The Cross-Roads Signs
By Gordon Harris from Northern Earth 67
Over the years since Alfred Watkins first attracted national attention to the phenomenon of aligned sites, or leys, in the 1920s, there have been many theories and more fanciful ideas about what leys actually are. Today, after many years of committed research by those in earth mysteries, notably Paul Devereux, the high ground is held by the theory that alignments are paths for the spirit, routes held to be travelled by shamans and souls. This is a strong theory which holds far more promise for understanding the ancient world-wide practices of alignment than any before it, such as the now generally discredited notion that leys are paths of some unknown energy. Such is its hold that in some journals you will not get to read a variant interpretation - at least not without an attendant criticism.
When theories go out of fashion, as Watkins' own ideas of leys as trackways have, it is not always appropriate then to consign them to 'the rubbish heap of history' and we are always ready to give space to well-informed research which may diverge from current dogmas or draw attention to what is worth remembering from our own disciplinary history. Here, Gordon Harris urges readers to do just that, and we for our part would encourage readers to sit down with their own maps and assess for themselves Gordon's ideas of alignment nodes.
In The Ley Hunter 124, Danny Sullivan reviewed Philip Heselton's book, Earth Mysteries. He wrote "I can't help thinking that the author often pines for the old days when the world was young, when the concepts were within arm's reach and where UFOs took the shortest distance between two tree clumps. Ho Hum". If what he thinks is true, then what follows is for Philip.
Regular readers of Northern Earth will be only too aware of my own contention in earth mysteries. It is that most old stretches of road, track and path in use today are surviving remnants of a complex network of prehistoric straight tracks. These tracks characteristically radiated in large numbers from nodal points, many of which also survive today as multiple junctions of roads, tracks and paths.
Two years ago I had some correspondence with a writer who lives in Tonbridge, Kent. Wanting to illustrate my contention as applied to roads in his locality, I looked for nodal points on Sheet 188 of the 1:50000 scale OS maps. One was found just north of Tonbridge, at a road junction and sharp bend on the A227 near Dene Park (see illustration). Another was found at Stone Cross, south of Crowborough. If you're interested, take a 2 ft. straight-edge and draw a line between the two points, colouring bits of road on the line in red. Rotate the straight-edge, degree by degree, back round to the west. Note the line to another node at Fairwarp, SW of Crowborough and also one through Speldhurst. Note in particular two close alignments through Penshurst down to Chantler's Farm and also the 1 1/2-mile stretch of path and road to Markbeech. There are many others. Repeat the exercise to the NW from a node at Bells Yew Green, SE of Tunbridge Wells, particularly through Speldhurst and Penshurst. Note the relationship between the two sets of lines. Colouring aligned roads in red makes the underlying network stand out.
Repeat the exercise in the area around Sutton Valence, Staplehurst and Frittenden, using alignments from the Dene Park node and from another node at Four Throws, SE of Hawkhurst. Note alignments from a node at Stonegate, SE of Wadhurst, running NNE towards another node at Cockstreet, S of Maidstone; also alignments running E from Bells Yew Green through Goadhurst and Sissinghurst. There are many, many more alignments on this map. When Sheet 187 is joined to it, alignments with the Dene Park node can be traced right across Surrey, through Redhill and Dorking. Two more nodes can be seen at Keston (see illustration) and Crockham Hill.
Stone Cross, Chantler's Farm, Mark beech, Keston??? Where had I read those names before? Then the penny dropped. They feature in the booklet Skyways and Landmarks Revisited, a re-evaluation of Tony Wedd's work on leys by Philip Heselton, Jimmy Goddard and Paul Baines. Philip drew my attention to the booklet after Northern Earth's 'Straight Debate' at Bradford in 1993. In retrospect, it seems likely that he had already spotted the connections between what it contains and my earlier contribution to the debate1.
Tony Wedd had been interested in leys since 1947, with a particular fascination for clumps of trees as markpoints in Kent. He also became interested in flying saucers, and four events in 1958-60 resulted in his postulating a connection between the two2. The first was the publication of a book by Aime Michel3: a large number of UFOs had been seen over France in 1954. Michel found that "if sightings for each particular day were taken separately, they would form alignments which themselves formed radiating star-like patterns all over France". It was suggested that the patterns indicated a guidance system. It makes me wonder about those radiating lines in the atmosphere of Venus, the so-called 'spoke system'4.
The patterns are also of interest to me because a system for guiding things in the air can also be used for guiding things on the ground, leaving radiating, star-like tracks.
The second event was Buck Nelson's description of his alleged contact with extraterrestrials5. Nelson explained that spaceships travel along magnetic currents and that "the places where magnetic currents cross is comparable to a cross-roads sign". Wedd commented "Places must mean places on Earth, if we can locate them we may be able to observe these 'signs' for ourselves, some objects in the landscape or among the hedgerows that we have hitherto overlooked". He also thought the word 'sign' was superfluous and so do I. When leys are based on alignments of roads and tracks as mine are, it is not surprising that where they cross there are often crossroads, among the hedgerows.
The third event was Wedd's introduction to a sensitive in May 1960. She said there was a 'magnetic centre' at Chiddingstone, 'a sort of nodal point', and that six alignments intersected there. Wedd tentatively traced these alignments and noticed that UFO sightings had occurred on some of them, as did several tree clumps. When Heselton and Goddard tried to retrace these alignments in 1984, they had difficulty pinning down the 'nodal point', but eventually settled for Chiddingstone Castle. Their descriptions of the alignments intersecting there are heavily laced with features such as 'cross-tracks' and 'cross roads', as if there was a relationship between the radiating 'lines of force' and the network of roads and tracks on the ground. Personally, I favour a nodal point 300 yards N of the castle, at the cross-roads, or meeting point of roads, called Gilwyns (see illustration). Note the road alignments with this point, N through Ide Hill church and NE through Hall's Green.
The fourth event was the sighting of UFOs over Kent in August 1960 at Keston, near which is Keston Mark, and at Mark Beech. Wedd could not ignore the significance of these two place-names. Mark Beech is also a striking hilltop on which stands a clump of mixed trees, including Scots Pine. He had previously located several other such clumps in Kent and found that they fitted on to a network of parallel lines. He came to the conclusion that the tree clumps were 'the cross-roads signs', the places where Nelson's magnetic currents cross. Wedd wrote "If we take a hint from Buck Nelson's story, we may find not only the 'star' systems referred to by Aime Michel, but parallel systems also". It is curious then that in 1987 B.L.MacMillan reported that he was finding multiple intersections of leys repeatedly falling on parallel lines6. I commented at the time7 that if patterns of lines are drawn radiating from three or more points, systematically, so that they have common points of intersection, the latter invariably fall along parallel lines (see original illustration). Thus parallel alignments of point sites are a simple geometric consequence of a system based on radiating lines. This was, of course, long before I had even heard of Tony Wedd.
There is a great temptation when tracing alignments on maps to extend them on to adjoining maps, but you need a long straight-edge and a large drawing board to do it [in addition, over long distances one must take account of the Earth's curvature - Ed]. Then you find more nodal points and trace alignments back again. Kent, Sussex and Surrey are fruitful counties in this respect. There is a striking node on the northern outskirts of Horley, at the junction of the A23 and B2036 (look W SW). There is another at Seven Dials on Dyke Road in Brighton (look NW through Steyning and Wiston Park). The A26 from Tonbridge to Lewes can be seen to have evolved from a number of trackways radiating from the Dene Park node, as can also the A21 to Hastings. There are other nodes at Church End, S of Byfleet (look S-SE), at Cookham (look E-SE), at Firle Park, Laughton Common and Bexhill Down. When alignments with several of these points are plotted on the same map, lines repeatedly intersect at the same points, sometimes at churches such as at Forest Row and Maresfield.
Now when a lot of lines are drawn on a sheet of paper, several will undoubtedly intersect at the same points by chance. But can it be by chance that the common points of intersection themselves fall on the same straight lines, as if on the major axes of a grid? In the flowery language of Peter Brookesmith8, there is a little opening in my mind that says that chance undoubtedly represents a possibility. However, the probability of it occurring by chance is so remote as to put chance beyond momentary consideration.
* Copies of 'Skyways & Landmarks Revisited', by P. Heselton et al, are still available from Philip Heselton, 170 Victoria Avenue, Hull HU5 3DY, at £l.50 inc. p&p.
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