|
The Modern Antiquarian Forum » Reference to ley line 150 years before Watkins? |
Log In to post a reply
|
|
|
|
|
|
Topic View: Flat | Threaded |
|
Ross 5 posts |
Aug 27, 2018, 11:20
|
||
|
Hi all, I may have found a reference to knowledge of leys, over 150 years before Watkins, in a survey of Stonehenge from 1747 by John Wood, architect of The Circus in Bath. I've written a blog on it here: https://sketchesofthegate.wordpress.com/2018/08/27/a-reference-to-ley-lines-over-150-years-before-alfred-watkins/ In that blog I also propose that The Circus may have been deliberately built at the intersection of two ley lines I have discovered... I'd be really interested to know what people think about the reference, as well as the ley lines detailed in the appendix. Kind regards, Ross |
|||
moss 2897 posts |
Aug 27, 2018, 12:23
|
||
|
Ross wrote: Hi all, I may have found a reference to knowledge of leys, over 150 years before Watkins, in a survey of Stonehenge from 1747 by John Wood, architect of The Circus in Bath. I've written a blog on it here: https://sketchesofthegate.wordpress.com/2018/08/27/a-reference-to-ley-lines-over-150-years-before-alfred-watkins/ In that blog I also propose that The Circus may have been deliberately built at the intersection of two ley lines I have discovered... I'd be really interested to know what people think about the reference, as well as the ley lines detailed in the appendix. Kind regards, Ross Can I be a bit sceptical please Ross ;) Wood the Elder did not finish the Circus, it was his son, and the The Circus leading down (Bennett Street?) to Queens Square makes a key outline as seen from above. A symbol of a Masonic design, and of course as you know there are symbols of a Druidic nature on the Circus. So ley lines could be accidental to the layout. A few months ago someone got in touch with me looking for a 'moon' circle up on the racecourse near to the Blaythwait Arms, he had been writing about 'Sols Rock' which is in a garden (or was) further down the Lansdown. For me the relevance of Bath is the high ground that surrounds it and the heavy presence of prehistory on the Lansdown. Bath has a fascinating history, it has the goddess Sulis, noted by the Romans, it has the Wood's interpreting their ideas in the architecture, influenced by Stanton Drew and Stonehenge but whether it has ley lines as well I don't know, but then I don't know much about ley lines....
|
|||
|
Ross 5 posts |
Aug 27, 2018, 13:01
|
||
|
Hi Moss, Sure. Sceptics welcome! I am aware the ideas in my essay are speculative. The ley lines may be coincidental, but I wanted to explore the possibility. You are right that Wood's son completed The Circus, but the foundation/site is the bit that matters here. Wood the Younger also build The Crescent, to his father's plans. The key thing is Gay Street (connecting The Circus to Queen's square). All the best, Ross
|
|||
tjj 3606 posts |
Edited Aug 28, 2018, 10:10
Aug 28, 2018, 10:06
|
||
|
Hi, have just read your blog. It is interesting to me as I live in this part of the world, a relatively short train journey from Bath - a beautiful and consistently fascinating city. I have Alfred Watkin's book 'The Old Straight Track' but haven't opened it for quite some time (just did in fact and it opened on the map of Radnor Vale and it's alignments with the churches in the area - mythologically speaking I know there is something about a protective dragon but that is a different post). As you said in your blog "In 1922, Alfred Watkins postulated that ancient Britain had been criss-crossed by a network of ‘ley lines’ – alignments of beacons, places of worship, and stone markers that ran in a ‘line-of-sight’. In Watkins’s view, these trackways were used by people to navigate across the land, possibly as trade routes [1]. Think of this network like a Neolithic Global Positioning System (GPS), which allowed people to situate themselves in the landscape. There was nothing at all mystical about Watkins’s theory. Watkins believed in 'sight lines' - there are many examples of this where there is an ancient landscape (thinking of Windmill Hill, Silbury, WKLB, Harestone Down) and have often pondered on how important seeing in a straight line must have been in past times when things such as a GPS would have been outside everyone's comprehension. While pondering the penny drops that if you take a circle, any circle (Stonehenge, Avebury, the Bath Circus) you can align it in any direction. Where I hit a stumbling block is when the discourse turns to ley lines as a spiritual/land energy concept. Like religion, you either believe or you don't. I had my 'road to Damascus in reverse' many years ago. Good luck with your well written, interesting blog. J
|
|||
|
nigelswift 8112 posts |
Aug 28, 2018, 10:44
|
||
|
Satisfyingly, leylines are still prevalent in the Midlands where people give directions using pubs - left at the Red Lion, past the Anchor, right at the Yew Tree..... I also find solar leylines are useful in cities. If you keep the sun at say 11 o-clock you can navigate accurately right through London.
|
|||
|
tjj 3606 posts |
Aug 28, 2018, 14:08
|
||
|
nigelswift wrote: I also find solar leylines are useful in cities. If you keep the sun at say 11 o-clock you can navigate accurately right through London. Alternatively you can use the Underground ... all those lovely straight lines. http://content.tfl.gov.uk/standard-tube-map.pdf
|
|||
|
nigelswift 8112 posts |
Aug 28, 2018, 14:42
|
||
Aaargh, never thought of that! I suppose you're going to suggest buses too! That's another of my theories gone.
|
|||
|
Ross 5 posts |
Sep 12, 2018, 14:35
|
||
|
Hi all, Sorry for late reply. Thanks to those who have read and commented on the blog. Glad some of you enjoyed it. I appreciate your thoughts and feedback. I have recently added the site of St. Anne's Well, Brislington, to the Appendix, as the Caerleon-Stonehenge ley passes through this interesting ancient pilgrimage site. Kind regards, Ross
|
|||
|
swallowhead 6 posts |
Edited Aug 30, 2019, 13:40
Aug 30, 2019, 13:39
|
||
|
Hi All, Bit late to the party, but only just came across this thread. Getting to the bottom of the ramblings of Wood the Elder is my present area of research (and it was I who contacted Moss about Lansdown monuments a while back). I do not think the Woods believed in or even knew about ley lines. His 'augural line' when referring to the Sols Rocks probably meant nothing more than a line of sight. Being able to see one point from another is a major theme in his antiquarian work but it does not imply that he believed in the modern notion of ley lines. There is a good line of sight from my living room window to the Royal Crescent, but no-one would suggest that there is a ley line involved. It helps when you know exactly where he was talking about - the grounds of Hope House, just in front of Lansdown Crescent (built after the Royal Crescent and by a different architect). I published a paper a few years ago identifying the probable location, although I stopped short of declaring it a lost monument as the rocks were probably removed before any other antiquaries took a look at them (at most, it is probable that they originated from elsewhere, but how they got there, when and why is unknown). I have tried and failed to find any conclusive relationship between the buildings of the Woods and the Sols Rocks, aside from Wood claiming that North Parade was built with a view of them. In Wood's day, before he began his building Bath was a tiny place and I expect it very likely one could have seen the spot they were supposedly in from St John's Chapel and N. Parade. I'm also intrigued as to why no ley-line hunters (of which I seen many wandering around the Crescent lawn with copper rods and crystals) have previously suggested that there could have been a ley-line that ran near or right through the Sols Rocks. My personal view is that if these things worked I wouldn't have had to spend a year digging around in the local library and archives trying to find the place! http://historyofbath.org/images/documents/c6a200a9-ad00-41a6-be24-737afac4eca6.pdf Wood tried to build The Circus in 2 other locations before the final spot, and much of the choice of the location was down to the local council and having a landowner willing to lease him the land. So if there are any 'ley lines' running through it, it is almost certainly coincidence.
|
|||
|
Ross 5 posts |
Edited Jun 30, 2021, 16:28
Jun 30, 2021, 16:23
|
||
|
Thanks for the reply. I have only just come across it today, incidentally on the 100 year anniversary of Alfred Watkins’ ley lines revelation. I came across your paper on Sols Rocks some years ago. It’s an absolutely fascinating and well-researched piece of work, and I’m glad to be able to finally tell you so. Fair point about the ‘augural line’, although I’d also be interested on your take on the curious sentence in Choir Gaure where Wood – in reference to Stonehenge – describes a line which “bears six Degrees West of the Meridian, and directs to the Spire of Salisbury Church…” As to your surprise as to why no ley line hunters have suggested that there could be a ley line through Sols Rocks, well I for one have considered this! I don’t use copper rods or crystals though. I use Google Earth. I have spent quite some time trying to corroborate your proposed location by trying to establish if it is aligned with any other ancient sites, and it is precisely because I can’t find any alignments that I am skeptical as to that being the location! If indeed the site had the magnitude Wood suggests (a 30 foot stone!), and if one thinks there is something in the whole ley line theory of alignments, the Sols Rocks site should almost certainly be aligned with something. I concede that the whole business with the circus/ley lines may of course be coincidence, but a happy one at that, and one which John Wood would probably appreciate. Glad to make your acquaintance. P.S. I heard somewhere you were working on a follow up article on the location of Wood’s Moon temple. Did that manifest yet? Best wishes, Ross
|
| The Modern Antiquarian Forum Index |
