Twinn
Dowsing on Scillonia
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The most westerly standing stone in England stands, or rather leans, on the Island of Gugh in the Scillies. Long before the satellite and the internet catapulted these far flung outposts of the UK into the 21st Century, Gugh – cut off by the sea from its larger neighbour St Agnes for a few hours a day – must have been a very different place indeed.
I had a vague memory of seeing the late dowsing legend, Donovan Wilkins, at the Old Man of Gugh, in a half-forgotten black-and-white TV programme - so it was somewhere I knew I should visit too. Everywhere on Scilly is a bit special, and this menhir is no exception. The stone has a considerable ‘aura’ and marks - or gathers - a number of earth energy lines running through it. A tourist arrived at the stone just before me and seemed to get quite an unexpected belt from the rock, to the extent that he put his hand back rather gently, albeit with a questioning shrug. I found no water directly associated with the Old Man, but there was one wide, and very distinct ley line running North East towards Tresco – but more of this later.
If the Old Man is almost predictably surprising, the parish church of St Agnes is something else. The current building is a couple of hundred years old, and quite plain in design - on an island with few natural resources other than granite. Outwardly it seems of little interest. However, to anyone with an open mind and a bent coathanger, it is anything but dull. The central aisle is far too wide for this modest building; the (Victorian?) pews set a couple of metres apart for no apparent reason. Between the two rows is a massive energy spiral, giving the whole interior a quietly electric feel – and accentuating the backcloth of records of tragic maritime losses, and heroic rescues, that coloured and textured the lives of former congregations.
The energy lines seem to take little heed of the external architecture, implying that the builders knew the importance of that specific place, but had already lost the awareness of sacred design. The lines enter the church, not through the doors and windows as one would expect, but diagonally across the plan, like the cross on the flag of Scotland. The building dowsed to standing on the foundation of a previous church, which in turn stood on the site of an important pre-Christian sacred place. Even the (quite modern) font was directly on a water line – albeit not on a crossing point. A hidden gem for the dowser on a hidden gem of an island.
St Mary’s is the largest Island of the Scilly group. We walked out of the capital, Hugh Town (pop about 2,500) and made our way round the coast path to the ancient village of Halangy. This is a Neolithic place, but to call it Stone Age would be a bit confusing on an island where the iron age crossed the water late, and the bronze age hardly arrived at all. There were energies of various types, some positive and uplifting, others, mainly associated with water spirals, rather less so. This was a substantial settlement, used over hundreds of years – and it is very well preserved. Full marks to English Heritage for holding back the all-pervading bracken, which has engulfed great swathes of these Isles.
Even a cursory look at the OS map shows that there is far more archaeology and ancient habitation on Scilly than a few rocky outcrops in the middle of a none-too-friendly ocean could ever merit. Chambered cairns, hut circles, standing stones, even the occasional early Christian building are scattered across the islands. But Scilly was once a much larger place. Rising sea levels have rendered this once substantial landmass into a tableau of jagged beads set into a bluey-green backcloth. At very low tides, field boundaries and foundations of buildings, long since inundated by the unforgiving waves, return briefly to view. Legend has it that this is part of the lost kingdom of Lyonesse, which stretched from this westerly enclave to the Fowey River.
When Halangy - and the nearby Bant’s Carn chambered tomb - were inhabited, the whole choppy vista stretching for a couple of miles in front of us would have been a rolling greenscape of flora and fauna. St Mary’s would have been joined to Tresco, Bryher, Samson and St Martins, with the current islands just the hill ridges on the horizon. Bant’s Carn not only has the energy spirals one might expect in a site of this type, but also forms the crossing place of two ley lines – one of which aims straight at the pinnacle of Round Island. Round Island, which still has a lighthouse, would have been at the very northern edge of the land known to the inhabitants of Halangy. Clearly, I was in no position to test if the ley ran on beyond Round Island and off towards Erin – or not. Anyone with a (pretty stable) boat and time on their hands, please feel free to follow this one up.
We ventured further round the coast to the Chambered Cairn at Innisidgen – right at the north of the remaining land of St Mary’s. Again there was an energy spiral with no obvious water line, but a very distinct ley was present, this time pointing to the southern part of Tresco. Tresco is renowned for the sub-tropical gardens of its former Abbey. My rudimentary dowsing on St Agnes and St Mary’s indicates that this was (and is!) indeed a place of great significance – the crossing point of perhaps several leys. It is also noticeable that on an archipelago, mostly composed of rock with not too much in between, where just about everywhere is part of someone’s horizon, none of the sites we visited were on peaks – or even on higher ground. They were on slopes or in coombes, sited where they stood for reasons unseen.
St Mary’s has a little more of the mainland about it - rather more road and air traffic for its own good and a lot more people - but it is nevertheless still distinctly Scillonian. Dowsing on these Isles is a treat. Even in high-season, people seem to be absorbed by the cliffs and the bracken, leaving the dowser to contemplate a time when this distinctive strand of Cornish Celtic civilisation was still aware of, and working with, the energies that surrounded it.
Nigel Twinn
Tamar Dowsers
July 2005