Lets start at the beginning... What is a Ley-line? What were they used for? Could it all just be random?

Ley-lines are alignments of places of geographical and historical interest, such as ancient monuments and megaliths. The phrase was coined in 1921 by the amateur archaeologist Alfred Watkins, in his books Early British Trackways and The Old Straight Track.

One of the largest Leys in England, the St. Michaels Ley, is aligned along the path of  the sun on the 8th of May (The spring festival of St. Michael) - it passes through several megalithic sites before it reaches Glastonbury and then on to the Avebury / Silbury complex.

The following natural and man-made features were suggested by Watkins to be reliable ley-markers:

Ancient Mounds, Long-barrows, Cairns, Cursus, Dolmens, Standing stones, mark-stones, Stone circles, Henges, Water-markers (moats, ponds, springs, fords, wells), Castles, Beacon-hills, Churches, Cross-roads, Notches in hills, and Camps (Hill-forts).

Any true "Watkinsian ley" requires it to have a start (or finish) point in the shape of a hill, and a minimum of four points...

What were there original purpose?

I am not here to re-invent the wheel! The Ancient Wisdom website provides an excellent background and description of the various theories concerning these alignments. There are various developed theories on the supposed purpose of ley-lines, some of which include:

• Pagan religious ceremonial pathways - walk ways associated with old Pagan religious customs, such as the administration of funeral rights, or to mark a life events, such as "coming of age" fertility rituals at Easter, etc. Also known as spirit ways, death roads, or funeral paths - this links astronomical alignments below; 
• Feng-Shui / Dragon Currents - observing energy flows linked to the Earths Magnetic Field, the ancient Chinese built temples and monuments at particular points upon these energy lines. They were not always straight, they meandered across landscapes and were associated with alternative masculine and feminine energies according to their "charge"; 
• Astronomical Alignments - the fact that ancient monuments (such as Stone Henge or the Pyramids of Giza) are linked to astronomical observations is irrefutable. The alignment of monuments with the celestial paths of the Sun, Moon and stars is easily observable and links back to theories concerning the use of ley-lines for Pagan religious ceremonial rights; 
• Geometric Alignments - geometry might be involved in the orientation of some ley-lines. It could be argued that this may be a result of astronomical alignment creating 'automatic' or 'accidental' geometry within the layout of certain sites, but this does not explain geometry between sites. As noted on the Ancient Wisdom website, an example is the geometric alignment between Stonehenge, Grovely (Grove-ley) castle and Old Sarum, where these form a perfect equilateral triangle with sides 6 miles long. 
• Traders Tracks - Watkins postulated that the "Old Straight Tracks" may have had a functional use, linking important sites of resource (such as salt, ore or flint) to the market (such as at important cross roads, where people gathered to trade) or a transportation hub (such as a dock or seaside town). Interestingly, Watkins theorised that place names upon alignments could also denote their functional use, in brief: "white", "whits,", "wicks" indicating a salt track; "Red" indicating a pottery track; "Knaps" and "Chap" indicating a flint track; and "Black", "Back", "Burnt", or "Bel" indicating a beacon fire alignment.

Is it all just Randomness??

The main criticism regarding ley-lines are the sheer volume of relevant sites in and around the British isles that produce alignments.  It can be shown that 137 random points can produce eighty 4-point alignments, therefore illustrating that straight lines between any number of points can be due to chance and not to design.

In order to reduce the risk that a ley-line is purely down to chance, I look to find alignments that start and end on a geographical sites (i.e. a hill or point that cannot be moved or easily manipulated by human intervention), and contain artificial markers (i.e. placed there by people) to mark the alignment between those geographical sites - to date, I have been quite successful in finding such alignments... which I will show on a future blog...

Other important ley-line questions for future blog posts...

We have covered the definition and theorised about purpose of ley-lines, but an equally important question that spring immediately to my mind is "who built them" and "when were they built"... these extremely important questions are topics for future posts...