Alfred Watkins and ley theory

Alfred Watkins developed an early-twentieth-century theory that alignments of old places and landmarks preserved ancient trackways and sight-lines. His ideas helped establish the modern discussion of ley lines.

Later writers attached spiritual meanings to such alignments, but those interpretations should not simply be attributed to Watkins or described as a single unchanged ancient belief. In the Cornish landscape, his theory offers a history of how people interpret places; it does not independently date an alignment or demonstrate that prehistoric builders planned it.