MISCELLANEA ARISING

IGR
Address, Bar Hill, CAMBRIDGE Postcode, England.

THIS IS the first issue of the new all-litho. Journal of Geomancy. Regular readers will already have noticed the difference in appearance, though not in content. Litho. printing enables us to fully integrate illustrative material with text, to increase the number of drawings and photographs and generally improve the appearance of the JOG. It also means that, through the technique of type-size reduction, we have actually increased the number of words on each page. This issue has articles on all the usual IGR topics – leys, terrestrial zodiacs, historical material etc. Of especial interest is the reprinting of a rare pamphlet issued by the Scottish geomantic pioneer Ludovic McLellan Mann in 1937. The Watkins controversy continues also with an article by John Michell on the ‘revelation’ of the ley system.

At the time of going to press, there is still no news as to the results of the resistivity study and magnetometer tests carried out at Wandlebury on the site of T.C. Lethbridge’s excavation of the Gogmagog hill figures. These were set up by the secretary and warden of the Cambridge Preservation Society after the IGR tried to get official permission to recut the ancient figures. If and when we ever hear anything of the results, we will publish them in a future issue of JOG. A metal object was revealed, but that is all we know. Its site is being kept secret, lest metal detector enthusiasts (who have been plaguing Wandlebury of late) start hunting for it and digging. But they must bear in mind that a Wellington Bomber crashed at Wandlebury during the Second World War!

Recent diggings under Bridlesmith Gate at Nottingham have revealed a rock-cut chapel. It has a cross cut above one entrance, and pottery bearing the Christian mark IHS has turned up in the rubble which filled the structure. There was also an alembic – so someone was distilling there as well! Or alchemy, perhaps? {3}

The Cerne Giant, whose phallus was ‘greened out’ in the nineteenth century lest genteel people might be shocked, and who appeared in the Great Western Railway’s publicity without vitals, is now to be remade. Dorset County Council’s planning subcommittee has agreed to contribute £2000 towards the refurbishing. Since the 1920s, the National Trust has been responsible for the figure, and the last complete recutting was carried out in 1956–57, when it involved seven men working for 13 weeks to cut out trenches and fill them with compacted chalk. The estimated bill for the present restoration has been set at £22 000, and the National Trust asked the County to contribute, as the giant is one of the county’s major tourist attractions. A layby is to be built to enable motorists to park their cars, and information panels are also to be erected for the instruction of visitors.
NIGEL PENNICK