A Life of Ley Hunting

1971

Some Leys round Addlestone (The Ley Hunter, February 1971)
At first sight, the town of Addlestone in Surrey offers little to the ley hunter, for the town as it is today only arose in the last century. Before that, it was only a handful of cottages and an inn, without even a church, and before the Reformation it was simply part of the lands of Chertsey Abbey. Even the name, seemingly so promising, does not refer to an ancient stone; according to "Place-Names in Surrey" it was originally "Attel's Dene", meaning "Attel's Field".

But on further investigation a number of interesting things can be found. One of them is St. Augustine's Church, a 20th century building near the foot of Woburn Hill, a small hill rising from the low-lying meads of the Addlestone/Chertsey area. On the other side of the church runs the Bourne, the stream which gave the hill and nearby Woburn Park its name.

The church is brick-built and very obviously modern, having been built just before the last war. There is no surviving evidence of a former church or other structure on the site, yet on entering it I felt the same humming in my head that I have experienced at some ley centres. Map work revealed that it is in fact the centre of several leys, a mystery which is deepened by two other features of the church. One is that it is aligned precisely east, which is unusual for a modern church, but not inexplicable. What is more interesting is that the base angles of the roof are 52 degrees, almost identical to those of the Great Pyramid. (The pyramid angles are in fact just under 52 degrees, almost exactly the same as the angle which is one-seventh of the circle, 51 and three-sevenths degrees. However, it is impossible for me to be accurate to measurements smaller than a degree, as measurements have to be made against the brickwork line holding the protractor in mid-air.

It may well be that the angle is critical for some purpose concerning the ley power. Also, the walls of the church are so low compared with the height of the roof that approaching it from the east over the little bridge from the Weybridge road, it almost gives the impression of being a pyramid. Indeed, there may well be more to be found from the structure. Do we see the work of unseen planners here?

Another interesting ley centre in the area is the nearby site of Chertsey Abbey. Nothing now remains of this 7th century abbey except an old tithe barn, and, on the site of the abbey itself, the now unmarked centre of a number of leys. Perhaps the most interesting of these is the one which runs from it to the St. Augustine's centre Running in a south-west direction, this ley first passes through a moat west of Slough, through Eton to Windsor Castle, through Magna Carta Island, Runnymede and the remains of a priory there, then through a church in Egham to Chertsey Abbey.

The next point on the ley is Woburn Hill; it then goes to the St.Augustine's centre, continuing to skirt St. George's Hill hillfort, now revered as the home of John Lennon. After this there is little that is marked on the map except a meeting-point of roads and a track south-east of Dorking, and a short stretch of road with parish boundary running along it, a little further south.

The oldest thing in Addlestone at the present time is the Crouch Oak, so named probably because of its crouching position - one of its main branches shoots out almost horizontally. It is reputed to be over 800 years old, and has a girth of 24 feet and is still alive in spite of being hollowed with age. Tradition says it once marked a boundary of Windsor Forest, and until the Enclosure of the Manor it stood on open common ground. The local Oddfellows (a masonic order) have named their lodge "Oak of Addlestone" after it, and it also has legends that an infusion of the bark has aphrodisiac effects! This brings to mind Tony Wedd's spiral sycamore in Chiddingstone, which is apparently a ley centre, and according to a mental communication an infusion of its bark has healing effects. Another legend of the oak is that Elizabeth I is reputed to have picknicked under it.

The Oak has a ley passing through it to Chertsey Abbey; in fact, Crouch Oak Lane aligns directly with the Abbey site. This ley, coming SSE on the map, first passes through a moat near Horton, then through a church in Staines, then the Abbey and across Chertsey and Addlestonemoor to the Crouch Oak. It then goes through two churches in Byfleet, and a hilltop crossroads in Ockham. And so we find that even this apparently uninteresting part of the country is not without its leys, or its ley mysteries. A final thought which should be of interest to UFO-minded ley hunters: a line from Glastonbury to Warminster when extended passes directly through Addlestone.

An Unexpected Virgin (The Ley Hunter, June 1971)
When I first found what I thought was a Virgo figure in my own area, I at first thought it was part of the Kingston Zodiac; but not so; most of my Virgo is outside the Kingston Zodiac, and in fact adjoins the Kingston Dog. It is formed mainly of roads, and is quite conspicuous on the map. Like the Somerset effigies, it faces westwards, but is bigger, being about three miles long and a mile wide.The head is at Walton, with a long "hat" extending to Hersham; the body is at Weybridge, formed mainly by St. George's Hill hillfort. The wheatsheaf is at Addlestone, and there is a strange "astral projection" from the head extending across the Thames to Shepperton.

The Virgin is royally crowned by the church of St. Mary the Virgin at Walton-on-Thames; a very powerful ley centre on rising ground that was the place of my first recognising head-hum as an energy effect. The top of the head is formed by High Street and Bridge Street, Walton; Oatlands Drive forms the face and chest - or rather, where the face should be, for the Weybridge Virgin has no facial features - seemingly akin to the Somerset Zodiac "mutilations". The outline of the breast continues round through High Street and Church Street, Weybridge, with the unusually high spire of St. James's Church forming the teat. It is Victorian, but on the site of an earlier church.

St. George's Hill forms the main body of the figure, being enclosed by the roads which surround it. The ancient camp covered thirteen acres of the summit, much still there but now covered by some of the most expensive houses in Surrey. Nevertheless, it still seems very powerful.

Some work has been done by Dan Butcher who seems to have identified figures of a Dove and Stag near the Virgin figure. Noticing that in the Somerset Zodiac the dove flies towards the Virgin from the top of the horse-rider's head, he found the Dove to the north-west of the Virgin at Weybridge; a huge but very sensitvely-drawn dove with one wing at Chobham Common, and the other at Egham. The head is formed by roads round St. Anne's Hill, with the ancient camp there forming the eye. Flutters Hill and Fan Court on the southern wing seem to suggest the figure is genuine; the tail is at Virginia Water, and the bird seems to be rising from Blacknest.

On looking for the next figure, Mr. Butcher was surprised to find a stag, curiously out of place in a zodiac, but nothing else could be made of it. Magnificent antlers are formed by the Virginia Water lake, the nose is at Sunningdale and Blacknest is on top of the head. Buckhurst Park is on the back of the stag's neck.

Orthoteny - Dead or Alive (The Ley Hunter, July 1971)
Have we heard the last of orthoteny? Certainly there are many ley hunters who have no interest in UFOlogy and vice versa; these will no doubt be surprised to read that in my opinion we have heard the last of it.

Firstly we must ask ourselves what an orthoteny is, apart from a scientific-sounding word derived from the Greek? In Aime Michel's definition it is an alignment of UFO sightings taken from one particular day, and thus has relevance only to that day. Leys, on the other hand, are as relevant today as yesterday, and their relevance stretches back into prehistory and forward into the foreseeable and unforeseeable future.

Apart from the 1954 flap, there has been very little orthoteny found. Only one of the lines in Handbook of Leys and Orthoteny is a true orthoteny according to Michel's rules (the Birmingham-Stratford line, discovered by the late Harry Lord). The others are leys with strong UFO connection - and here we may have the answer. For, while I believe the 1954 orthotenies were genuine, it seems that they were only an effect of the leys, which are the permanent lines of energy, plotted by UFOs on one particular day probably because of their activities in connection with it.

The information in the Handbook seems to point to this, as well as a number of other "little things". For instance, there is Tony Wedd's discovery of a pine clump at a point on an orthoteny where a disc executed a falling-leaf manoevre, and a similar motion by a UFO over an ancient South American castle, and cave paintings depicting UFO-like discs on the Bayonne-Vichy orthoteny. Again, there is a case from Brazil where a UFO was seen hovering over an ancient stone, which gave off a humming sound although the saucer was silent.

To sum up, while orthoteny may be arbitary, there seems to be a very strong connection between leys and UFOs which is well worth studying.

Hereford meeting and picnic at Risbury Camp (Paul Screeton)
Not since 1939 had ley hunters gathered in force for an outdoors get-together, and the Risbury Camp picnic on July 3rd was a worthy successor to the Straight Track Club meetinjgs of pre-war days, with its happy band of fellow researchers enjoying sunshine, the land and one another's company. Allen Watkins, the 82-year-old son of Alfred Watkins who rediscovered the leys was senior statesman, and the youngest was nine-weeks-old Adam Albion.

Allen Watkins gave a half-hour talk in the Woolhope Club Room at the City Library, unfortunately interrupted half way through by a passing carnival parade. The room was well known to the late Alfred Watkins, who was a member of the Woolhope Club, and the rediscovery of leys was presented to them in the form of a lecture. I felt his presence with us in the room.

After much wandering in search of the picnic location, everyone got down to lying in the sun below Risbury Camp, on the first ley to be plotted by Alfred Watkins. Highlights of the day were the news that Allen Watkins' biography of his father is to be published, attempting to dowse under instruction from Andrew Kerr, organiser of Glastonbury Fair, and being interviewed, with John Michell, for a 45-minute Harlech TV programme on the new approach to archaeology.

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