Alfred Watkins

About me:

Alfred Watkins (January 27, 1855 – April 15, 1935) was a self-taught amateur archaeologist and antiquarian who noticed in the British landscape the apparent arrangement of ancient features along straight lines, known as ley lines.

Watkins was born in Hereford to an affluent family which had moved to the town in 1820 to establish several businesses including a flour-mill, a hotel and brewery.

He married Marion Mendham Cross in 1886 and they had two children, Allen and Marion. They continued to live in Hereford, first at Broomy Hill, then at Vineyard Croft in Hampton Park and finally at 5 Harley Court, close by the cathedral.

His daughter described him as ‘a bit of a rough diamond to look at; broad-shouldered and bearded he wore (winter and summer) suits of Harris Tweed lined with grey flannel, containing fourteen pockets’.

Watkins travelled across Herefordshire as an 'out-rider' representing the family businesses and so got to know the area intimately. He was also a respected photographer. He made some cameras himself and manufactured the Watkins exposure meter, an example of which is in the Hereford City Museum.

On June 30, 1921, Watkins visited Blackwardine in Herefordshire when he had the idea that there was a system of straight lines crossing the landscape dating from Neolithic times. He presented his ideas at a meeting of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club of Hereford in September 1921, and published his first books Early British Trackways in 1922 and The Old Straight Track in 1925. Thereafter he spent a major part of his life developing his theory. He published a further book on ley lines and participated in the Old Straight Track Club from 1927 to 1935 (the papers from this organisation are also in the Hereford City Museum).

Watkins ideas are not universally accepted by archaeologists. At first it was thought was that the ancient Britons were too primitive to have devised such an arrangement, but this is no longer the argument used against the existence of ley lines. More crucially there are so many ancient features that finding some in approximate alignment is highly likely. Watkins was sensitive to such arguments and argued for caution. He also drew up a list according to which landscape features could be given values between 1/4 and 1 point, five points or more being required as evidence of a ley line.

Watkins was a member of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, an authority on beekeeping and a fellow of the Royal Photographic Society. He was also involved in the preservation of Pembridge Market Hall.

Watkins' work was revived and popularised from the 1960s following John Michell's publication of The View over Atlantis 1969. In 2002 Watkins had a beer named after him, "Alfred Watkins' Triumph", brewed by Wye Valley Brewery Ltd, for a special occasion.

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