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
More than a score come through Hereford. There are sighting tumps at
Hogg’s Mount (Castle Green), Mouse Castle (also marked as Scots Hole),
Gallows Tump (Belmont Road), Holmer Golf Links, Holmer Lane (top of old
brick field), and an important one, Merryhill (in Haywood Forest), now
marked as Beachwood. There also have been (now demolished) sighting
tumps or points at Castle Hill, Palace Courtyard, Overbury (Aylestone
Hill), The Knoll, Tupsley. And remains of one for the Castle ferry is
on the line of earthwork bounding the Bishop’s Meadow.
A riverside track sighted over Hogg’s Mount and Holmer Lane Tump is
illustrated in Plate VIII.
I have found trackways through the sites of each of the ancient
churches. St. John’s Street extended passes exactly through the chancel
of the chapel of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem at Widemarsh.
Barrol Street through the site of St. Guthlac’s. In evening light a
trackway can be seen from the Castle Green terrace, running through
the large elm stump in the Bishop’s Meadow to certain railings on the
river bank, it runs by Vaga House, Quay Street, site of Blackfriars
Church, northwards to Brimfield Church, and southwards through a moat
this side of the rectory at Upper Bullingham. Other straight trackways
are visible through an orchard behind Kilburn (Aylestone Hill), on this
year’s show-ground near the Three Elms, through Litley orchard, and
descending the meadow on the north slope of Aylestone Hill to pass by
the Burcott Pool, and on to Tenbury.
TRADITIONAL WELLS.
The ley brings to mind or discovers many of these, for a straight track
went to or past all of them. There are Holy Wells at Dinedor, between
Blakemere and Preston, and under Herrock Hill. As children, living
close by, we used to call the Coldwell at Holmer the Holywell, and
found our way by stepping stones to the ancient stone built well now
destroyed. It was much like the Chamber well near the mill at Weobley.
The Golden Well near Dorstone is on a ley running through Arthur’s
Stone, the Gold Post (a mountain cot), and terminating in Pen-y-Beacon.
The two “golds” on one track indicate a trader’s way. Leys go straight
to, and not beyond, many wells in the Malvern ridge--St. Ann’s, Holy
Well, Walms (there is a Walmer Street named from a ley in Hereford
and a surname Walmsley), St. Pewtress, and one (whose name I do not
find) near the Chase Inn, above Colwall, which village itself is the
Cole’s--or magic man’s--well.
I have photographed in Cornwall the pointed “beehive” stone structure
covering a Holywell, surmounted by a cross; the whole obviously suited
for a sighting point. Here and there, as at the Flintshire Holywell, a
chapel has been built over the well. Our local example is at Marden,
where the well, in the west end of the church, central with the nave
(and the ley), is connected with the tradition of St. Ethelbert.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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