Copyright © 1998 GVL

ROYSTON CAVE

LEY LINES(one theory) One cannot begin to talk about Royston Cave before a brief explanation of Ley lines

Ley / Li / Lei : 'The supposed straight line of a prehistoric track usually between hilltops.' (Definition from the Concise Oxford Dictionary)

I have developed an interest in all things Weird, Legends, Myths and Ancient Sites. I have found that here in Royston, we are in a unique position where Ley Lines cross underground, remember Stonehenge and Glastonbury well Royston can be put into the same group.


A Ley Line is some form of change in the earth's magnetic field. It is still, with all our technology, difficult to define the power that constitutes a Ley Line. Whatever a Ley Line consists of, birds, fish and animals must use them as direction finders. The human race could have used them in a similar way in early evolution.

In a New Scientist article (19.3.1987 pp 40-43), T. Williamson points out that species as diverse as pigeons, whales, honeybees and bacteria can navigate using the earth's magnetic field. The physiological feature which enables them to do this is a tissue with a substance called magnetite in it. Magnetite enables them to sense magnetic changes and has been found in human tissue associated with the Ethmoid bone in front of the vertebrate skull.

Prior to Stone Circles (2600 to 2800 BC) man could have navigated by use of the Ley Lines. Traders or settlers from a more sophisticated society and having already lost the ability to 'feel' the Ley Lines, standing stones were set on Ley alignments. From one stone you would always be able to see the next and these stone rows led to a point where the Ley Lines crossed. Here they built a Stone Circle where they met to trade. Stone Circles were meeting places, markets and later, places of worship. Wherever people meet is the place to preach, whether it is Paganism, Druidism or Christianity.



Royston Cave, is a bell-shaped chamber hewn from the chalk below Melbourn Street which is part of the old Icknield Way. As far as is known this cave is unique in Britain if not the world. Its origin is unknown, but the carvings on the walls are clearly mediaeval and most of them have religious significance. The circular cave, rediscovered in 1742, has a circumferential octagonal podium, which supports the theory that it may have been used by the Knights Templar before their Proscription by Pope Clement V in the 1312, but all such theories are speculative. It has been said that some of the figures carved in the walls are those of St. Catherine, St. Lawrence and St.Christopher. The cave is open to the public in the afternoons of Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holiday Mondays from Easter until the end of September.

The most recent theory that has now gained the status of 'tradition' is the Knights Templar connection. Sylvia Beamon, a local subterranean researcher, claimed that it was connected with the sect because in 1199 and 1254 the organisation held a weekly market at Royston and travelled there from their headquarters at Baldock, some nine miles south. She believes that they would have required a cool store for their produce and, as anyone who has studied subterranea knows, such structures maintain an even temperature all year round. The knights, being monks too, would have required a chapel for their devotions, and Mrs Beamon believes that the cave was divided into two floors by a wooden floor, and that part of the cave was therefore a chapel of Templar devotion. Two figures close together near the damaged section may be all that remains of a known Templar sign, two knights riding the same horse. This sign appears on Templar Seals and was an illustration of the name they gave themselves - The poor fellow soldiers of Christ. It is believed that some of the Templar rituals survive today in Freemasonry.

Knights Templars were monastic warriors that gained great wealth in knowledge and assets. They were persecuted as heretics for a few hundred years and many stories attributed some rather nasty deeds to them including that of "The Legend Of The Skull Of Sidon". The Knights Templars were crusading monks in nature and forbidden to have involvement with women. One Templar knight had a fallen in love with a woman who died. He dug up the woman's corpse and consummated their relationship resulting in a most grisly birth nine months later. Rephrased and perhaps better known as the skull and crossbones.

" A great lady of Maraclea was loved by a Templar, A Lord of Sidon; but she died in her youth, and on the night of her burial, this wicked lover crept to the grave, dug up her body and violated it. then a voice from the void bade him return in nine months time for he would find a son. He obeyed the injunction and at the appointed time he opened the grave again and found a head on the leg bones of the skeleton. The same voice bade him 'guard it well, for it would be the giver of all good things', and so he carried it away with him. It became his protecting genius, and he was able to defeat his enemies by merely showing them the magic head. In due course, it passed to the possession of the order."

* From The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail
by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln

The carvings are mostly of pagan origins, for even those of Christian content are saints whose pagan origins are plain. St Lawrence who was martyred on the gridiron, next with a sword drawn is St Michael or possibly St. George pointing the sword at the 12 apostles with Judas the small figure at the back. One of the most prominent of these is the carving of a crowned woman. In her hand she holds aloft an eight-spoked wheel, so Christian observers have ascribed the name of St Catherine to her. The Templars held St Catherine in special regard as it was on St. Catherines day in 1177 that they had a notable victory over the Saracen Saladin. However, as with many Christian saints, her origin is earlier than the martyr to whom the wheel is attributed. After all, the original Catherine, if we are to believe the legend, was tied to a wheel and theron tortured. Holding a wheel is something different to being tied to a wheel. This figure, whether of not the carver knew it, is the Queen of the Underworld, Persephone, who can be seen depicted so on ancient pre-Christian vases used in the rites of the orphic religion. This wheel represents the celebrated 'wheel of fortune', and indeed the Roman goddess Fortuna was often depicted holding the wheel. Also it relates, as do round churches and centrally-planned microcosms of the world, to the position of the circular structure as the Round Table, of Arthurian fame. Here, again, the wheel echoes the dream of the King, who saw himself on the wheel, once elevated, then, after reaching the zenith, cast down the other side to destruction. The modern parallel of this is the common distribution curve, which in its form recalls the up and down motion of Fortune's wheel.

In addition to this fine carving, there is another major saintly effigy - that of the pre-Christian giant who later became St Christopher. As a christianised Hermes, he still sports an outline phallus, an indication that the cave was at an important geomantic centre. And it is its positioning that makes the cave one of the most significant of circular sacred structures in the world. Hermes or Mercury was, of course, the patron of travellers, motion and wayfarers. Hermits were originally his servants (Hermes - Hermit) and later their useful function as spiritual guardians of the roads (and actual manual labourers on their repair - cheap labour for Christian kings they served) was taken over by the Church. Hence the possibility that there was a hermitage here. Certainly, at Royston there was a hermit whose function was the guardianship and maintenance of the road for six miles from the crossroads northwards.

The crossroads is, of course, none other than the cosmological omphalos, the conceptual centre point of the world. And the Royston cave is the only known example where all of the traditional features of this important geomantic axis still exist, even in attenuated form. Various cultures and traditions know the use of the omphalos, and the western European tradition was crystallised in the practices of the Etruscans, whose magical methods, taken over wholesale by their Roman conquerors, laid the foundation for the western tradition in the layout of sacred architecture and large-scale geomantic works. Celestial observation was used to fix true north-south and east-west. There, where the two roads crossed, the axis mundi was set up.

This axis mundi was represented in various ways. Most traditionally, a stone was utilized. These stones marked the entrance to the upperworld. Sometimes the axis was marked as a tree, the Yggdrasill of the Norse cosmologists. Such trees still exist, sometimes ruined as at Carmarthen (Merlin's Oak), sometimes vandalised, as the Major Oak in Sherwood Forest, or sometimes in pristine condition, like Kett's Oak near Norwich. And, like trees, axial poles or stones need roots.

Because of the unique combination of cave and crossroads, Royston is the only fully - developed geomantic site in Britain. At the intersection of two straight roads orientated to the cardinal directions was not only the cave below ground level, but also a large markstone, later socketed to contain a standing cross, perhaps of stone. This central stone is known as the Roy Stone from which the town takes its name. This stone was originally at the centre of the crossroads but, in the usual manner, it was at some time removed from its original position and set up on a plinth near the crossroads, lest its position should hinder the free passage of traffic.

Royston then has the perfect omphalos site, reproducing in microcosmic form the three worlds of mythos. The cave itself, deep in the underlying rock, represents the deathly incorporeal underworld: Hades or Utgard. Above the sealing stone, the everyday marketplace world of the ordinary material world went on: Midgard, the middle level where the middle way of temperant moderation between extremes creates the best balance, the world of humans buying and selling and living their lives in blissful ignorance of the horrors and awesome power of the underworld beneath their feet. Above this, the pole or stone, giving access to the heavenly upperworld, Asgard, symbolised in the traditional Maypole by the suspended hoop from which the garland hung. So as you can see Hades, Midgard and Asgard can be comprehended here at one point.