Alfred Watkins

For the sound engineer, see A. W. Watkins.

Alfred Watkins
Alfred Watkins
Born	January 27, 1855(1855-01-27) Imperial Hotel in Widemarsh Street, Hereford, England
Died	April 15, 1935(1935-04-15) (aged 80)
Nationality	British
Ethnicity	Caucasian
Occupation	Photographer, Author
Known for	Ley lines, The Old Straight Track
Spouse	Marion Mendham Cross
Children	Allen, Marion
Parents	Charles Watkins, Ann Watkins

Alfred Watkins (27 January 1855 – 15 April 1935) was a businessman, self-taught amateur archaeologist and antiquarian who, while standing on a hillside in Herefordshire, England, in 1921 experienced a revelation and noticed on the British landscape the apparent arrangement of straight lines positioned along ancient features, and subsequently coined the term ley lines because they passed through places whose names contained the syllable ley.

Life

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. Watkins travelled across Herefordshire as an 'out-rider' representing the family businesses and so got to know the area intimately.

Watkins Exposure Meter with timing chain, manufactured by R Fields & Co, Birmingham. Note: this is not the later, pocket-watch shaped, Watkins Bee Meter. Photo: Tony French

Watkins was also a respected photographer. He made some cameras himself and manufactured an exposure meter called the 'Watkins Bee Meter' due to its small size and efficiency. An example is in the Museum Resource & Learning Centre, Hereford, and one accompanied Robert Falcon Scott to the South Pole. He was an active member of the Photographic Convention of the United Kingdom and served as its President when the Convention was held in Hereford in 1907.

On 30 June 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 generally 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, Herefordshire 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.

Distinctions

In 1910 he was awarded the Progress Medal of the Royal Photographic Society (RPS).

External links

• Biography
• Early British Trackways, at sacred-texts.com
• Biography on Hereford Sites and Monuments Record

Books by Alfred Watkins

• Early British Trackways (1922)
• The Old Straight Track (1925)
• The Ley Hunter's Manual (1927)