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The building was originally Buckingham House, built in 1703 for the Duke of Buckingham, but in 1762 George III bought it for Queen Charlotte, and it was known as the Queen’s House. George IV made many alterations, but never lived in it.

The arch now known as Marble Arch was originally in front of the house; Queen Victoria had it moved to its present position. Since her reign it has been the main royal residence, and the Changing of the Guard is done every morning at 11.30.

It was considerably enlarged when it became a palace; the side facing the Mall is a facade, originally built in 1847 and replaced by a design by Sir Aston Webb in 1913. The actual front of the house faces the garden, which has curving paths and a serpentine lake with an island.

As the New Ley Hunting continues to rediscover leys as spirit paths, a body of evidence begins to grow and solidify as surely as the old theories disintegrate under close scrutiny. To add to the already impressive research collated so far, a shining example can be found at Tynwald Hill on the Isle of Man.

Much has already been written about this focal point of the island a sit is the seat of the oldest continuous government, the Manx Parliament. For nearly a millennium, on old Midsummer’s Day (5 July) the laws and proclamations of the land have been read from this spot in Manx and English. It has been variously described as the omphalos of the British isles, a place of pagan celebration and the seat of learning of the Celtic Druidic tradition.

The Romanesque Cathedral of Speyer in Palatinate is the largest in Europe. Erected on a hill by the River Rhine, its monumental walls of red sandstone are an impressive sight. The Cathedral was completed in 1061, but has suffered from the usual catastrophes and barbarism (being used as a shed by French revolutionary troops).

It is aligned with the Kalmit mountain, the highest peak in Palatinate, by a ley running strictly from the E to the W, and has a second, modern alignment cutting through it in a rough N to S direction – Speyer Cathedral lies at the intersection of two alignments pointing at all cardinal points (see sketch). The roughly W to E and N to S alignments at English holy hills has been noted as a pattern in TLH 100 by Paul Devereux.

Like Lockyer’s Stonehenge and Other British Stone Monuments Astronomically Considered, William Stukeley’s 1740 study of Stonehenge stands out among the huge number of books on the subject. Stukeley was a pioneer preservationist. He lamented the callous treatment of the majestic ruins both by tourists and landholders. He coined the term ‘trilithon’ for the doorway-like arrangement of three stones, now common in the literature about megalithic architecture. Stukeley was one of the first to make accurate drawings of the site. The three dozen illustrations to this book, which show Stonehenge from every angle and document its context in the 18th century landscape, are still used today by scholars. He also did some rudimentary archaeology, and describes opening the grave of a warrior princess.
Stukeley’s Stonehenge was intended to be the first volume in a comprehensive study of universal history, which he never completed. He believed a pure form of Christianity was the original religion of mankind, which had been subverted by idolatry, and finally restored by Jesus. Stonehenge was a temple of this primordial patriarchial religion, built by immigrants from the Near East, possibly Phoenicians. They became the progenitors of the Celts, founded the Druid religion and built the mysterious standing stones. (Today scholars believe that Stonehenge was constructed by an indigenous, pre-Celtic, pre-Druid culture).

Staines means “stones” and it is thought to come from a group of nine stones mentioned in a twelfth century charter of Chertsey Abbey which delineated the boundaries of the Abbey lands, and was reported in Up Pontes by Christine Lake. The settlement of Staines is very ancient, with evidence of habitation from Mesolithic times; the Romans had an fairly important town here called “Ad Pontes” (“by the bridges”) as it was the place where the London to Silchester road crossed the Thames and Colne, and was about half-way between them (a day’s march from each). There are the remains of an old bridgehead at The Hythe; this is not the Roman one (there were also Saxon and Norman bridges here) but may be on the same site. Stukeley says that the whole town was bounded by a ditch. The charter says this:

It was May 1993 when Muriel and I first went on holiday to Scotland. We were staying on a farm near Aberlemno. We could hardly miss the roadside Stones, and to our surprise found a picture of a Centaur, which together with other figures beside it made us realize that the designer of that carving was conveying ideas with which we were already familiar.

So the hunt was on to see what we could find. To whom or what would it lead us?

Although we have been interested in the early history and origins of the British Race or Races the Picts were little known to us. What could we possibly have in common with them?

On the shore of the Bay of Fundy, op­posite the Town of Yarmouth, stands a rock weighing about four hundred pounds, which. about the end of the last century, was discovered by a man named Fletcher. It has been well known for nearly a hundred years, and those who dwell in its vicinity have always accepted it as a genuine relic of antiquity, no breath of suspicion ever having fallen upon it. The glyphs have been at various times copied and sent abroad to men of learning who have made more or less attempts at de­ciphering them, more than one savant see­ing traces of Semitic origin.

Three miles long and half a mile across, the tiny granite island of Lundy lies 12 miles to the north-west of Hartland Point off the coast of North Devon. Lundy is pounded on her Western side by the Atlantic and faces the busy Bristol Channel on her Eastern board. A haven for Kittiwakes, Gannets, Puffins and seals, Lundy emanates a sense of other worldliness and peace, remote in her oceanic isolation from civilisation. With just one pub, the Marisco Tavern, the Church of St Helena, a single shop and a scattering of cottages, Lundy has featured rarely in the field of ‘Earth Mysteries’ and attention to our islands is perhaps overdue.

THIS volume is one of the effects issuing from the labours of the “Royal Archaeological Institute for Great Britain and Ireland.” Having been asked, in the spring of this year, by some friends interested in the researches and prosperity of that useful Association, to contribute a paper at their annual meeting, to be held this year at Bury St. Edmund’s; I acquiesced, and fixed upon the subject which gives the title to this publication. I considered it a proper theme for an Essay to be brought under the notice of an assembly of archaeologists, who were to meet in the town which bears the name of one of the kings of the East Angles. The subject commended itself to the Honorary Secretary of the Institute, and I forthwith set to work to isolate some materials for this particular purpose, from MSS. on kindred subjects, upon which many a year’s hard work and study had been bestowed.