further, liddell stated that one of pickingill's covens was the new forest coven, a wiccan group which gerald gardner—the founder of gardnerian wicca—claimed had initiated him in 1939. however, liddell did later state that he was not certain whether this was true. he also asserted that gardner later joined another of the pickingill covens, based in hertfordshire, through which he received "the second rite of the hereditary craft". liddell stressed that this group was separate from gardner's own bricket wood coven. he furthermore claimed that gardner received the "third rite" from an east anglian coven, with this three-degree system of initiation influencing that in gardnerian wicca. as a result, he stated that the structure and rituals of gardnerian wicca were based on those devised by pickingill, and that "no impartial observer could fail to see that they formed the nucleus of the rites of wicca." liddell believed that while many hereditary witches despised him, gardner represented "the spiritual heir of pickingill", because he had similarly reformed and propagated witchcraft for contemporary purposes.