Joseph Houghton Spencer, “Ancient Trackways in England”

The Antiquary, vol. 20 (July–December 1889), pp. 94–101

The author’s theory is that ancient engineers laid out straight lines of signal stations across the width of Britain. The stations were connected by trackways, though these (unlike Alfred Watkins’s leys) were not straight. Whatever the merits of this theory, it is interesting as an early example of “landscape geometry” on a large scale. For another early example, see the paper by W.H. Black on this Web site.

This Web version is for convenience divided into two sections. The first is mainly confined to listing the sites along each line. The second contains the author’s theory about what the lines might mean.

The digitized version contains the following Web pages:

TEXT
Web §1: Description of the lines
Web §2: Suggested explanation