The ley hunter's manual: A guide to early tracks

by Alfred Watkins

Ley Lines - Early British Trackways, Moats, Mounds, Camps and Sites a lecture delivered in the 1920's by Alfred Watkins

Genres: History

108 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Alfred Watkins was an English businessman and amateur archaeologist who developed the idea of ley lines.

Reviews

[Pascal Zielke · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although Alfred Watkins was certainly a big influence in the Earth Mysteries movement and the european rediscovery of Geomancy, this book is a hard read. Not only does Watkins think in very narrow terms about leylines, he also thinks they are mostly just paths for ancient Traders. This and the very bland nature of his disciptions make this book a bit of a drag to get through. Better read some later works by John Michell, Nigel Pennick or Paul Devereaux to put this book into a more nuanced context.

[Carmen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Well done, A.W!

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

An absolute classic of the genre, replete with many illustrative plates and diagrams. I felt lucky to get my hands on a copy after reading about it many times!

[Steve Mitchell · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a brilliant example of how not to do science. You look at the evidence first, come up with a theory which you then test. What Watkins did here is see that you could join up lots of points on a map with straight lines and decide that there must be a reason for this and surmised that they were markers on a straight line track which he called leys.

He then went on to decide that all place names that end with the suffix ‘-ley’ must have a ley running through them: ignoring the fact that this derives from a meadow or clearing.

If you take enough data points, you will always find some will fall on a straight line. This was brilliantly illustrated when a similar conclusion was drawn by pointing out that the sites of all Woolworths stores form straight lines and geometric patterns across the British Isles: either you accept there is some mystical reason for the location of Woolworths stores or you have to concede that coincidences become more common as the frequency of data points increases.

Even worse, subsequently new-age weirdos have developed upon this idea to suggest that ley lines are actually energy sources that our ancestors harnessed by building stone circles across the countryside.