That the inhabitants of England had developed a system of trackways long ere the advent of the Romans and their perfected roads, is the confident belief expounded in a uniquely featured volume, entitled “Early British Trackways, Moats, Mounds, Camps, and Sites.” (Hereford: The Watkins Meter Co., 4s 6d net.) Its matter is amplified from a lecture delivered at Hereford last year, by Alfred Watkins, a past President of the Woodhope Naturalists’ Field Club, and a Fellow and Medallist of the Royal Photographic Society, honours which are justified by the recorded experience and constructive thought that packs and illumines his writing, and by the technical as well as the aesthetic distinction of the photos which he employs to reinforce his theory. His book is very charming and richly interesting; and beyond that it must provoke plentiful discussion. That it will do more is unlikely. Mr Watkins, like most theorists, finds abundant evidence to suit him, but very much of it has no more value than attached to that presented by the Baconians, who discover cryptograms in Shakespeare plays and sonnets. Starting from the simple and seemingly sound assumption, that as far back as the later flint age, people would seek to travel as the crow flies, on a straight line, he makes out that they laid their tracks, as with a ruler, between sighting points. These points were naturally on eminences, and between them the straight line or ley was marked by large or small stones, trees, &c. The sighting points became identified with fortifications, churches, and castles, &c. To support his theory, he cites his observations over a large area. He notes, for instance, that from the highest point of the earthworks of Dinedor Camp, the spire of All Saints’ Church can be seen precisely between the pinnacles of Hereford Cathedral, “thus showing a sighting tump and two churches on one ley.” This is plausible evidence, but it cannot be accepted as determinative. At the same time it deserves careful sifting, for one sees in the theory underlying it a possible explanation of some of the problems investing many place names and the origins of numerous artificial features of landscape, Scotch as well as English. That in some cases Mr Watkins proves his straight line theory must be admitted, since he traces particular leys and fits them with features; but the large body of his evidence only serves to give a new form to the old query as to whether the hen or the egg came first.
Source info: MS note (not by AW) “Dundee Advertiser Aug 3 1922”.