Ley Lines: The Greatest Landscape Mystery

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The term ley derived from the Old English term for a cleared space, with Watkins adopting it for his lines because he found it to be part of the place-names of various settlements that were along the lines he traced. First published in 1925 THE OLD STRAIGHT TRACK remains the most important source for the study of ancient tracks or leys that criss-cross the British Isles- a fascinating system which was old when the Romans came to Britain. The Old Straight Track got a somewhat unexpected kickstart in 1969 with the appearance of hippy guru John Mitchell’s seminal The View Over Atlantis.

The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.H. Piper's paper presented to the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club in 1882, which noted that: "A line drawn from the Skirrid-fawr mountain northwards to Arthur's Stone would pass over the camp and southernmost point of Hatterall Hill, Oldcastle, Longtown Castle, and Urishay and Snodhill castles. Some of Watkins' other ideas, such as his belief that widespread forest clearance took place in prehistory rather than later, would nevertheless later be recognised by archaeologists. He came to this conclusion after comparing Watkins' ideas with those of the French ufologist Aimé Michel, who argued for the existence of "orthotenies", lines along which alien spacecraft travelled. Danny Sullivan's Ley Lines does this with reference to all the theories that have ever been put forward to explain the archaic landscape line.

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