the extreme points there are many straight pieces not quite in the same
line, generally pointing to some landmark. There are several instances
where a barrow or tumulus was the landmark, the road passing round it
on nearing it. Silbury affords one example, and Brinklow, on the Foss,
another.”
Mr. James G. Wood (“Woolhope Club Transactions, 1910,” p. 146) says:
“The origin and purposes of these tumps associated with Roman roads
will well repay investigation. I have traced a line of such works
across South Monmouthshire and West Gloucestershire from Caerleon
through Caerwent into the Forest. All of these are so placed that each
is in sight of the next in either direction. Again, we find that such
roads were in many cases ranged or laid out in line with small camps or
such tumuli--being, in fact, surveying stations.”
The Rev. S. Baring-Gould (“Book of Dartmoor,” 1900) says: “The stone
row is almost invariably associated with cairns and kistvaens. They
do not always run parallel; they start from a cairn and end with a
blocking stone set across the line.”
The Rev. S. Bentley (“History of Bosbury,” 1891) says: “Under the cross
in the churchyard, at its removal to its present site in 1796, a huge
shapeless mass of rock weighing upwards of two tons was found. This
stone now lies in the churchyard close to the tower on the south side.”
Another writer refers to it as “this large unhewn mass of Silurian
rock.”
Mr. Hillaire Belloc (“The Old Road,” 1904), writing of the Pilgrim’s
Way, says: “Now on its way from Winchester to Canterbury the Old Road
passes, not in the mere proximity of, but right up against, thirteen
ruined or existing churches.”
Mr. Belloc also says: “The sacredness of wells is commingled all
through Christendom with that of altars”; and giving Continental
instances, also refers to the one under the altar at Winchester.
ROMAN ROADS.
The exact relation of Roman roads to the earlier leys is a matter for
future investigation, but our co-member Mr. Jack is on the right lines
when investigating the surface construction to find whether a road can
be called Roman. It is not easy to realise that many British roads were
as ancient to the Roman invaders as the Roman remains are to us.
My general impressions from observed facts are that the Roman surveyors
used the sighting system; that they utilized the old trackways,
imposing greater width and their far superior road surface and
foundations; also that working during the degeneration of the ley
system, they did not appreciate the long distance primary points, but
working on short distance hills and points their roads are not so
consistent and individual. I find evidence that they established their
stations on the original leys, and that these were then so numerous
as to form the boundaries of stations or towns, and thus decide their
polygonal shape. It is also probable that a great many Roman roads
of which portions remain were never completed, although the sighting
points of the original ley continue on the line.
The road from Aymestry to Mortimer’s Cross comes down to the Wye in the
cutting at Bridge Sollars.
The “Roman” straight road from Leintwardine through Paytoe and Wigmore
Moor (the subject of recent digging) continues as a ley through Lucton
and Kingsland Churches.
I consider the existing maps of Roman roads to have little value as
being based on the assumption that there were no straight sighted
roads before the Romans came, and that (quite illogically) such a road
could go round corners, and had to follow the tracks over which some
old writer had travelled. I find the so-called straight Roman roads,
as from Kenchester to Lugg Bridge, to be really on several slightly
diverging leys, three in this case.
PLACE NAMES.
The ley and its sighting points were earlier than homesteads, hamlets,
or towns, and as the latter evolved on the tracks, place names
naturally bear traces of their origin.
It is no reflection on philologists that, not knowing of the ley, they
have made misinterpretations, and have a huge mass of corrections
to make. In particular they will find a past neglect in translating
place names in the light of traders coming along the road and meeting
the buyers at settled points. The man who brought the long-coveted
gold ornaments might only come once a year, but to the women of the
community the Gold Hill, Gold Post, or Golden Cross (roads), where they
met him, or the Golden Valley, along which he came, would be likely to
take their names from his wares. There are two of each of the above
Gold place names in the county.
[Illustration:
PLATE XI.
CHURCHYARD CROSS.
Bitterley.]
[Illustration:
PLATE XII.
TREE.
Eastwood Oak, Tarrington.]
The notes which follow must be taken rather as suggestions than as
final conclusions.
The common suffix--ley--indicates a ley of the character denoted by
the first element in the name, and “meadow” is not, I think, the right
interpretation. The numerous Leys Hills are not likely to be so called
from meadows.
The suffix--ton originated by a mark stone on the ley becoming the
nucleus of a homestead, and perhaps later a town.
The suffix--bury clearly indicates a mound which was a sighting tump.
It is a strange development that these tumps were coveted both as
places to be buried in and to live on. Mrs. Gillespie (who lived at
Trewyn, Pandy, for 17 years) writes me: “I suppose you know that Trewyn
was built on a burial mound,” and goes on to describe the discovery of
a cist with human remains which they dug up under one of the rooms.
I had told her how Trewyn was on two leys (therefore on a sighting
point), one being down the avenue of ancient pine trees straight for
Alt-y-Ynis.
Barrow (another mound name) occurs at Cradley, Pembridge, and
Wheelbarrow Castle, Leominster; Canon Bannister shows that Coldborough
was formerly Colbarwe, and he also associates borough and bury as from
the same root. A variation is berrow as in Broomsberrow. Just as the
sighting stone--ton became the site of our modern town, so the mound
evolved into the borough.
Low--the universal name for the mound in Derbyshire--is not so common
here. But Wormlow Tump, Ludlow, Warslow, and Bradlow indicate sighting
points.
Bury is used alone as the name for a tump, as in the many Bury Farms,
or as at Ivington Bury. A farmer still calls the earth covered tump in
which he winters his roots a bury. Towns like Ledbury first grew round
a sighting mound.
“Broom” occurs with great persistence on leys, with its variations brom
and bram. Bromley and Bramley, Bromton and Bramton, Bromfield (where is
the Old Field with a number of tumuli), Broomsgreen, Broomsberrow, and
the many Broomy Hills are examples. It is not confined to one form of
sighting point, and I surmise (from a faint line of evidence) that a
component part of our modern broom was an essential working implement
of the skilled ley man, and was continued as the staff of the mediæval
pilgrim. Whether the plant broom was the original root word or a
derivative I cannot say.
Lady Lift (a hill-point mound) is on a ley with Lady Harbour Farm, and
the prefix Lady is applied to court, grove, ridge, oak, and meadow in
the county. The Lady Harbour of Hereford Cathedral is on one of the
leys which form Church Street, and had the name before any church was
built there. It might possibly indicate a woman’s shelter on the road.
The suffix--tree, probably originated in a single tree planted as a
sighting point, either as at “Cross of the Tree” in Deerfold Forest, or
to mark the apex of a natural hill as illustrated in Plate XII. Webtree
is on such a hill with two leys passing through it. Its name signifies
that it is the spot where the webbe or weaver met his buyers. He
travelled along the webbe-ley, and there are three Weobleys (formerly
Webbeley) in the county, at Weobley Ash, and Weobley Cross, also the
better known townlet. He also met others at a mark-stone now known as
Webton. The surnames Webb, Webber, and Webster still survive.
In the same way another first word element gave the place names (and
surnames from them) of Bosley (Cattle-ley), Boston, Bosbury, Boswell,
Bostock, and Boscastle. Again, Stanley, Stanwell, Stanton, Stanbury,
and Stanbatch. And I have shown how the white (salt) man gave the first
element to innumerable place names on his route. There is a Silver Tump
and a Brass Knoll in the Olchon Valley, both proved sighting tumps.
The names Bowley, Bowling Green (farm, also a quarry near Ewias
Harold), Bolitree, Bolstone, Bollingham, Bal Mawr, Balls Cross,
Ballgate, Bellgate, Bellimore, and Belmont, all seem akin to the
rounded outline of an inverted bowl, or to boils, bowels, and belly of
animal life, and indicate the rounded tump.
The house at Bolitree is built on a tump with signs of a moat, and as I
found a ley through Bollingham (house and chapel) I went there to find
the bol, and there it was, a fine tump with an old summerhouse on its
summit.
Gate in a place name (as in Hill Gate, Three Gates, Ballgate, England’s
Gate, Burley Gate, etc.) did not mean, as now, something which stopped
a way (that was called a lid-yatt), but the way itself. It is much the
same as the word pass. The same element (modified) is in such names as
Gatley, Gatsford, Yatton, Symonds Yat, Woodyatt’s Cross.
Lee Line and Timberline Wood are place names clearly describing leys.
There is a Linton and a Linley at Stanford Bishop--the mark stone and
the ley. I think that Lyonshall, Lynhales, Lion Farm, and Hobby Lyons
are variations.
Such names as Winslow, Preston Wynne, Winsley, and Winyard (Radnor
Forest) indicate the road by which wine was brought. Totnor,
Totteridge, Tothill, and Twt indicate (as Mr. J. G. Wood has pointed
out) tumps, and they are all sighting tumps on leys. Mr. Wood (who has
come very near discovering the ley) also--in Woolhope Transactions for
1919--connects Titterstone, Clee Hill (Plate I.) with the word Tot or
Toot. Tooting and Tottenham are London forms of the word. Rosemary
Topping (English Bicknor) is a much prettier name for a sighting tump.
Bur or Burl seems to be descriptive of some form of sighting point.
Leys pass through Burley, Burlton, Burton (many of this name), Burford,
and The Burcot; and there is a Burl Hill in Radnorshire.
Although a ley ran from peak to peak there must have been an earlier
termination to its useful part, or a still more restricted part used
by traders. Hence--in London--Finsbury; Capel-y-fin in the Black
Mountains; and Fine Street, near Letton, have probably the same
meaning, which, however, seems to be locally more often expressed by
the word end, as in New End (Canon Pyon), Red Wych End (Cowarne),
Nupend, etc.
As regards the place name element “broad” (also brad and bred), a ley
passes through Broad Green (Orleton), The Broad, north of Leominster,
Broadward, south of Leominster (dead on the main road at each of these
two), and on to Broadlands at Aylestone Hill, Hereford. It was the
road, not the place, which was broad, constructed for wheel traffic,
for which the previous pack-horse tracks were too narrow. Mr. Allan
Bright, of Barton Court, Colwall, wrote me, pointing out that a ley
from the Wych through his house to Ledbury Church, also ran through a
meadow of his called Broadley Meadow. Such names as Bradley, Bradlow,
Bradford, Broadmoor, Broad Oak, and Bredwardine are thus explained.
Probably most instances of the word elements, little and long, apply
to the roads which pass through the places. Hereford is (no doubt
correctly) said to mean “army road.” Little Hereford is not a small
edition of the town, but of the road. Litley is the small ley, Longley
is the long ley, and so with the stone, grove, land, and ford (there
have been two Longfords). Long in old spelling was often lange; and
little, lutel or luttel--these from Canon Bannister’s list. Hence come
the (places and surnames) Langstone, Langford, Langland, Langton,
Lutley, Luton. The two Leinthalls--Earles and Starkes--are seldom
called by these second names locally, but are Little Leinthall and
Long Leinthall respectively, the element leint (occurring also in
Leintwardine) being I surmise derived from ley. Little Leynthale, to
quote an old spelling, would be the meadow traversed by the short ley.
DISCOVERY BY PLACE NAME.
I have experienced this in several cases, and will detail one. A local
antiquarian (Mr. W. Pilley) always maintained that there had been
an ancient spring--the Bewell spring--close to Bewell House and the
Hereford Brewery within the City. When I lived there with my father
we knew nothing of it. But about a year ago the present owners in
sinking a new deep well and building a new engine house, uncovered the
following inscription cut in stone in the base of the brewery wall, but
covered by a rockery in my time:--
WELL, 71 FEET, 1724.
I had always felt that the derivation given for the place name Bewell
Street as Behind-the-wall Street was an error.
There is a hill on the Canon Pyon road called Bewley or Bewdley Pitch.
Solely on account of my surmise that the Bewley might lead to the
Bew-well, I tried a line on the map and found a ley exactly falling on
this “pitch” (or steep road) passing from the north through Bishops
Moat (west of Bishops Castle), Meer Oak, Bucknell Church, Street Court,
Stretford Churchyard, and Birley Churchyard, and exactly over the site
of the well. Southwards over Palace Ford, Dinedor Camp, Caradock, Picts
Cross, Hom Green Cross, Walford Church, Leys Hill, Speech House; there
being numerous confirmations in fragments of road.
THE LEY-MEN.
The fact of the ley, with its highly skilled technical methods, being
established, it must also be a fact that such work required skilled
men, carefully trained. Men of knowledge they would be, and therefore
men of power over the common people. And now comes surmise. Did they
make their craft a mystery to others as ages rolled by. Were they
a learned and priestly class, not admitted until completing a long
training--as Cæsar describes the Druids. Or did they--as Diodorus and
Strabo says of Druids--become also bards and soothsayers. Did they,
as the ley decayed, degenerate into the witches of the middle ages.
Folk-lore provides the witches with the power of riding through the air
on a broomstick, the power of overlooking, that of the evil eye. They
(in imagination) flew over the Broomy Hills and the Brom-leys. It may
be that the ancient sighting methods were condemned as sorcery by the
early Christian missionaries.
[Illustration:
PLATE XIII.
TREES.
1. A One-tree Hill, Llanvihangel-nant-Melan.
2. Scotch-Fir (or Scots Pine) Avenue, Monnington (See Plate
XVII.).]
[Illustration:
PLATE XIV.
CAMPS.
1. One of the Four Mounds, Sutton Walls.
2. Herefordshire Beacon.]
Were they the laity or lay-men of Beowulf?
In later days our first English poet was one Layamon, and in his time
were men called Ley-cester, Leye, and Ley-land.
In the Oxford Dictionary is given the obsolete word cole as meaning
in the 16th century a false magician, a juggler, and cole-prophet (or
cold-prophet) with a similar meaning, and there is a cole-staff or
cowl-staff also mentioned, which, although then meaning a carrying
stick, was--I surmise--originally the working sighting staff of the
cole-man, who was the magician of the ley. The word still survives in
colporter, a walking seller of books, who carries his wares slung over
his shoulder on a stick.
We have in our district Coldman’s Hill, Coldstone Common, Coles Tump
(Orcop), and Coles Mountain (Presteign). In other parts of England are
Coley, Colbury, Colebatch, Colestock, Coleshill, Coleford, Coleham,
Colchester, and Coleridge, which last has an alternate name Coldridge,
confirming other instances of the intrusion of the d. I surmise Cold
Harbour (Kentchurch) to have been Cole Harbour.
Colmanswell in Ireland possesses to-day a “sacred” well, and this name,
together with our own ancient Colewelle in Herefordshire, now altered
to Colwall, is probably nearer the original root meaning than is the
case of the three Coldwells at Holmer, Kingston, and English Bicknor.
A Bishop’s name Colman is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and
Cole is also a common surname to-day.
There are other names for a ley-man indicated in the two Derbyshire
place names, Totmans Low and Laidmans Low, the Low being a sighting
mound.
HINTS TO LEY HUNTERS.
Keep to the discovery of lines through undoubted sighting points, as
artificial mounds (including castle keeps), moats and islands in ponds
or lakes. In practice churches can be treated as sighting points, but
in some cases a ley passes through a tump or well close to the church.
Avoid for a time the temptation of taking every bit of narrow straight
road and extending it into a ley. Scrap every ley you think you have
discovered if it does not pass through at least four undoubted sighting
points exclusive of roads.
You must use Government ordnance maps. One mile to the inch is the
working scale. Other maps of two or four miles to the inch are quite
useless, save for checking long leys.
The (B) “Popular edition, mounted and folded in covers for the pocket,”
is the most convenient for field work and is the cheapest, as it
contains over double the area of the older (C) 18 x 12 edition; but
I have found the latter (uncoloured, in flat sheets) necessary for
transferring leys from one map to the next on drawing boards in the
office.
Maps cut in sections are useless for this exact work.
About four drawing boards, a light 24-inch straight edge, a T square
for pinning down the maps accurately to line with the boards, a
moveable head T square to adjust to the angle of the ley, so as to
transfer to the next map, and a box of the glass headed pins used by
photographers (in addition to the usual drawing pins) are the minimum
essentials for real work. A sighting compass for field work used in
conjunction with a special divided quadrant on the moveable head of
square are aids I have found valuable.
Remember that the entire course of a ley can be found from two
undoubted sighting points on it if marked on the map. Therefore stick a
glass headed pin in these two points, apply the straight edge, and rule
the line, pencil it at first, ink afterwards.
When you get a “good ley” on the map, go over it in the field, and
fragments and traces of the trackways will be found, always in straight
lines, once seen recognised with greater ease in future.
Where close detail is required, as in villages and towns, the 1´´scale
is far too small, and the 6´´ scale is necessary. The angle of the ley
is transferred to it from the 1´´ map with the aid of the moveable head
square. Maps must be pinned square on the board by the T square passing
through identical degree marks on the edges, latitude for leys running
E. and W., but longitude for leys N. and S. The edges of the maps are
not truly in line with the degree lines, and must not be the guide.
Ley hunting gives a new zest to field rambles, and the knowledge of the
straight ley provides new eyes to an eager observer.
I have a mental vision of a Scout Master of the future, out ley hunting
with the elder boys of his troup, instructing them as they look out
from a high sighting point. “Now, Harold! if you only take that pole
out of your eye, you will see better to pick out that distant moat that
Cyril has in his eye. He’s got it, right enough, just a speck of light
from the ring of water round the island. When I told you to use your
pole as a sighting staff, I didn’t tell you to see nothing else. Now
we have found the ley, I think we shall see a bit of the old track in
that far grassy field this side the moat; it’s narrow and straight, and
there are many who never find it because they look for a broad way like
our present wheel tracks.”
A FEW LEYS.
(_Additional to others detailed in text and maps_).
Colva Hill to Birdlip Hill, via Parton Cross, Breinton Camp and Ford,
Red Hill, Holme Lacy House, Caplar Camp, Yatton Church, Moat and Camp
beyond Newent, and dead on “Ermin Street” for five miles.
Gwaun Ceste Hill to Brimpsfield Castle, via Michaelchurch, Eaton Camp,
Perry Hill, Dinedor Cross, Tump, Brockhampton Old Church, Cross in
Hand, Upton Court, The Conigree, Rudford Church, Gloucester Cathedral,
Castle Hill, Witcombe Park, and Blacklains.
Gwaun Ceste Hill to West Tump, via Colva Church, Brilley Green, The
Scar Rock (Brobury), down Monnington Walks (central), Monnington
Church, The Chantry, Perrystone, Mullhampton, Anthony’s Cross,
Tibberton Court, Llanthony (Glos.) Abbey, and dead on a Gloucester
street.
Little Mountain (Westbrook) to St. Ann’s Well and Priory Church,
Malvern, via Arthur’s Stone, Cross End, Moccas Church, Monnington
Church, Credenhill (old) Court, Pipe and Lyde Church, and Beacon Hill.
Pen-y-Beacon to North Hill, Malvern, via Sugwas Park, Ten Houses Pond
(Plate VI.), Burcot Pool, White Stone Chapel, Shucknell Hill, Stretton
Grandison Church, Moat at Birchend, and Mathon Church.
Croft Ambury to Y-Fan-Drongarth (2,410 peak in Brecon Beacon group),
via Hill Barn, Easthampton, Milton House, Court of Noke, Elsdon,
Bollingham Chapel Tump, Clyro Church, Llowes Church, Bryn-Rhydd, and
Slwch Camp, Brecon.
Bailey Hill (Knighton) to May Hill (Longhope), via The Warden,
Presteign, Golf Course Tump, Holmer, Holmer House, Holmer Lane Tump,
Venn’s Lane, The Prospect and Tupsley Hospital Road, Main Street and
Church, Fownhope, Caplar Camp, How Caple Church, Old Gore Cross, and
Linton Church.
ENDWORD.
I close up my patchwork pages for this booklet, and a tired brain finds
relief in two memories. The one of the day, just on half a century ago,
when, a lad on a trader’s route for my father’s brewery, I pulled up my
horse to look with wonder at the Four Stones, standing like sentinels
in a field corner. Later in the same day, the steep slope of the
Radnor Forest surmounted, came the first view of Castle Tomen at the
summit of the Forest road, with its background of Wye and Irfon Valley
(Breconshire) Mountains. And the note of unsatisfied wonder struck
that day has lingered through nearly fifty years’ unusually intimate
knowledge of our beautiful West Country border land, and I know now
that my sub-conscious self had prepared the ground and worked at the
problem I now see solved.
The second memory is the vivid one of the rush of revelations in the
gorgeous year of sunshine just finished. And I can scarcely realize
that half the year had gone, the clear smoke-free distances of early
summer a thing of the past, and midsummer day over, before I got the
first clue. Once started, I found no halt in the sequence of new facts
revealed by active search on the tracks.
It is a mere framework for a new knowledge that I offer, but I know
that it has solid foundations, and that good wholesome field work by
others--for it may not be granted to me to do very much more--will fill
in many gaps. That is why I write.
POSTSCRIPT. In some districts--as Salisbury Plain and the
Yorkshire Wolds--there are groups of adjacent barrows so numerous that
it is probable that most of them were built as burial mounds only, not
sighting mounds. This is not the case in the district investigated.
[Illustration:
PLATE XV.
CHURCH.
Ledbury, the Spire sighted up Church Lane.]
[Illustration:
PLATE XVI.
CASTLE.
Wigmore Castle, showing the sighting mound.]
[Illustration:
PLATE XVII.
CASTLE.
Brampton Bryan Castle with Coxall Knoll on right.]
[Illustration:
PLATE XVIII.
HOUSE IN MOAT.
Gillow.]
[Illustration:
PLATE XIX.
MAP OF TWO LEYS (A. & B.) AND PARTS OF C. & D. SEE CONTENTS TABLE
(Based upon the Ordnance Survey with the sanction of the Controller
of H.M. Stationery Office).]
[Illustration:
PLATE XX.
MAP OF EIGHT LEYS THROUGH CAPEL-Y-TAIR-YWEN, HAY. SEE CONTENTS TABLE
(Based upon the Ordnance Survey with the sanction of the Controller
of H.M. Stationery Office).]
INDEX.
_Most of the Places indexed are in Herefordshire; those in adjoining
counties are, if necessary, indicated by the initial of the county (as
R. for Radnor) following the name._
Abdon Burf (S.), 18
Aberllynfi-Gaer (B.), 6
Aconbury Church, 20
Almeley Batch Twt, 6
Almeley Woonton, 19
Altars, 25
Alt-y-ynis, 27
Anthony’s Cross (G.), 33
Arthur’s Stone, 6, 14, 24, 25, 33
Assemblies, 10, 14
Avenues (trees), 5, 20
Avenues of Pines, 27
Aylestone Hill, 24
Aymestrey, 26