official Icknield Way web site (encompasess the Rudge)
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Thoughts of the Icknield Way
(downs of Berkshire)
When wild west winds sweep o'er these Downlands free
And sway ripe cornfields 'neath a changing sky
They lash to dancing ev'ry storm-tossed tree
And shout and sing of ages long gone by -
We walk the Ridge, as did those skin-clad men
Who chipped the flint and worshipped each new day,
The Sun, Deliverer from night's terrors then,
Ere Roman legions tramped that windy way.
Where now wave toadflax and the scabious blue,
Where Pasque flowers nestle, as the heights begin
Of rounded hills lit with a rainbow hue: -
Once ran the hares before the battle's din.
Time was, when as the startled larks took wing,
The blowing-stone went sounding far and near,
As Saxon warriors rallied round a King,
Who saved his land, yet held Christ's Faith more dear.
Men saw his valour on the Field of Fame,
His great forgiving of a captive foe,
To whom, baptised into Christ's saving Name,
Was granted freedom, and a new life to know.
Men knew his zeal for learning and for law,
Culture and music, love of kith and kin,
But God alone his nightly vigils saw: -
Those prayers in suff'ring that Heaven's strength could win.
Sister Sylvia
Wantage
notes:
'Field of Fame' = Ethandune
'captive foe' = Guthrum and the Danish Leaders
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A quick flyby in the motor today and the hill that is Goldbury still fascinates. I often drive on the A417 and sometimes there is a lovely optical illusion of cows 'flying' on the downs.
Yes, the farmer hates people actually getting on it (his cow shed is at the bottom) - so don't annoy him!
No, there is no/very little archaeology on it.
Yes, there's an Anglo-Saxon cemetery near to it
But maybe, it is something...
I always describe this hill(ock) to people as 'a perfect hill'. It's cute, it's round and attached to the ground! (cue football chant)
The name evidence seems attractive: 'Gold' and 'Bury', the bury bit seems straightforward - its a hill (not a barrow or an ancient fort). The Gold bit could be sun worship (i'm thinking temple like lowbury), but then these placenames do have a nasty habit of being corrupted and twisted over time. 'Cold' could be a contender (i'm thinking Mr Watkins) and therefore a folk memory of some ancient use.
It's damn close to the Icknield Way, and I mean 'an icknield way' not 'the Icknield Way'. A way is a way and not just a road. This is like the ridge 'way'. There were many tracks and paths and roads that would have been the Icknield Way, but modern agreement is that the A417 to the north is it. (What Wantogians like to call the Port 'Way'). Confused? Can't find your 'way'?
At SU447882(ish) is the turn down to the Holy Trinity Church and next to a Thatch cottage. Look at the kerbstones in this little dead end road. There are two sarsens opposite each other, still in the kerb. I reckon they're waymarkers for an Icknield Way. Through the church and crossing Ginge Brook are two more on the 'ickle' bridge. I'm quite open to the two on the bridge being reasonably modern and maybe 'faux' markers. But, those ones in the kerb... When the workmen originally surfaced that road and added kerbstones, why didn't they just move the two old pieces of stone and fit a new kerb? I'm guessing (again!) but if those workers were local (highly likely) and those stones had always been there, then the cheeky little buggers built the kerb around them.
If you scout around the area, you'll find more waymarkers of sarsen and I see plenty of 'em around the Vale.
And this is my point on the Icknield 'Way', there are many of them not just one. Look at the OS map for the area and you'll see many paths and tracks heading in a generally E-W direction and they are all the Icknield Way. There's one that you can see from East Lockinge that runs past Hagbourne Hill and turns into the Chilton Road before reaching Upton and then becomes 'Common Lane'. (for example).
Given the proximity to Ginge Brook (and the Treacle Mines! - ask a local) and the Icknield Way, I'd say Goldbury is something. What (sacred hill?), is still a mystery. Will someone please dig?
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Text and images.
Get your paps out for the landscape!
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'Madmarston Iron Age hill fort, occupied from 200BC to 50AD., was defended by three banks and a ditch, now much reduced by ploughing.'
'A History of Oxfordshire' by Mary Jessup
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Whitehouse is the site of the old Oxford City FC ground (Marlborough Road, Oxford). The club moved ground and the land has since been partially developed.
Aerial photography revealed a gravel site with Middle Iron Age (third to first century BC) settlement overlain by Medieval.
Source: 'Oxfordshire' by John Steane
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Ridgeway Pageant
All the hills are watching,
Awed and still:
Away below
Retreats the faint-heart Vale.
Above,
An angry, mighty sky
Rears high,
Piled all triumphant to the setting sun -
Lit mad in changing chaos:
Silver backed, then gilded.
Mottle-splashed with crimson...
Darkened depths, part broken,
Upward pierced
By shafts of sunlight questing -
Molten vistas glistening
And portals passioned low
In ranks of terraced fire.
They drift, they fade..
New forms take shape -
With opal half-light intermingle...
Glare reflects a lustre
On the pale, dry headland mass
Of White Horse Hill.
A strange, tense calm -
Impending dusk alight with radiance:
A wild serenity.
In slow, rough accent:
"That ther' brings some weather, sna..."
A shepherd stays his sheep
Before the blaze.
Roye England
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Pusey Horn and Cherbury Camp Legend
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'About 1810 the ground covering and surrounding the stones was planted with fir trees and beeches, forming a circular plantation called here a folly, hence Wayland's Folly, a name that did not stick. The planting was after the site had been cleared at the direction of Lord Craven who owned the site, the monument being made considerably more conspicuous . . . In 1859 the firs having died were cut down, leaving the exterior ring of beeches. In 1861 it was referred to as in a very neglected state, covered with elder bushes, briars and nettles and when A L Lewis visited it in 1868 he referred to it as within a plantation the denseness of which made it difficult to trace the surrounding layout of stones.'
Clive Alfred Spinage
Myths and Mysteries of Wayland Smith
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If you along the Rudgeway go,
About a mile for aught I know,
There Wayland's cave then you may see,
Surrounded by a group of trees.
They say that in this cave did dwell
A smith that was invisible;
At last he was found out, they say,
He blew up the place and vlod away.
To Devonshire then he did go,
Full of sorrow, grief and woe,
Never to return again;
So here I'll add the shepherd's name -
Job Cork.
'Job Cork's poem also indicates the site had trees around it before those planted by Lord Craven in 1810.' - Clive Alfred Spinnage
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At Rams Hill, on the downs about two miles north of seven barrows, part of the hilltop was at first enclosed by a bank and ditch; but around 1500BC stronger defensive ramparts were put up, with stout palisades on either side of the ditch. Recent excavations suggest that Uffington Castle may have superseded Rams Hill when a much larger and stronger encampment was needed.
Daphne Phillips
Berkshire - A County History
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The most important funerary monument remaining is the Lambourn Long Barrow, on the northern boundary of Lambourn parish, and standinga t the head of a shallow valley containing a group of later monuments known as Seven Barrows. The valley is now dry but may once have contained a spring worshipped in ancient times, and which, perhaps, was the reaosn for siting the barrows here. The Long Barrow has been badly damaged by centuries of ploughing and by a track running across one end used by farm vehicles and race horses. The barrow was excavated at least twice, but inexpertly, in the 19th century, and some human remains were removed. Rescue operations in 1964 found no great quantity of artefacts, but some of the potsherds resembled pottery found at the famous Neolithic camp on Windmill Hill, 20 miles away. A mass of sarsen stones disturbed by previous excavators may have formed a central core to the barrow.
Daphne Phillips
Berkshire - a county history
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I wish I was on White Horse Hill
At the breaking of my day;
Along the sweet horse gallops I'd run.
And in the stars I'd play.
Where daisies fall, nightingales call
Little owls to play.
Oh I wish I was on White Horse Hill
At the breaking of the day.
Come crows come sheep come chalk hedgerows,
I'd fly the big green hill.
Come nights come snow come stars' haloes,
I'd follow the greensand trail.
Where daisies fall, nightingales call
Little owls to play.
Oh I wish I was on White Horse Hill
At the breaking of my day.
The horse the pack the moon the track,
All travel the north wind road.
The Thames it flows, the man down he goes
Along his winter road,
Far down his winter road.
Where daisies fall, nightingales call
Little owls to play.
Oh I wish I was on White Horse Hill
At the breaking of my day.
Peter Please
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Epona
'The Great Mare', the goddess of a horse cult who is most likely to be identified with the Irish édáin echraidhe or macha and the welsh Rhiannon. As goddess of horses, she was of great importance within a horse-based culture such as that of the Celts. Her image appears on over 300 stones in Gaul, although rarely in Britain, and she is usually depicted riding side-saddle. In Romano-Celtic imagery she is constantly associated with corn, fruit and, strangely, serpents (my italics) - strangely because serpents are natural enemies of the horses. These associations led her also being considered a goddess of fertility and nourishment.
Extract from Celtic Myth and Legend by Mike-Dixon-Kennedy.
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A nice connection between a horse and a serpent? the white horse and dragon hill?
WF
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'Famous among local relics is the Blowing Stone, moved from the Ridgeway to Kingstone Lisle and to be seen at a farm below Blowing Stone Hill. A mournful wail is achieved by blowing into a hole in this stone. Some say this was the stone used by King Alfred for summoning his troops, others that it is of Druidical origin, and a third opinion places it among many large stones found locally and believed to be survivals of the ice age.'
The Berkshire Book
by the Berkshire Federation of Women's Institutes
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Vesper Vale
June, at evening, on the White Horse Hills!
O, joy is overflowing, hope fulfilled,
For summer lures long days to lavish pride.
Lush her rising cornfields - rich the downs
That trail, deep rounded, far to failing east.
Hedgerows riot thick and countless starred;
Green slopes are swathed with blush of clover pink.
Beneath, past weighing elms, in soundless rest
A village clusters down its ancient street.
Distance silver, amber, stretches over;
Wide the Vale and far the furthest view.
Droop of sundown, musing, dwells the listless
Prospect lightly. Sheltered farms, half hid,
Yet lie outspread, and meadows lonely; woods
Apparelled darkly - straying byways lost
In gathered trees, and low-set fields struck gold
By myriad buttercups. Afloat the plain
Late scented breaths are stirred, and fitful murmurs.
Hint of tedded hay pervades the heights'
Rare potpourri. The listening air goes filled
With trilling, winged of larks, from all the hills;
In random field light-footed rabbits play
And cattle gaze in deep unthoughtfulness.
Roye England
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'Fighting to preserve the spirit of The Ridgeway'
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The Ridgeway Long Distance Footpath was officially opened at Coombe Hill, near Wendover on 27th September, 1973. It runs for 85 miles from Overton Hill in Wiltshire to Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire, crossing the Thames at Goring Gap, and is marked along the way by sturdy oak signposts, low stone plinths and white painted 'acorn' waymarks. The trackways it follows were old before the Romans came, having been in continuous use since man first travelled across the face of Britain. Indeed, the Ridgeway is thought to be the oldest prehistoric track in the country.
Excerpt from the introduction of 'Walks Along the Ridgeway' by Elizabeth Cull and published in 1975.
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Vale of White Horse
The Vale was once a gem:
Far years speak beauty - make us long to know
Their ways - to treasure, prize,
As not the present, Can they be relived?
No, hardly now. And yet
Their joys survive - made yours, within these pages.
Come, let's seek them. Backward
Glance, and prove
What gracious days then shone.
This book recalls, alive, time past, sublime -
The massing of great elms,
Their shaded fields; deep thatch, men one with nature.
Roam with us these pages...
Find rich lands unspoilt - their paradise
Till now not sung, not known.
The Vale, seen still superb, awaits you here:
Oh, come with hope -
Explore...
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Roye England
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To all those, of every generation,
who made the Vale the gem it once was -
a paradise,
shared and tended by the men who lived there;
who worked it, loved it, and kept it unspoilt:
till modern change struck, and not caring,
betrayed its charm.
Roye England
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All Ages Waken
Long thousand years fly lost
Since Alfred gazed the Vale in moods as these -
Ago when wildboar ranged the marshy plain
Ere forest yielded: when, cut hoar, the Horse
Saw Saxon truce with Dane. Yet no more rapt
Hung vesper magic then than pauses now
In beauty hallowed timeless, unbetrayed:
For, God -
All ages waken when there falls
Of evening, spell-bound, so enchanted calm
Roye England
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extract from Berkshire by Daphne Phillips
'...and in the grounds of Heatherwood Hospital at Ascot, where the remaining barrow was formerly one of a group of four. Excavation of the Heatherwood barrow in 1973 dated it to circa 1800BC.'
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from 'In Search of Wales' by H V Morton (written 1932 and about the Eisteddfod in 1931 in Bangor):
'It is early in the morning on the day of the opening of the Eisteddfod. I am told that I must rise before breakfast to see the ceremony of the Gorsedd. I have already noticed the druidic circle of stones which officials of the Eisteddfod have planted in a meadow near the road on the slope below the University. When I first saw them I thought that they were as old as Stonehenge!
I dress swiftly and am glad to see that the morning is, although misty, fine. On the hotel landing I collide with some one who appears to be either a female druid or bard. She is swathed in green draperies. She is not quite my idea of an ancient Briton because she wears prince-nez. I did not know that women are admitted to the sacred circle, which I always imagined to be one of the last strongholds of the male. I wonder, as some stray memory of a school primer comes to me, whether she is, perhaps, after all, a burnt offering. Possibly the druids are to place her in a wicker basket and sacrifice her to the Eisteddfod.
I discover in the hall downstairs a number of bards, druids and druidesses. I am told that these green-robed women are novates. The druids are elderly or middle-aged men robed in white. They are distinguished by a benevolence which rules out all theories of human sacrifice. The bards are robed in blue. They are younger than the druids. I am slightly worried by the trousers of bard and druid, which are visible for a few inches below their gowns. Father Christmas has this same trouble with his trousers.
I leave them as they chat together and go through the early morning streets of Bangor, which are already awake and excited.
The stone circle rises from the grass, surrounded by a large crowd. The entrance faces the east. In the centre of the large circle is a large altar stone. The waiting moments are enlivened by the expert activities of those young men with a motor-car who broadcast ceremonies to the British Isles. They are just attending to their wires, speaking down telephones to distant colleagues and generally making certain that nothing will go wrong. The wireless van and the druidic circle are an amusing contrast. But something even funnier is to happen. A young man in plus-fours enters the cirlce, bearing in his hand what appears to be an offering for the high altar. It is a bunch of green leaves. He places it reverently before the altar stone, stands back from it and starts to address it. He might be intoning a prayer, but I know that he is speaking into a microphone which is carefully concealed among the leaves. What a touching tribute from the British Broadcasting Corporation to the age when druids walked the earth.
All is now ready....
Soon we see the approaching procession. Men in scarlet gowns bear a litter on which is borne, like the Ark of the Covenant, the enormous Hirlas Horn, or the Horn of Plenty, which is normally to be seen in the National Museum at Cardiff. Behind, two by two, walk the druids in white, the bards in blue and the novates in green. They pause before they enter the circle and form a lane. Between the ranks strides a man in grren bearing a great double-handed sword. Behind him comes the Chief Druid. He wears white robes and on his chest lies a replica of the Irish breastplate which Camden illustrated in his Brittania.
As the Chief Druid takes his place at the high altar, the attendant druids, bards and novates file in and group themselves round the circle. Now and again te irreverent wind blows aside the robes to reveal trousers of serge and tweed and pin-stripe. It is, alas, unfotunate. I spot one bard who has forseen this. He alone of the priesthood wears white stockings and sandals. I, greatly daring, tap a druid on the shoulder and ask the name of this bard. He turns, and, in the most friendly manner, informs me that the sandalled one is a bard named Cynan. He then adds for my better information:
'The Rev. A. E. Jones, you know....'
I conclude that many of the priesthood are Welsh clergymen who are playing at being pagan for a day. But a glance at their trousers reassures me that it is all very respectable!
The ceremony of the Gorsedd begins. The great sword is unsheathed. One by one the druids advacne and place their hands on it. The Chief Druid lifts up his voice and cries in Welsh:
'Is there peace?'
He cries this three times. Three times comes a reassuring shout from the crowd:
'There is peace!'
A lady of beauty, who is not a green novate but a red lady who evidently represents the aristocratic laity, advances over uneven grass bearing the huge Horn of Plenty. SHe kneels before the Chief Druid and offers the relic to him. I expect him to drink from it, or in some way prove its plentifulness, but, as the horn is empty, he merely touches it symbolically and the lady bows and backs gracefully away with her burden.
The Chief Druid, mounted on the altar stone, then delivers a long speech in Welsh. I cannot understand one word of it. But I can tell that it is a good and well-prepared piece of oratory. The crowd love it. The words come rushing out like a stream in flood.
He is followed by other speakers. Some appear to be making epigrams at which the crowd laughs. There are prayers in Welsh. I imagine that the old gods of the Celtic peoples are stirring uneasily in their dim Valhalla. Then one by one, the newly-elected bards are led to the altar stone. These are young men and women singled out during the past year for some work of poetry, music or prose.
The Chief Druid shakes each one by the hand, calls them by their modern names and gives to each one a bardic name by which he, or she, will be for ever after known in the Gorsedd.
The ceremony is over. The procession re-forms. Druid, Bard and Novate go their solemn way. The great Gorsedd Sword moves slowly above the heads of the crowd. The Horn of Plenty shines a moment in a burst of early sun. The Eisteddfod is opened....
A young man in plus-fours enters the sacred circle and steals out again carrying a bunch of leaves in which is hidden a microphone!'
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While browsing the library, I came across a book entitled 'In search of Wales' by H V Morton. A chapter recalls an Eisteddfod at Bangor in Wales at a stone circle. Sniffing TMA revealed no search stone circle, sniffing around the web, i found a comment on the BBC Wales website:
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Carrie Buxton, Hertfordshire
I really enjoyed this site, almost as much as I enjoyed my recent visit to Bangor. Can anyone tell me the history of the stone circle in Siliwen Road opposite the end of Meirion Road? Is it a "recent" circle created for an Eisteddfod?
Mon Oct 10 16:52:33 2005
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The grid ref for this site is incorrect, I have used one for Bangor, PLEASE if anyone has a local OS map and can quote the correct ref for the area described by Ms Buxton (in Siliwen Road opposite the end of Meirion Road) I would be eternally grateful.
The Wikipedia entry for Bangor notes that the National Eisteddfod took place here in 1931 and as the book was written in 1932, one can presume the photograph of the Archdruid is from then.
I have added the text from the book under a fieldnote as it reads like one. It's long, but an interesting observation of the Druidry tradition circa 1932.
It appears that this stone circle does not have any antiquity, but should a category be added to TMA for 'modern replicas' or similar?
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extract from:
Exploring the Ridgeway by Alan Charles
'... The cleaning of the horse (the scouring) was an important part of the open-air festivals that took place on the hill at intervals of seven years or so until 1857. These were great occasions for games, competitions, dancing, singing and drinking. It was reported that 30,000 people atened the festival in the year 1780. A local saying tells us that 'while men sleep, the Horse climbs up the Hill'. This is not as outrageous as it sounds, for as the soil falls away from the upper edges and exposes more of the chalk, and the lower edges silt up and become colonized by grass, so the horse does indeed climb the hill!
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'The ridge on which stands the iron-age hillfort of Tadmarton Camp is tentatively identified as the site of an Anglo-Saxon royal vill and the scene of a battle in 913. Nearby was the original glebeland of Hook Norton parish church, suggesting that the early ecclesiastical centre may also have been on the ridge, not in the village 2+1/2 miles away'
John Blair
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from Oxoniensia vol LI 1986
'in 1979 an earthwork enclosure known as the Devil's Churchyard was cleared of trees and undergrowth. The enclosure and associated boundary ditches have since been dated by excavation to the mid to late Iron Age.'
The site is described in the report as a heart-shaped enclosure of about 1 acre. A recent ash tree plantation has obliterated the NW earthworks.
From the ditch fills were identified bones of cattle, sheep and dog. Worked flint was also found, as was pottery which dated the site to the Iron Age.
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'The name is from that of a curvilinear earthwork upon the hill OE Weala byrig, 'Briton's or Welshman's fort'. In Gough's Camden it is called Cornhill, which may be the older name...'
Berkshire place names, G W B Huntingford
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'Discovered about 1850, the NE end of the site is in the wood and crossed by the cart tack. It is c.220ft long, 70ft wide at its E end and here 4+1/2ft high. Parallel side-ditches originally 7ft deep, flank the mound, whose ends are open. Excavation has shown that their contents provided a turf cover with chalk crust to a core of sarsens which constitute the mound. Near the E end a contracted female burial has been found, associated with extra human bones and a necklace or bracelet of polished common dog whelk. Date (C14) circa 3,400 BC.'
Nicholas Thomas, Guide to Prehistoric England, 1976
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Live near the Ridgeway and most interested in sites 'up the rudge'.
Hates: people leaving rubbish at Wayland Smithy (groan, gripe, rant, rage, dribble etc!)
Loves: people taking their rubbish away with them in bags. And yes, that includes nitelites, coins (at least make them silver!), glass, sweet wrappers and dog ends.
Q. what's brown and sticky?
A. try collecting firewood at Waylands.
THINK. would you shit in a church?
... ... ... here endeth the rant
} cUrReNt NoNsEnSe {
Doesn't pagan to a roman just mean some old person who lives in the sticks?
"Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?"
"God dammit Jim, I'm a Doctor not a Dealer"
"We have sat waiting like this many times before. Sometimes I tire... of the fighting and killing. At night, I can hear the call of my race. They wait for me. When I join them, we will be forgotten."
"We're dealing with a Gnome! A Devil!... A Devil? Now you listen to me. The Devil in the Keep wears a black uniform, has a Death's Head in his cap, and calls himself a Sturmbannführer!"
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