: Whilst looking at the work of ley researcher Michael Behrend I noted a reference to a long-distance ley. I am not a fan of such alignments, having found them inaccurate at best, but this one mentioned passing through my area of interest, taking in Hillbury Fort, Compton Church and Deerleap Barrow towards Dorking. This barrow was not included in my research as it is outside the area I had originally decided upon.
I had never seen Deerleap Barrow as it is in private woodland about half a mile north of the Wotton Hatch pub on the A25 east of Abinger Hammer, and as I did not know the identity of the landowner, decided on a bit of non-intrusive trespassing. The barrow was easy to find, standing out on an area of cleared land in the deciduous woodland. GPS readings were recorded at around five-metre intervals around the perimeter ditch and photographs were taken. The barrow was planted with saplings – incredible that this is allowed on a Scheduled Ancient Monument! Upon leaving the land I found a notice stating that the private woodland was part of the Wotton Estate.
In the office, the downloaded and adjusted GPS readings were compared with the downloaded Ordnance Survey extract and found to be an extremely good fit.
The barrow was then included in my database and revealed a fresh alignment hitherto undetected. Starting at Deerleap Barrow the alignment, at a bearing of 266 degrees, passes through the east wall of Shere churchyard at four Druid Miles (DM); through the 1842 parish church in Albury (site relevance problem); passes through Chilworth moated site at around 10.5 DM (more site relevance problems); Compton Church is at precisely 16 DM, this is the fourth alignment to pass through this church; the point at 20 DM is just on the inside edge of the south ramparts of Hillbury Fort. Further points to the west await research.
