Pointing to a VERY old straight track?
Alfred Watkins was born in Herefordshire and the concept of leylines may well have been born there too, and not only because of that. In 1870, fifty years before Watkins proposed them, William Henry Black gave a talk in Hereford to the British Archaeological Association entitled Boundaries and Landmarks in which he suggested "Monuments exist marking grand geometrical lines which cover the whole of Western Europe". It has been suggested that Watkins may have had Black's ideas in the back of his mind when he had his sudden revelation - when riding in the hills above Bredwardine – again in Herefordshire - "The whole thing came to me in a flash"
Arthur's Stone is right there and was presumably uppermost in his thoughts – in fact, he proposed his ideas in a lecture "Early British Trackways, Moats, Mounds, Camps,
and Sites" delivered in 1921 to the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club in Hereford in 1921 before he published his book and mentioned "Arthur's Stone, a dolmen, which was probably the core of a burial tump, is on two sighting lines" and also refers back to a paper by G.H.Piper, again fifty years earlier, delivered to the same society which noted that "A line drawn from the Skirrid-fawr mountain northwards to Arthur's Stone would pass over the camp and southern most point of Hatterill Hill, Oldcastle, Longtown Castle, and Urishay and Snodhill castles". (He quotes quite a few previous authors indicating he was far from being the originator of the whole idea).
What strikes me about his writing (in contrast to those who have seized on his ideas and invented "alternative" concepts) is the fact that he bases them on down-to-earth common sense. In particular, the idea that a genuine ley is likely to have at its two extremities a prominent natural feature at one end and an artificial "sighting tump" at the other and any features in between, like fragments of ancient trackway, are consequent upon the use of a straight route between those two extremes. No woo woo master plan then, just logical human behaviour. And as for Herefordshire, he says "In some districts—as Salisbury Plain and the Yorkshire Wolds—there are groups of adjacent barrows so numerous that it is probable that most of them were built as burial mounds only, not sighting mounds. This is not the case in the district investigated."
So it seemed to me the best place to see a genuine, no messing, possible Ley would be right there, in the gorgeous hill country above Bredwardine and the Golden valley, and perhaps most likely of all (if they date to the Neolithic) Arthur's Stone. So I visited there on Easter Sunday with that in mind. From it, just as Watkins said, you can see Skirrid Fawr. This doesn't mean there's a leyline of course and I didn't investigate the intermediate points he mentioned, but what surprised me was it seems quite likely that the tomb itself is actually aligned on Skirrid Fawr – see photo http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/post/56838
But neither Watkins nor anyone else seems to have mentioned the fact … or am I wrong? Dunno.
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Silbury Trip, Summer 2505
Mystery?
Nah, not here mate.
It's crystal clear.
You ask it, we know it.
Or look for yourself.
It's all here to be seen, through the Perspex wall lining.
A walk back through time we call it.
The further you go, the further back you go.
I always think this is the best bit, where it opens out.
We're at the dead centre.
Listen to the silence…
It's just like as if the ancient builders are stunned in admiration.
Mind you, usually it's packed in here and the kids all yell out
To see if there's an echo of some sort.
There never is though. It's sort of dull and dead sounding.
Sullen almost.
Pity you weren't here for the big show last month.
Once a year the sun shines right along to the centre.
It's as good as being outside!
I always tell people to try to be in here for that.
The beams land on King Sil gold-effect armour
In the central display-pod.
It glistens for a few seconds!
Amazing to have arranged it like that.
Really gives people a flavour to take home.
Lasting memories, that's what history's all about isn't it?
It's just that... it ain't as vivid the rest of the time.
With the striplighting.
Why was it tunnelled?
Not sure, not my field, the twenty first century.
I think they thought a previous one had got too unstable
And too small for them to get into.
So they were forced to replace it with this.
That's what it says on the original notice by the entrance anyway.
"No other option"
It says.
D'you know even that notice is protected now, it's so old.
It's become part of the archaeology!
The guidebook goes on about it's "an icon of it's period"
And how "it speaks like a testament" for it's times.
People are forever studying it, and writing papers.
Not just archaeologists mind! Language experts and that.
They reckon it's written in a special way, but I dunno about that.
Sounds like fabrication to me.
But wierdos keep vandalising it and writing B*llocks on it.
Can you BELIEVE that, EH??
No respect for history some people.
No appreciation, taste, sense of propriety or decency.
And sod what the rest of us think!
'Course, if you challenge them they look you in the eye and just say
"Oh we're just looking for something mate".
Twats.
We all know what's there, near enough.
And if they want to search they can discuss it,
Not act all shifty on their own.
Anyone would think the place was theirs!
Well it aint theirs and it aint ours it's everyone's,
Right into the future as far as it goes.
Self-sure overconfident humble-lacking twats.
With blinkers.
Imagine people in a thousand years, seeing the only mark you left.
And hating it.
Imagine your name being spoken forever
As the name of a culprit!
Anyhow, we've still got the tunnel.
That's the main thing ain't it?
Imagine the work that was involved
With the primitive tools they had then!
You can see the actual marks of the boring machine in places.
No not there, that's all infill where extra chunks fell out.
Nor there. Here's a bit, by my foot.
That's original twenty first century scraping on the actual original material that is!
Robotic mini-borers?
And nano tools?
Nah, it was a couple of decades before those came in.
And the sub-atomic tools were mid twenty first century I think.
And of course, they clearly had no inkling technology might move on
Or that invasive archaeology would one day end.
Let alone how soon.
Too much of a leap of imagination I suppose.
Lucky for us I say.
Think what we'd have missed if they had!
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Metal Detecting-Very good (seriously!) and very very bad
I'm not anti detecting as such. I was once, though not fully, but I've learned from constantly reading the other side.
I'm a late developer, but I now have a real love of the past. It started with ancient monuments. They're great. Top of the pecking order in terms of age, which is important to someone who lacks the palette of people who've studied history longer, and who's therefore a sucker for bling. Better still, sometimes, a knock-you-dead atmosphere and the option for spiritual wonderings, should you care to. Yep, a just-maybe portal in a world that never showed others, certainly not the ones that had lych gates. Ancient Cathedrals is right, if you want to play.
But that morphs. If in-your-face bling appeals, you soon keep an eye out for almost-invisible bling. Humps 'n bumps, the subtler the better and soon you're in love with the whole of the landscape, the archaeological and "spiritual" landscape of Britain, etched and re-etched and drenched as it is with the faint marks of our ancestors to an extent that's unmatched. We're blessed. Hope that doesn't sound too nutty or drug induced. I'm trying to keep the lid on.
For me, something else happens as well. If it's so great it's not just for then, it's for now and for now-tomorrow. We aren't just us; we're us then and us-to-come. For me, it's a "sacred" bequest to be given to the future - again in a not nutty way. Artifacts don't much turn me on, it's the humps and bumps and the faintest of crop marks - so many as yet undiscovered or unidentified. As an adjunct, knowledge of horizontal scatters that give further clues about these delicate and irreplaceable footprints of people who are gone but not quite are all in this mix of what I think should be gathered and nurtured and valued like national jewels and yet are going one by one, now and now and now.
So digging holes and not telling anyone strikes deep into my sense of rightness. I probably feel it more intensely than is sensible, given the way the twenty first century is going. This progress-driven society has little time for archaeo snivellers or dreamers, not when there are houses to be built and money to be made and manifestos to tick so someone testosterone fuelled can calm a rage to step up one rung of a ladder to false relief. Much better to swallow the line that the past is well cared for by the government, like most people do. It makes for a happier life to live in the present and guzzle cheap petrol and let the future be a time when you're dead. I can't do it. I'm cursed with futuralgia, and actually care about what we're doing to the future today.
I thought, maybe, the law would be best on the subject of hole digging and artifact recovery. Nationalise the lot then people can do stuff only on society's terms. But six months ago I had what I thought was a better idea. It involved an irrevocable change in my mindset. The law isn't the only way. The better way is for reporting detectorists to be what they are, what they want to be and what they can be - people who enjoy their hobby AND help society - even encourage society - to live up to it's obligations to keep it's trust with the past and the future. Why shouldn't reporting detectorists exploit, nurture and inherit the earth? Who better to do the job?
But they are so few. All talk is so replete with kidology. There needs to be far far more of them. The Portable Antiquities Scheme has to be a rip roaring success to the point of embarrassment. But it's not. It's grown, but not a lot, though people say it'll be OK. More kidology. All sides pretend stuff, everyone pretends that there's a coming together, that round the corner there's a promised land where understanding will reign and ordinary folk, some good, some selfish will be persuaded in droves by logic to take to spending much more of there hard earned leisure time filling in forms and drawing maps for people they don't know, and society will benefit enormously from the hobby instead of benefiting from a few and suffering from many. I cannot bring myself to believe that. It's an age thing. I know people aren't like that.
There are detectorists whose attention to detail in their reporting is breathtaking. Few will aspire to or be capable of that, it's a personality thing. There's another group whose reporting is OK up to great, and they're fine. Then there are the others, who don't report, and they're many. Try as I might I can't feel other than complete contempt for what they do. It's our knowledge. How dare they?
Yet those are the ones from which the great surge in reporting must come. Six months ago I triggered the multi forum debate on how the hobby could progress towards this. Great things about appropriate ways to detect and report came out of it, thanks to the efforts of huge numbers of people on all sides. But one thing didn't, and it upset and depressed me. I knew that persuasion wasn't enough when you're talking about human beings. And I knew that compulsion wasn't an option and I had anyway rejected the law as an answer.
So I'd assumed that it was common ground that my Big Idea would be part of the process: public disapproval of moral wrongdoing. I'd seen it as indispensable that the PAS would shout it from the rooftops that good detecting was good but bad detecting was bad, VERY VERY bad, and the public, once they properly understood, would do the rest for our heritage.
"Can I detect your land?"
"Are you good? Prove it. Can't? Then no."
Not rocket science. Not chatter chatter, education, time will sort it, let's be friends, give it five years, crap crap crap. Not legislation. But an application of something more Righteous as Mr Cope would say. Righteous People Power, the most all seeing and persuasive and morally indignant thing going! And very, very effective.
Even if a landowner hasn't heard, or doesn't understand, there are others. A tweedy lady from the Parish Council who happens to see someone detecting in the archaeologically rich field on the edge of the village is quite capable of doing the busybody thing. And how! No legislation needed. No liaison offered. Middle Britain, people who might actually give a stuff, are more vigilant and better arbiters of what's good and what's very very bad than anyone else. They just need a steer.
Suddenly, everyone wants to be a Reporting Detectorist. Non-reporters, by and large, give and take, ain't got nowhere to do it, and reporting ones, suddenly, have inherited the earth. Everyone's happy – the hobby's no longer at risk of legislative oblivion, detectorists are starting to get the public and professional approval so many of them crave, the PAS is a runaway success and they're screaming for extra staff with a credible voice, the taxpayer's thinking it's a good investment after all, the past is being treated as it should be, and most of all I'm ecstatic. Not bad, for just mounting a strong media campaign to say if you see a bloke in a field he's either a very good friend of our heritage or an utterly contemptible foe.
But the progressive detectorists baulked at it, on behalf of their non-reporting colleagues,
who were their friends, and couldn't possible be inconvenienced, only persuaded. Oh yeah? And have you managed it yet?
And so did the PAS. "Our job is to liaise and persuade, not antagonise. We can say it, and
we really do, honest. You and the public might not have heard it as we have to do it gently and quietly, else we'll breach a trust with our persuadees". Yep. And you've achieved precisely what? Why not have your head office do it, not you local liaisers – it's their moral duty to tell the public the realities of who's in their local village field after all – if they did that, as official government spokesmen, no-one could say you'd broken any trust on a local level. "Ooooo! We never thought of that. Maybe we'll get back to you". My inbox is empty. Unless they were Mr Umbele who craved the kindness of my bank account number.
I guess for both sides, it's hard to think outside the box when you've made it yourself.
So, unless PAS have a moment of clarity and say "Yes, we'll do it" – then that's it. The great experiment has foundered, and we're back to vague hopes the PAS will grow slowly and the plug won't be pulled by the Treasury on the grounds that millions of pounds is too much to spend to harvest the knowledge of 1736 detectorists per year while tens of thousands can't be bothered.
Not that the government isn't fully supportive. They say. Estelle Morris has just said "The PAS has been a huge success so far……I salute the thousands of enthusiasts up and down the country who, thanks to the scheme, can now register their finds" PantsOnFireTwice Estelle. NOT a huge success. And you salute those thousands because they CAN register do you, even though they don't? Cool wording. What's your profession?
Put yourself in the government's position. Better still, think of yourself as a taxpayer. You're supplying far more Finds Liaison Officers per reporting detectorist than you're supplying doctors, nurses, firemen and policemen COMBINED per person. Now we all like a nice Roman coin, but that's nuts! The PAS has GOT to grow, and fast, else it'll be gone, and serve it and the bulk of detectorists right. Tough love. They don't like me – in fact they think I'm a monster – but I'm their best friend.
So that's where we are. Statistically, beyond all hope of rational denial, the hobby steals far more knowledge from society than it gives to us. It gives us trinkets, many, sometimes of huge importance – you'll have seen the gushing press releases. But for every one of those, there is, in some unseen display cabinet or dirty little garden shed or on Ebay – how many? And all the contextual knowledge pissed into the wind for all eternity, knowledge the lack of which renders the find a mere parody of itself.
If the last remaining mark that I'd left on the earth had been scratched away by someone in pursuit of what turned out to be a coke can, my dust would be miffed. If that mark had been the last mark of my village or my whole culture, my dust would rise in a cloud of righteous fury and charge him with ethnic annihilation, along with the society that let him. Why the hell didn't you tell someone? I'd scream. "Can't be arsed" is what someone said recently. And so, I'd be utterly gone, and all of my people, forever and ever.
You might ask though, is this a subject that's central to TMA? Isn't it primarily an artefact thing? By no means.
Most detecting is done in disturbed ploughsoil so the vertical context has gone, fair enough. (How much some detectorists dig deeper into the archaeological levels is a matter of speculation. An exciting beep never gets pursued downwards, is that right? I'm afraid I'd be very tempted. Are we talking about superhumans here? Archangels perhaps?)
But the horizontal context can still remain, after centuries of ploughing, in the form of distribution patterns and that's all part of the picture of our much loved humps 'n bumps. And for the most part that picture is being ripped to shreds. No. Stolen. Removed so
we never even knew it was there.
There's more. But before I go on I must make it clear. Reporting detecting done well is on balance a good thing for our knowledge of the past. I'm in favour. Now, and finally.
So are many or most archaeologists and the official bodies. Many reporting detectorists are as pro-the resource as I am, far more knowledgable than I and are smart and witty and hate non-reporting and know it may bring down their hobby. No, their vocation, which is what it is for many of them. I now count some of them as my friends, and hopefully they reciprocate. Just had to say that.
But here's some fag packet calculations, starting from the only two facts that are known for certain, from PAS statistics: last year just 1736 detectorists reported, and on average they reported 17 finds each.
(An unguarded forum remark said – "I'd have thought the average active detectorist finds 17 finds a week, not a year" So you can apply quite a large multiple to my figures if you wish, though I'll leave it aside).
There are, say, 30,000 active detectorists so say 28,000 who don't report.
(There are maybe far fewer detectorists. PAS says 10,000. But maybe far more – 60,000 has been very recently convincingly cited by a senior detectorist who is much respected, including by me)
I make that 476,000 non-reported items a year.
So how many holes are dug? I don't know. They say they hardly find anything ever, so lets say 200 holes per find.
So now we have 95 million holes per year. Maybe 100,000 just in Blackburn Lancashire.
Always assuming, of course, that the unguarded moment was nonsense and the true figures aren't gulpmakingly higher.
It ain't looking good, for our delicate humps 'n bumps and crop marks is it? And all dug by people who scuttled away silently with whatever they found and claim the law's on their side, which it is.
Next: Is it making a difference?
Another blood curdling unguarded moment: "30 years ago I used to go out and come back with my pockets stuffed. Now, it's never more than half a dozen coins, from anywhere".
Depletion has spawned a new word. Fields are said to have been "hammered". A constant theme is "I have to travel; everything round me has been hammered".
Being remote or not on a right of way no longer offer reasonable grounds for thinking places are safe. Hammering has caused an ever widening search for fertile areas. Many are up to speed with online records, aerial maps, crop marks. A hump that you think might be something is fair game, as are cropmarks, even if the authorities haven't noticed since "it's not scheduled so it's legal".
Ah the law! What a convenience it is if you don't want to think or develop a conscience! Square crop marks are exciting as they may be Roman villas, the ultimate delight. Depletion has also pushed the boundaries of interest – IA and BA are sexy now. "Got me a bronze axe this affo".
Please understand: These aren't "the tiny proportion of nighthawking scum" that detectorist so love to condemn as thieves. These are otherwise no doubt nice people. "Honest hobbyists" they call themselves and I have no reason to think that most don't believe that. But they somehow have bypassed the need to feel any moral sensibility and understanding that detecting on an as yet unscheduled site that they've worked hard to discover is no different from detecting on a scheduled site. Looked at like that, for me – and I suspect you – someone who does that is doing precisely the same that a nighthawker does and the ONLY difference is the angle of the sun.
Please bear in mind, it's not just TMAers who are out on the moors looking for subtle and undiscovered humps and bumps with an educated eye.
The bargain between society and them is so unfair. Society tells them where scheduled sites are, and the likely fertile and "legal" areas that surround them, but when they go there and score a hit they don't tell society what objects they've found OR what was the context OR, often, that the place they've discovered even exists! Even their mates aren't told. "Don't want MY site hammered by others wanting to poach it, or nighthawking scum thieves!" This isn't a secret attitude. It's up front. Part of the prevailing culture. Responsible detectorists who remonstrate are met with complete incomprehension. Some people quite brazenly say they harvest "their" secret site, which they worked so hard to discover, annually each spring when it's re-ploughed. Only when they've got all they can, only when it has no more artifacts for them (and knowledge for us), only then will they reveal it's location to the world, and the details of what they've been doing. Maybe...
And always the PAS Finds Liaison Officers smile, and have a beer with them. Its liaison, you see. They've built up trust with the detecting community and that trust must never be broken.
Well no more. If the PAS won't protect the resource by publicising the difference between good and bad, and hugely expanding its own success, we bleeding can. Let's see what can be done.
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Facing the Truth
To Thornborough Henges, as part of a Heritage Action away-day. So I arrived for my first visit to them chauffeured in 7-seater luxury by Steve Gray and guided by Mr Thornborough, George/Brigantes Nation. What better treat for a group of Megarak Actioneers?
It's huge! I had no idea! Not mere humps and bumps and crop marks, as I'd imagined, but great big things hundreds of yards across, with towering walls. And 3 of them, making a monument stretching more than a mile!
We stood at one end, staring towards the other, barely visible towards the flat horizon. The scale, and the effort involved rivals anything else. It was extraordinary to think that someone had once stood on that very spot, waved their hand imperiously, or perhaps reverentially, and willed that it should be so. Make no mistake, when you see it you know George is right, this place is very, very special.
Which makes the rest of the day's impressions all the more powerful. He's right about what's happening. What is happening is a hidden, hideous national disgrace.
George is a Great British Eccentric in all the best senses of the phrase. He's the man, and there's always one, who stands up in the face of all the power and says No! You're ALL wrong, this is wrong, I won't let it happen! You'd have to admire him, even if he was completely wrong, but when you go there it's plainly in your face, he's totally right in every respect. As we arrived, he said to me, wistfully, that Thornborough was under attack from every threat to Ancient Sites you could think of. It is.
To start with, vast and wonderful though it is, you may find it hard to find. No road signs erected by the Local Authority. No information boards. Can you think of any reason? I can, and it's a dirty little reason.
Land that has been quarried, and then restored sounds like it's OK, sort of. It isn't. The whole of the surrounding land is owned by Tarmac and either has been or will be quarried. What has been stands out clearly - steep sided dead straight boundaries, and flat utterly bland expanses of grass or vast acreages of water.
For the likes of us, attuned to look at subtle bumps and ridges that hint of a rich past, these restored areas radiate deadness, with all the charm of a verge in front of municipal offices. Of course, they ARE dead, all the ancient marks and meanings have been ripped out to a depth of many feet and are now gone forever, though their existence has been "recorded" in some electronic file far away and will thus remain immortal we're told. And in their place, thousands of tons of meaningless topsoil from god knows where and grass, of the wrong sort and devoid of other flora, but very green. Green, after all, is the colour of caring.
All this has already been committed - in places right up to the very edge of the monument itself, and soon, sans George, it will extend to every part of the surroundings, held back only by a fence which marks the outline and which screams of reluctance to grant even a square inch more exemption than is absolutely necessary. And for what? Gold? No, gravel!
I don't know how that line came to be drawn. By a planner advised by an archaeologist, I suppose. But I'll tell you what it looks like to me: a line drawn by someone who LOVES gravel and HATES our ancient heritage. Of course, I can't possibly be right about that, can I? Yet take a look at it. Tell me what it looks like to you.
Gravel. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it IS precious and rare and our national economic interest demands that we have that bit, just there, part of the setting of one of our most precious heritage places. Tarmac pretty much say that. I'm not a gravel expert, but looking at it, it's not like the sort of gravel you might have thought, it's big, mainly rounded stones. To me, it looks identical to the shingle gravel at Chesil beach. I'd guess that there's about ten thousand times more gravel at Chesil Beach than at Thornborough. Try taking a bucket to Chesil Beach and filling it with gravel and taking it home. You'll be arrested.
Something very bad is happening at Thornborough. Nice normal people in a quarry company are feeling driven to maximise profits. That's how most of us get paid. So they're pushing the boundary of rightness, just like they're pushing against the fence. Trying to minimise what is the "setting" of the monument, in order to maximise the last few miserable bucketfuls of gravel. I bet, deep down, at home, in private, they know George is right. I bet, deep down, at home, in private, so does North Yorkshire Council and all the career-protecting archaeologists who's silence is so deafening. To Hell with them all. To hell with corporate lies uttered by embarrassed spokesmen who know that they're lies. Nicotine DOES cause cancer. AlcoPops ARE aimed at young people. The war WAS about... (well, you know that one).
Let's all support George in every way we can. The setting of the monument DOES extend widely all round it. Lakes and landscaping will NOT be other than incongruous and disrespectful. There IS such a thing as essence of place that ought to be preserved. Recording features as they're ripped out does NOT make up for the rape of such an irreplaceable cultural landscape.
Most of all, the pursuit of one ten thousandth of one percent of the profits of a global mining company should NOT be allowed to wreck one of Britain's most precious cultural treasures!
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UPDATE 21 Feb 06, nearly two years on:
Today, after unstinting efforts by hundreds of hardworking protestors, and above all thanks to George's unbelievable iron will, the North Yorkshire County Council Planning Committee told Tarmac PLC to go to hell.
They'll appeal, as is their right (in law, at least)
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UPDATE 20 July 06
Tarmac to appeal - revising the target area downwards by 31% "to demonstrate that we understand the concerns of the community, the county council and English Heritage.''
Right. So its Tarmac the Heritage Heroes, not Tarmac the avaricious monster trying to get whatever it can?
Keep watching to see what happens next in this long drawn out hypocrisy fest aimed at stealing our communal inheritance.
____________________________
UPDATE 19 October 06
Well, they have appealed but only on part of it. The rest, presumably is safe forever.
Not so fast....
At the same time they are appealing the refusal so they're still after the whole lot.
More stunningly, today they also proposed THREE MORE extensions to their current workings, totalling 8 million tons of gravel, an area bigger than what they are working at PLUS the Ladybridge extension! These they say should bre included in the new Minerals Plan which is to specify "preferred areas" for quarrying in the county for the next ten years. And rival company Hanson suggested that the Plan should also include a bite for them, less than a mile away where there's probably a cursus, in what's probably the very oldest part of the complex.
So the sharks are circling in numbers now - and actually suggesting the order in which they should be allowed to rip off the pieces. Tarmac can spend maybe 3 years ripping up Ladybridge, then perhaps another 7 on the new proposed areas and THEN they'll be exactly ready to move for Thornborough Moor, the area nearest to the henges, that they own and which they have said they won't touch for ten years but have categorically refused to say they won't touch thereafter.
Bear in mind, its all perfectly legal. The 50% of the landscape that's been destroyed in steps up to now has all been with the full blessing of the democratically elected councillors of North Yorkshire. And so it will be in future. Democracy could hardly operate otherwise. That's a comfort. If the most important prehistoric landscape in northern England is to be decimated for profit it is essential its done properly.
And so on...
____________________________
UPDATE AND EPILOGUE January 2007.
Well, they won.
January hasn't been a good month for heritage.
It opened with the bulldozers moving in at Tara. No problem, the Irish government told the public. The several dozen Irish professors who pleaded for it not to happen and called Tara the heart and soul of Ireland are just eedjits. How could it be otherwise?
Then Thornborough. "The Henges are safe" screamed a local headline – penned ultimately, I suppose – in the PR department of Tarmac. But the landscape is to be quarried. Doh! No mention of that? No mention that 95% of local residents said no more quarrying? No mention of the ten thousand people who signed the petition against it? No mention that the County Archaeologist advised people NOT to sign it? No mention that it was ruled inadmissible along with the many hundreds of objection letters for presenting to the Council members? No mention they were told that six, yes SIX letters of objection had been received? No.
And now, at the end of the month, the UK's Minister of Culture yes, that's right, the Minister of Culture, has issued a prominent press release describing metal detectorists as "Heritage Heroes". Yes, metal detectorists, the people who are criminals in other countries. The ones who mostly dig, take and tell no-one. The one's who "research" targets. There are thought to be a million unscheduled archaeological sites, often unknown in Britain. Those are the sites they seek out to target, unique, discrete bundles of our communal history, studying Google for humps and bumps and faint cropmarks with an expertise that puts most TMAers to shame. Then they harvest them. Legally. And tell no-one. Over a period of years. Until the finds are exhausted and the existence and meaning of the sites are an irrecoverable memory known only to them.
(Oh, forgot to mention. The Government comprehensive spending review takes place in March. Cuts throughout Whitehall are anticipated. Possibly that includes the Portable Antiquities Scheme, which is part of the empire of…. yes, you got it, the Minister for Culture.)
Heritage 2007 eh? Safe in the hands of a caring system populated by corporate saints, honest politicians and heritage heroes?
Judge for yourself.
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Interests: Looking, Aimless Rambling and Rambling Aimlessly.
Conclusions: None
Dislikes: Whiskered Lady Foxhunters, who set him off like a firework (UPDATE, 17 Feb 2005, the day of the Ban - Hahahahaha! How d'you like that you witches from Hell!!), and little else.
Likes: Laughing, Red Dwarf, Dylan Thomas, Tiswas (this site, really).
Earliest Recollection: Ascent of Everest by Hilary Benn, 1953.
Latest Recollection: September 1968, a lay-by outside Swindon.
Minders: See Rota.
[email protected]
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