to an important twin-dome observatory built in 1913 by James Worthington, precocious, ‘filthy rich’ and the epitome of a new-style of aggressive amateur astronomer. Worthington agreed with Percival Lovell, the owner of the now revered Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, that there were canals on Mars built by intelligent beings. The observatory was sold in 1919 when the theory was disproved to great embarrassment and pulled down about 1939. The circular ground works of the buildings can be found in the back garden of the original home now called 'Observatory'. Telegraph Farm in Telegraph Lane was once part of an unfinished chain of semaphore stations intended to link The Admiralty in London to Plymouth to combat the threat of a French invasion. It was built in 1826 between River Hill House in Binsted and Merryfield in West Tisted. The semaphore was never used in anger and the station was made redundant in 1847. The semaphore technology was eventually replaced by a telegraph wire along the track of the railway from Alton to Alresford. The Honourable Mrs Mildred Bruce was a British racing motorist and aviator, the first woman to fly around the world solo over land. Bruce used to land her wooden, single-seat aerobatic biplane, the only Miles Satyr ever built, in the field across the road from her home at Pooks Hill in Alton Lane. She was visited here, at least once, by Amy Johnson, the first woman to fly solo to Australia. Johnson and other aviator visitors all landed in the same field. Literary associations A surprising number of authors and others with literary associations wrote in Four Marks. Here is a current list of books known to have been written in the village: David Cornick, "Early Memories of Four Marks" C. V. Durell, world best selling author of books on mathematics including "School Certificate Algebra" (1958) Chris Heal, "Sound of Hunger" (2018), "Disappearing" (2019), "Reappearing" (2020), "The Four Marks Murders" (2020), "Ropley's Legacy" (2021) Jessie Louisa Rickard, "Murder by Night" (1939) among some forty light comedy and detective novels W. C. H. Hudson, "Myself When Young, Memoirs of a Tea Planter" (2001) Betty Mills, "Four Marks, its Life and Origins" (1995) Denis Rolleston Gwynn, "The Vatican and the War in Europe" (1940) among dozens of books on Irish political figures John De Walton, illustrator of many books like children's author Percy F. Westerman’s "The Flying Submarine" (1912)