Early British trackways, moats, mounds, camps, and sites — John Shaqi
Early British trackways, moats, mounds, camps, and sitesWatkins, Alfred
History
Early British trackways, moats, mounds, camps, and sites
Watkins, Alfred
Great Britain -- Antiquities; Leys -- Great Britain; Megalithic monuments -- Great Britain; Mounds -- Great Britain
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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