homework :: Something smarter than us is going to emerge

How to Hunt for Ley Lines

It is intriguing and fascinating hobby. In these days when rambling over the hill and dale is such a popular amusement, there should be countless opportunities for young people to discover markstones and other reminders of by-gone days, and trce out possible alignments from them on the maps when they return home.

MARK CULLING CARR-COMM
THE STRAIGHT TRACK CLUB (1938)

Does a ley line run through your house or garden? Do perhaps several cross there or elsewhere in your neighbourhood? There´s only one way to find out: ley hunting!

Equipment Needed
· 2 maps covering the area under investigation: one, 1:50,000 scale, of the general area; and one, 1:25,000 scale, covering the lay area
· a straight edge at least 2 feet long
· a sharp ´H´ grade pencil
· a map pin
· a compass
· binoculars and a camera

To find a ley you will need to do some fieldwork or mapwork at the very least, and ideally you should also follow this up with research into local history and folklore.
All these activities are perfect at the winter, when it´s raining and you can be indoors, with the map spread out on the kitchen table, or the inside your local library, poring over books on local folklore and history. When it´s clear and sunny you can be exploring old footpaths, following hunches and looking for unusual features in the landscape which is much easier in rhe winter when the leaves are off the trees.

MAPWORK
Start with the 1:50 000 scale Ordinance Survey map. Lay this out on flat surface and, taking a straight edge at least 2 feet long, move it around on the map in a relaxed way. As Paul Devereux and Ian Thomson say in The Ley Hunter´s Companion: ´Move it slowly, follow whim, let the eye be caught, be prepared to be surprised.´ If you spot at least four sites in alignment you may on to something.
What sort of sites should you be looking for? Alfred Watkins suggested the following features, which are listed in order of importance:

· Ancient mounds, whether called tumulus, tump, barrow, cairn or some other name.
· Ancient unworked stones, not those marked ´boundary stone´,
· Moans and islands in ponds and lakelets.
· Traditional or holy wells.
· Beacon points.
· Crossroads with place names and ancient wayside crosses,
· Churches of ancient foundation and hermitages.
· Ancient castles and old “castle” place names.

If you can´t locate any alignments, try this method: draw a small circle with a pencil around ancient monument, such as a tumulus, standing stone or stone circle. Stick a map pin in one of these and, using straight edge, rotate around to see whether it aligns with least tree other ringed points, so that a total of at least four features are connected. If it aligns with only two other points, you may still be on to something, especially if a stretch of straight road or track is also signed.
With a bit of luck you might be on the scent of a ley! Take shrap ´H´ pencil and draw in the line between the points. If you´re sharpened your pencil well the line will be about 1/28th of a inch wide, which will represent a width of about 11 yards on the ground. Watkins believed leys were about half that width.
Now draw in the same alignment on the larger-scale map, the 1:25 000 one. This will be the map you will use in your fieldwork, although if your ley crosses two maps you will need to take great care in plotting it. The Ley Hunter´s Companion or another detailed guide will explain how to do this.

FIELDWORK
Once your mapwork is complete, it´s time for the wellington boots, because you are going to try to walk the ley you have plotted. For this you´ll need your or maps, a compass and a pair of binoculars. Motorways, private land or rivers might well bar the way, and if you don´t feel like swimming or trespassing you will have to content yourself with following the ley only intermittently. Even so, you should be able to walk at least part of the alignment and visit most or all of its marker points.
Apart from the sheer pleasure of exploring the countryside, you may also be able to add further points, such as lod marker stones, which are not noted on the map. As you walk along the alignment or stand at each marker point, look to see whether you can spot any other features that could be markers, and make a photographic record of the route. Use your binoculars to help you. The perceptions of the route. Use your binoculars to help you. The perceptions of our ancestors, who were finely attuned to the world of nature, were probably better than our own.
This detective work is not easy. As Watkins points out in the Old Straight Track: ´ancient tracks and roads have disappeared (and most of the bearrows and mark stones) wherever the plough touches.´ But every so often traces of an old path or marker stone will be discovered in the way. And although ley hunting can be undertaken at any time of the year, in the winter the undergrowth will have died back, so that you are more likely to spot a significant-looking old stone hiding under footage. As you walk the ley, remember to respect the Countryside Code: closing gates, avoiding walking on crops and asking permission to cross land if there is no right of way.
For a ley hunter, local people, particularly the elderly - can be mines of information. Devereux and Thomson recount how they asked a septuagenerian in a remote village the location of an elusive stone, without mentioning the subject of leys. ´No only did he know the stone´s whereabouts, he also volunteered the information that it stood in line with another old stone and an ancient cross miles away!´
Some leys were probably old funeral tracks. According to the Society of Ley Hunters,´Walking the old paths can be confirmed by finding the old cobbles underfoot. Some old routes re named, some sections may have been unused for years.´*

THE FINAL PHASE: RESEARCH WORK
Once you´ve done your mapwork and fieldwork, it´s time to build up the ´story´ of your ley.The local studies section in your library is a good place to start. There will probably no references to leys as such, but you will find plenty of leads for hunting downsites in books on local history and folklore. In particular, look at the old time maps that were drawn up at the time of the Enclosure Acts, between 1750 and 1860, which may give you the names of old tracks that have now disappeared. Research work an be invaluable when you have a ley with just a few points. If your research suggests that others existed but have since succumbed to tarmac, concrete or the plough, you can add them to the line.
If you happen to live in a city or town, tracing leys on the ground and on maps will be that much harder, and this research work will be vital. You might even have to start first with researching your area before you move on the mapwork and fieldwork.
It´s important to know, however, that just as you can go trout fishing in a pond nicely stocked with plenty of hungry trout, rather than in the river, so you could also take lazy rout to ley hunting and follow one that has already been detected. Guides to these can be found in the books listed at the end of this chapter. You can even buy a map and plot out an already identified ley to get practice before hunting your own.

•••
Today, when people talk about ley lines, they may be using Watkins´ original definition: referring to alignment that have been traced between ancient monuments and landscape features for navigation purposes, or they may be referring to alignments that convey special ´earth energy´, which may or may not also have been ancient trackways.
The idea that there is a hidden network of energy lines across the earth, like the acupuncture meridians that flow through our bodies, fired the imagination of the burgeoning New Age movement, and dowers in particular became keen on detecting leys with dowsing.

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*From ´Becoming a Ley Hunter´at www.layhunter.com.