Review of EBT

Early British Trackways. By Alfred Watkins.
  (Hereford: The Watkins Meter Co. 4s. 6d. net.)
This little book puts forward with great enthusiasm a theory that prehistoric trackways were all straight lines marked out upon a sighting system by experts. The sighting-lines, or “leys,” were taken from and to natural conspicuous features of the landscape, and the line was kept true by marking-points, which might be mounds, water, trees, blocks of stone or cuttings. The author offers as proofs a series of observations in which at least four of such marking-points are found situated in a straight line between two important points, the terminals of the trackway, and he claims to show interrupted remains of old “leys” in several places. He illustrates his work with a considerable number of excellent photographs; and proceeds to interpret place-names in accordance with his discovery. It will be obvious at once that a more extended study is required before this theory can be taken seriously, but we think Mr. Watkins has shown that his hypothesis is good enough to be more widely experimented with. So far it has been applied to the country about Hereford.