A Life of Ley Hunting

1985

Holiday Somerset/Dorset 1985 (20th-27th July)
Cottage was at 4, The Knapp, Templecombe, on a modern estate in an old village. Nevertheless, a ley seemed to pass through it (as usual!)

Leys found: Two through Cadbury Castle, two through Templecombe Church.

Cadbury 1
Wimble Toot. Tumulus, breast of the Virgo figure in the Somerset Zodiac.
Cadbury Castle. Hillfort approached by stony wooded path - legendary site of King Arthur's Camelot. Central part rises to a high point, it is here the leys cross. Most of the way round the rampart there were stones exposed, as if a wall were here once. Two significant points visible: Glastonbury Tor and Compton Pauncefoot Church, neither on these two leys. Friendly photographer, and a hippie couple asking about Burrow Mump.
Tumulus Compton Horethorn. Near to road, but not visible till one climbs through a belt of trees. Not accessible because of barbed wire fence, but visible on the bare hilltop.
Bellman's Cross and milestone (stone no longer there) - name from Celtic Bel?

Cadbury 2
Stockwitch Cross (cross-roads)
West Camel Church
Weston Bampfylde Church
Cadbury Castle
North Cheriton Church. Pre-Reformation, though history does not state how old. Skew chancel (nave 105 degrees, chancel 102 degrees). Fairly powerful, some sandjar reaction when pushed hard. Narrow arch and very small window in west end under tower.
Cross-roads/tracks south of Cucklington.
Cross-roads west of Gillingham.
Earthwork south-west of Sedgehill.

In addition to these two leys, there is a striking clump on a hill visible from the A303, near Compton Pauncefoot. This seems to align with Cadbury (where the other two cross, South Cadbury Church and a tumulus north-east of Maiden Bradley.

Templecombe 1
West Cranmore Church
Bruton Church, two towers, smaller one one hundred years older (fourteenth century). Eighteenth century chancel.
Cross-tracks south of Wincanton
Templecombe Church (pre-reformation)
(through cottage)

Templecombe 2
Horsington Church
Clump, very prominent, found from fieldwork and seemed to confirm ley. In field, surrounded by dilapidated iron fence. Deciduous, sycamore and beech. Some trees felled, stumps visible. Horsington Church visible but not Templecombe (unless my eyesight failed me).
Templecombe Church and short stretch of road in village.
Henstridge cross-roads (Ash End). Hen is Celtic for "old". Ley goes through War Memorial obelisk - subconsciously sited modern markstone?
Henstridge Church.
Cross-roads south of Stalbridge (checked - no stone)

Some other famous sites visited:
Maumbury Rings, Dorchester. Feeling of sanctity - took shoes off. Swallow flitted about for insects.
Maiden Castle guided tour. Nothing significant visible.
Cerne Giant and Abbey

Visit to St. Ann's Hill, Chertsey
A most enjoyable walk with my son Peter from Chertsey Station to St. Ann's Hill hillfort. Compact clump found, surrounded by undergrowth, near Thorpe viewpoint. Aligns with previously-discovered clump at end of Green Lane, Addlestone, and Thorpe Church, as well as small church near West Byfleet station, multi-junction at Egham and two cross-tracks near Gerrards Cross.

Visit to Ashdown Forest on Plessey trip with Bob Swift (recent group member)
On this van trip (to take personal effects to a man returned from Grenada) we did not, as hoped, visit Gills Lap, but found two other clumps not previously known. One was between Uckfield and Blackboys, the other seen from picnic site on A22, viewing towards Camp Hill (near Gills Lap), slightly to the right of it (mistaken for Gills Lap at first) in a low point situation.

THE OXFORD FIELD TRIP
The day was a very enjoyable and interesting one. We followed a ley north of Oxford which connects Wagborough Bush tumulus, Icomb Hill, Squire's Clump tumulus, the Hawk Stone, another tumulus, the Hoar Stone burial chamber and another Hoar Stone. There was also a wayside cross that the ley did not quite pass through. The weather was very kind to us and we found the ley to be a promising one, as well as visiting some other sites in the vicinity.

The first group of us met at Chadlington church, not on the ley chosen as a central place to find. We found it to be moderately powerful. From here we went on to Knollbury earthwork, once again not on the line but visited because it was near. It was a square well-preserved earthwork near the road; Early British with no particular feeling to me, but another member picked up Roman associations with his pendulum. Some more members joined us here.

Squire's Clump, a tumulus on the ley we had come to investigate, was perhaps the most impressive tumulus I have seen except for Silbury Hill. It is a large round barrow topped with a clump of whitebeam, beech, hawthorn, elder and wild rose. It had a good deal of drystone kerbing still remaining on the side of it, and the "middle C" note of the wind in the leaves was loudly audible. No other points were visible, however; we were disappointed to find no intervisibility in any of the points we visited during the day.

Although the wayside cross to the east was not on the ley as I had first thought, we visited it and found it to be an obelisk (no cross-piece now present) with nothing else visible except a radio mast which did seem to be precisely on the ley. The cross had a seven-stepped octagonal base.

We then travelled eastwards along the ley (as nearly as roads would allow) to find the Hawk Stone, a single standing stone in the middle of a field of growing wheat. Because of this, we could not approach nearer than about fifty yards, but it was interesting to see a notch in the top running E-W (the direction of the ley) and that the grain of the stone was also oriented thus. Bob Skinner's archive work indicates that it is thought to be the remains of a chambered structure; if this was the case the notch could not have had the significance ley hunters might like, but this is not certain.

The tumulus which was the next point on the line was almost levelled in a cornfield, but it was just visible and was found to be exactly on the lihe. This was not marked on the map - Richard Pywell found it from archaeological listings. A spotmarked road junction a little further on the line revealed nothing except some concrete blocks - suggestion that they might be subconsciously sited was not considered likely by those present!

The Hoar Stone Burial Chamber, the remains of a chambered tomb in most attractive wooded surroundings with a very peaceful atmosphere, was our next destination. I thought I felt a very slight tingle for a short time when I touched one part of it.

We turned south from here off the icy, to visit an interestinq stone and cross at Taston. This is a very pleasant little village, in which the cross was beinq renovated and was temporarily off its base and standing against the wall of the Post Office. The Thor Stone nearby was a large monolith set in a wall and appeared to be red sandstone, though an old man assured us that 'it ~as brought from Wales - there's no stone like it this side of Wales'

Returning to the ley, we visited a rather unimpressive junction - very muddy, with no tracks aligning, stones or anything else visible. After this we found a very pleasant track off the road to have our lunch, discuss the events of the day and read some of the books Bob had brought.

The next site was another Hoar Stone, which we had thought was Hour Stone but found this mistake was due to an Ordnance Survey map fold). This was off the beaten track in the middle of a wood. It was red in colour, recumbent and covered in moss. We were interested to see that it lies at the end of a short avenue (mentioned in the archives) but this was not on the ley we were following. We had to push through undergrowth to find it. At first it seemed a place of brooding power different to the previous Hoar Stone, but then I stood on it I had a feeling of elation seemingly all through my body. The vergecutter in the lane, who had been amazed to see our gaggle of+ cars pass by, was open-mouthed when we all trooped out again the same way.

Here we left the ley as there were no other points in reasonable distance, but we visited yet another Hoar Stone before we finished for the day. This appeared to be a pile of reddish stones under two pine trees in a park. Apparently they had been a chambered tomb, but the stones had been stolen. The owner then caused them to be collected, returned and piled on the site. Steeple Barton church nearby (which strangely enough had a tower) was unfortunately locked.

Finally, we returned to the 1ey to find a short stretch of road in alignment with it. Here was a most pleasant hostelry called the "Waggon end Horses" with a big inglenook fireplace and horse brasses; here the day was rounded off most enjoyably with refreshment and discussi on our findings. Thanks to all who came, but especially to Mandy Green who suggested the area, to Bob Skinner for his archive work and to Richard Pywell for giving me transport.

THE OLD STONES OF THE SURREY/HANTS BORDERS
1 - YATELEY By Chris Hall
The hills of Surrey stand much as they have done for millennia: it is only the ways in which changing human cultures have dressed them which has altered. Monuments of 20th century lifestyles may be the most apparent, but somewhere in between the shopping precincts and three-laned motorways lie hundreds of works made by hands three thousand years in the past. In areas such as Surrey and Hampshire most are earthen mounds or banks, for outcrops of rock are relatively scarce. Yet there is no shortage of rock, for those who need it, as shown by Waverley Abbey near Farnham, which was built almost entirely of Surrey stone.

But it is Yateley in Hampshire which is the subject of the first article. Future ones will describe other sites on the Surrey/Hants border, including Bagshot Heath and Farnham areas, their local legends and lore.

Yateley Church (SU91756093). St. Peter's stands where the Saxons built a church sometime around 750 A.D., using as a corner-stone a large sarsen which already stood there. Stone Age axe-heads, arrow-heads and pottery have been found in the vicinity, leading local historians to conclude these and the stone are contemporary. The church was sacked by the Danes, but restored in about 900, retaining its original walls. (2)

As such the church stood until it was burned out by an arsonist in 1979. It has since been rebuilt, true to its original style, retaining those parts of the original walls which are still safe after the fire. The former floor was of red and yellow tiles depicting dragons and other fabulous beasts. (3) Today part of the sarsen can still be seen at the base of the wall on the left hand side of the porch. It must once have stood at least three feet high, beside the floodplain of the "river of dark water", as the Saxons called what we now know as the River Blackwater. The name refers to particles of peat carried in suspension from the heaths, as distinct from the clear waters of the Whitewater, which the Blackwater joins.

But why raise a stone here, on the edge of a wide, shallow valley? The land slopes gently up to the south, but is otherwise flat. No recorded boundary ever passed this place, and the only known ancient trackway was on the north side of the valley, not the south. To my knowledge, no-one has seriously tried to answer the question, but a clue may lie in the name Yateley.

Unfortunately, no really early form of the name survives, but it apparently derives from the Old English "yat" and "leah", literally "gate-clearing". This has led to speiculation about the nature of the gate. The two frequent explanations are both unsatisfactinry. The theory that it marked the gate into Surrey on the old trackway (now the A3O) seems unlikely as this is some two miles away. A gate into the great Forest of Windsor is also unlikely, for Windsor Forest formerly stretched beyond Yateley. Either the etymologists are wrong about the gate, or the reference is to something else to be found here.

Standing at the church now, beside a busy road and surrounded by the houses of 25,000 people, it is not easy to step back in time to a distant landscape. If there was a gateway, perhaps the stone is the key. In a much more wooded country than we know today it presumably stood in a clearing. If that clearing opened on to the treeless floodplain of the river, it could indeed be a gateway of a special kind, for the river here floves for a mile from the direction of sunrise at the spring equinox, and this "leah", this clearing or place of light, would be the gateway through whIch the sun passed on the first dawn of spring.

REFERENCES
2 "St Peter's Church, Yateley" - Bob Browning (editor), 1961
3 "The King's England - Hampshire" - Arthur Mee (Hodder & Stoughton, 1939).

THE BLACK CHERRY FAIR
A week after the field trip on July 13th Paul Baines and I took our display boards to exhibit at Chertsey's Black Cherry Fair. I have to admit there was not a great deal of interest from the public, though an eminent local historian took away some of our literature and a devoted Friend of the Earth had a conversation with us. Most people passed us by, however, with expressions that ranged from the hostile to the pitying!

THE OLD STONES OF THE SURREY/HANTS BORDERS
by Chris Hall 2 - Eversley and Aldershot.
Eversley Church (SU77916095). There is a tradition that a hermit's cell once stood on the site of the church, while another local legend tells of a small church here long before the present building, which was restored in 1724, was built. (4) During alterations in 1940 a sarsen stone was found buried under the north aisle. (5) Eversley Cross (SU79526169) was presumably marked in some way, but there is no surviving record of a stone cross here.

Windmill Road Stone (SU97095030). A half-buried sarsen stone stands on the east side of this Aldershot street, halfway up a hillside on the opposite side of a valley to the old parish church. The church marks the site of the original settlement of "Alreshete". The "-shot" element frequent in place names derives from "sceat", an Old English word for an area of land. However, one early spelling of Aldershot is "Aldershare" which is "alder wood containing or near to a stone". The stone is a listed ancient monument. (6)

References
4 "It Happened in Hampshire" - Winifred Beddington and Elsa Christy (1977)
5 "Hart Official Guide" - Hart District Council, 1977.
6 North East Hampshire Archaeological Society Newsletter No. 44 (Feb. 1961)

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