time such trees were called the “stock.” The site of the wayside cross at Winforton is known as the Stocks, and a marking tump in the lane for Bowley Town (or Court) has an ash on it, and is called by the same name, as are farms at Wellington, Almeley Woonton, etc. The highest point (a hill near the Three Elms on the “Roman” road from Kenchester to Lugg Bridge) is marked on the map as Bobblestock Hill. I have known it as Bubblestock, but have no doubt it was Baublestock, the tree or stock (we still buy apple stocks in the market) where men who peddled necklaces and other baubles met the buyers. To-day, if you ask in a shop whether they keep such goods, you will, perhaps, be told that they have a good stock of them.

I think that the pole (Layster’s Pole, Yarpole, Lyepole, etc.) was a form of sighting point, lingering on to recent times as the May pole.

Every considerable avenue of trees (as in parks of country seats) which I have tested has a ley down its centre.

Monnington Walks, a Scotch Fir avenue a mile long (Plate XIII.), is sighted through Monnington Church and the Scar Rock, Brobury, which last can be seen central in the picture. I found the ancient track still on the ley at the Scar, and alongside appeared to be an enclosed camp with defences of a mild type, such as seem to be alongside many other sighting points, as Longtown and Bridge Sollars Churches. Other avenues on leys are at Trewyn (two), where the house, central with the Scotch Fir avenue, has been proved to be on a burial mound, at Llanvihangel Court, where tradition also asserts the house (central again) to be on a burial mound; at Oakley Park, Ludlow (The Duchess Walk); and at Longworth. A feature in most of these avenues is that, as far as present roads or tracks go, they “lead to nowhere,” and the discovery of the ley solves this puzzle. A striking instance can be seen from the Castle Mound at New Radnor, from which Harpton Court and Old Radnor Church are in line, and the eye looks up the centre of an avenue of trees climbing to the church. That beautiful avenue (half its beauty gone since two recent gales) with the ancient name Green Crise, which lines a public road out of Hereford, is on a ley which comes down the County College Road, over Putson Ford, and passes through Aconbury Church.

One sure sign of a ley is a long straight strip of wood marked on the map, as from Franchise-stone to Litley, and towards Breinton Church.

The word “park” had a meaning different to its present usage, but was probably connected with woodland, and certainly with leys, which pass through each of the innumerable Park Woods and Park Farms.

The Scotch Fir or Pine is the tree which seems most characteristic of a ley, for a group of them are almost always (I notice) signs of a sighting point, as at Constable’s Firs, Hampstead Heath.

At the present time it is impracticable to sight from point to point (especially on water points) on account of intervening trees. It is certain that for many centuries the sighting points were used, and that trees did not then intervene. This throws a doubt on the usual glib statement that ancient Britain was one dense forest. Perhaps the increase of trees was a cause of the decay of the system.

CAMPS.

I find that every camp seems to have several leys over it, and that these usually come over the earthworks, not the camp centre, as with moats. Also that camps almost always show signs of part of their earthworks being tumps. At Sutton Walls are four unmistakable tumps, in one of which an interment was found, and in another (Plate XIV.) the Club at its visit saw the bases of two masonry columns of Roman construction, the use of which seemed a mystery. I feel certain they were columns built by Roman surveyors for exact sighting.

Standing on the highest part of Dinedor Camp earthworks, the towers of Hereford Cathedral and All Saints’ Church can be seen exactly in a line to the stand point.

The camp plans in past Transactions show signs of tumps in most camps. It is impossible to assume that leys (sighted between two mountains) should in the scores of instances exactly fall upon the earthworks of camps previously built on sites selected solely for defence. The leys came first, and the present camp was then merely the site of two or more tumps. There came a period of organised raids and war, and where a group of tumps gave the first elements of defensive works, they were joined by earthworks into a complete enclosure for defence. Here again sighting settled the sites of camps. Hereford Castle Green with Hogg’s Mount the only remaining sighting tump, others (as at the Russian gun) being now levelled, is an example. Many groups of tumps, never developed into camps but sufficiently near to be so, are to be found on the map.

I found Caplar Camp to have so many leys over it as to seem the Clapham Junction of ancient trackways in that district. It may be that in a few cases of lofty camps (as Croft Ambury and Herefordshire Beacon) they form terminals of sighting lines, but in almost all cases the leys pass over them.

CHURCHES.

These--if ancient--seem to be invariably on (not merely alongside) a ley, and in many cases are at the crossing of two leys, thus appropriating the sighting point to a new use. A ley often passes through a tump adjacent to the church, and a cross ley through both church and tump. In other cases a mark stone site became the churchyard cross, and a cross ley comes through both church and cross. In many cases one of the leys went through the tower only, and it is possible that tower and steeple were built to be used as sighting points, although on the other hand a large church did in fact block the road. I will make no surmises on these interesting points. The sighting system may have been in decay or the tracks abandoned when the churches were first built on the sighting points. I do not think it probable that leys were made to provide sites for churches. In almost every old town or village will be found examples of a church built on and blocking an ancient road although new roads (as at Weobley) are often made on one or both sides. I show examples of a number. Broad Street blocked by All Saints, Offa Street (a striking example) with St. Peter’s Tower dead on one end, and the Cathedral Tower dead on the other end. Other examples: Ledbury, Wigmore, Shrewsbury (Fish Street), Kington, and Madley, where tower, churchyard cross and village cross are on one ley, and tower, nave, chancel, and a mark stone in the village on a lengthwise ley.

At Warwick a chapel is over a town gateway, and in Exeter an ancient lane is also allowed to continue as a tunnel under the altar of a small church, two curious instances of the right of way being continued and the desire of the clergy to use the site also attained. Kenderchurch is a striking instance of a church perched on the apex of a sighting mound, and in other districts I can think of Bren Tor (Dartmoor), Harrow, Churchdown (Gloucester), and the two St. Michael’s Mounts, these last obviously terminals of leys, as is St. Tecla’s Chapel out in the channel below Chepstow, the termination of the beach ley which gives its name to Beachley Village.

In London St. Paul’s blocks the Watling Street and Ludgate Hill leys, and St. Clement Danes, St. Mary le Strand, and St. Martin’s in the Fields are all on another ley with subsidiary roads evolved on each side of the churches.

CASTLES.

Every castle in this district has a ley passing over it, and originated in a sighting tump, upon which the keep was afterwards built when some lord selected this as a desirable site for a defensive home. If a large tump, there were usually some excavations which were developed and extended into real defensive works.

The word castle is applied to many tumps (as in Moccas Park), where no building has ever existed, and to farms (as Castle Farm, Madley), where there are signs of a tump, but merely a homestead round it.

Where the word castle is part of a genuine place name, there was a sighting mound.

TRADERS’ ROADS.

Salt was an early necessity, and “Doomsday Book” records Herefordshire Manors owning salt pans at “Wick,” namely Droitwich. The salt ley for Hereford came from Droitwich through the White House, Suckley, Whitwick Manor, Whitestone, Withington (site of present chapel), White House, Tupsley, Hogg’s Mount, Hereford, and on to its terminal on Mynydd Ferddin Hill through Whitfield mansion. Another salt ley passes through Henwick and Rushwick (Worcester), over the Storridge pass through Whitman’s Wood, and ultimately gets to White Castle (Mon.), passing over the White Rocks at Garway. Similar leys pass through such places as Saltmarshe Castle, Whitewell House, the two White Crosses, Whitcliffe, Whiteway Head, the Wych pass over the Malverns. It is plain what the “white” man carried.

A knowledge of the ancient pottery in the Kiln Ground Wood at Whitney enables me to show the meaning of the numerous red banks, barns, and houses. A ley through this pottery is sighted on Newchurch Hill and passes through Redborough, Red Lay (a cottage on main road this side of Letton); the ley is then dead on two miles of the present high road as far as the Portway, and passing through the Home Farm, Garnons (where the ancient road exists), it ultimately reaches the little Red House, the old Tannery House at The Friars, Hereford; the ley goes on through Woolhope Church, but the small local potter had come to his limit and the reds cease on this road. Another ley from this pottery runs through the Red Gates and Eardisley Park.

What the “black” man carried is indicated by the name still given to the smith who works in iron. Whoever carried to or from the local forges, whether it was ore, charcoal, or iron, would be black.

The earliest trade (before metals were worked) must have been in flints, and as a man who wanted such would not have gone across Gloucestershire to the nearest chalk districts to fetch them, the flint chippers, or knappers, would come on the road to sell them. The sighting tumps called the Knap are common, and if I wanted to search for flint flakes, I should go to the base of the Knaps, their earliest market. Tin Hill, Tinker’s Hill, and Tinker’s Cross have a similar meaning.

HEREFORD TRACKWAYS.