The new Ashmolean Museum in Oxford was opened to the public last weekend 7/8th November.
Today, I had some spare time and as it was wet and windy it was a perfect day to visit. The ground floor is given over to the Ancient World. Unfortunately the European Prehistory room is not ready yet (I was told to give it another month)... continues...
The Hillforts of the Ridgeway Project is a long-term research project centred on the Ridgeway and the northern Berkshire Downs. The focus is on continuity and change during the later Prehistoric and Romano-British Periods. Work so far has centred on White Horse Hill, Segsbury Camp and Alfred's Castle. The project is run as a training excavation for full-time students on the Oxford BA Archaeology and Anthropology course, and part-time students on Oxford Continuing Education Certificate and Diploma courses. Work continues at Alfred's Castle in July 2000.
Walking up from Fognam, the trail runs across a series of fields running parallel to the Medieval Park Pale surrounding Ashdown; to the south in the valley bottom runs the Sugar Way, which runs from the barrow cemetery on Sugar Hill, to Hackpen Hill via Seven Barrows.
The main barrows, Three Barrows, line east-west along the north ridge of Idstone Down. Just to the north, defining the ridge is an earthwork running east-west which is contemporaneous with the development of the barrow cemetery. There are additional barrows noted in Pastscape as crop markings and also further down the hill.
The barrows are quite exposed, the weather this evening having a strong windchill; usually in this area you can also see one of the large herds of Fallow Deer which are part of the Ashdown Estate.