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
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
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