Ley Lines: The Greatest Landscape Mystery

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Many of Richard Long’s landscape works are clearly influenced by the ley line idea, as are the works of fellow landscape artist Hamish Fulton. I had only had the pleasure of reading about them in para/supernatural books and I believe in an episode of Midsomer Murders, so this book was a bit of an eye opener for me. If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter . The water fountain in the centre emits healthy negative ions, which, presumably can be carried down that energy ley.

Some maintained that even if the presence of earth energies running through ley lines could not be demonstrated with empirical evidence and rational argumentation, this did not matter; for them, a belief in ley lines was an act of faith, and in their view archaeologists were too narrow-minded to comprehend this reality. The book is considered the first book written about leys, and the first book to document and map alleged ley lines in Britain, primarily southern England. I grew up in the countryside, connected to Earth energy, so it makes complete sense to me that there are energy lines moving through the Earth. 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. Looking back on the book's reception in 2000, Williamson noted that "archaeologists weren't particularly interested, and ley-line people were hostile".

Attitudes to the archaeological establishment varied among ley hunters, with some of the latter wanting to convert archaeologists to their beliefs and others believing that that was an impossible task.

His obsession with leys was a natural outgrowth of his interest in landscape photography and love of the British countryside. Bel Jacobs explores the history and meaning of ley lines, and talks to the artist they have inspired. 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. In 1989, a book that Devereux had co-written with Nigel Pennick, Lines on the Landscape, was published. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.Watkins presents a methodical and thorough exposition of his theories of ley lines, following an earlier much shorter publication, "Early British Trackways" (1922).