Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor,
I am responding to the article by Victor Smith in the Winter 2018 Newsletter 110 concerning dowsing.
I worked on a site for a day with a nationally renowned archaeologist. He knew dowsing worked, but you would never see him with a pair of dowsing rods; peer pressure was holding him back. Similarly, I have been written up in the New Scientist journal,
I was interested in reading Kerry Brown’s article on literary links in Kent featured in the Winter 2018 Newsletter 110, but I expect I am not the only one to have spotted one or two misapprehensions.
The author seems to have given E Nesbit an extra first name, referring to her as “E H Nesbit”; she had only one first name – Edith. It is also puzzling that Kerry
Brown mentions only E Nesbit’s link with Yalding, where the family went for holidays. Her Kent connections extended much wider that, and much of her life as spent in the county. The happiest part of her somewhat peripatetic childhood was the three years when they lived at Halstead Hall (not as grand as it sounds), near Sevenoaks, a house which is still there. The tunnel at nearby Knockholt station inspired one of the incidents in her best-known book, The Railway Children. After her first marriage she lived in Blackheath, Lewisham and Lee, and then for 22 years at Well Hall, Eltham (all then in Kent), before she and her second husband built a house at St Mary’s Bay, where she died in 1924; she is buried at St Mary in the Marsh church.
There has been some confusion over the education of Siegfried Sassoon, who did not attend Sevenoaks School. He was a pupil at The New Beacon, a preparatory school (still flourishing) in Sevenoaks, from where he went on to Marlborough College.
However, his family home, Weirleigh (where he was born in 1886), can still be seen just north of
Matfield, a typically fanciful Victorian pile prominently situated next to the road from Paddock Wood. He retained a great fondness for the house and the surrounding countryside, which inspired Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man and many of his other works.
The article might also have included Frances Hodgson Burnett, who was inspired to write The Secret Garden after visiting the walled garden at Great Maytham Hall, near Rolvenden.
Yours sincerely,
Karin Proudfoot
Dear Editor,
Your correspondent Victor Smith on p24 of the Winter 2018 Newsletter 110 asked for “dowsing readers to share their experiences”. In response, I can happily tell him that dowsing is alive and very well in East Kent, particularly in Charing, where dowsing has been used to plot many Roman features. This summer President Gerald Cramp visited one of our sites in the centre of some 50ha. of archaeology. Because of the large area involved our modest sized Charing
Archaeology Group uses any and every non-invasive technique available. Dowsing is the quickest technique and is the most accurate (down to 1–2 cm) but is not self-recording. We, therefore, flag up features we find and then laboriously survey with tape and box sextant – very old fashioned. If, however, our neighbour Paula Jardine Rose comes to our aid with her GPS and Resistivity Equipment then we can record much quicker. Gerald witnessed our efforts this summer when we had started to confirm by excavating.
As to magnetometry we have been assisted by Canterbury C.Ch but have run into trouble with the high metal concentration (mostly Roman nails) and need to rerun the results over about a hectare. We have also used GPR but ran into software problems. So please reassure Victor that dowsing may be laborious, but it works very well. Any old wire even barbed wire works and I have used it for many years. My father used hazel when on campaign in India when his troops needed water. Together we competed to find drains and so on at a time when I went off excavating under the late E.J.W.Hildyard of the Cumberland and Westmoreland Antiquarian Soc. in the early 1950s.
So my message to Victor is that dowsing works well and will not let you down. However, if you need to publish any results and have not yet excavated then try to use one of the three electronically based systems.
Yours sincerely,
Tim Bain Smith
Dear Editor,
Thanks for another feature packed Newsletter.
Referring to Victor Smith’s piece in the Winter 2018 Newsletter 110 concerning dowsing. I am not a dowser and was very sceptical until the Isle of Thanet Archaeological Society trip to the Avebury area some years ago. A member took his copper rods and dowsed around the interior of the Avebury circle without any result.
Upon climbing up to the West Kennett long barrow, he got a reaction in front of the entrance. Unconvinced
I asked to have a go and was surprised at the strength of the rods reaction as I walked past the entrance, the rods swinging around to the maximum possible. I did a return with the same result.
I am now a believer even if I cannot explain it. Best wishes,
Gordon Taylor
When I first discovered I could dowse, some 40 years ago, I needed proof that what I thought was under the ground was, indeed, there. Luckily, the Dartford District Archaeological Group let me loose on a Saxon burial site they were excavating.
I soon found I could find adult inhumations and this led on to visiting other groups for further dowsing experience. Over the years, I have honed my skills and can detect most below-ground anomalies.
I no longer work for archaeologists, instead working for construction companies as I can cover a site looking for anomalies far quicker than any electronic equipment.
In Victor’s article, I liked the reference to Bill Penn as a trained specific. He should have taken things further as he could have discerned brick, flint, timber foundations and the approximate date of construction.
