I stopped off, too, a few years back. The caravan site affects the vibe somewhat... not used to people staring at me, to be fair... so preferred Bracklin Burn. But the cairn goes on... and on... and on... and on. And as Greywether says, it's hard to resist a superlative.
Has any one else visited this circle recently? I was there today and couldn’t believe the state of this lovely circle, was moved to tears by it’s lack of care. Cattle are grazing in the circle area and it is all a mess of mud and cow dung up to ones shins, I almost lost my boots to the muck. Is there a way to post an image here of its current state?
these earthworks are modern, i live near this church and went to have a look, i met the vicar in the church yard as he took a break from doing vicar stuff and spoke to him about its neolithic history. he told me that this part of the church in this photo is an extension built about 1976 and this is when the mound was made ! he did acknowledge that the church was built in a stone circle.
That's a lovely piece, beautifully capturing that area of sarsens and the meandering river valley. The sadness of a bus journey through somewhere like that is that you can't get the bus to wait for you when you want to wander up Lockeridge Dean for an hour, so you either have to get off and maybe not see another bus that day (or week!), or stay on the bus and make do with viewing the route through glass, like Iggy Pop's Passenger.
One of my favourite songs starts with a verse about country bus travel:
"The time I think most clearly
The time I drift away
Is on the bus ride, that meanders through these valleys of green and grey
I get to think about what might have been
And what may yet come true
And I get to pass a rainy mile, thinking of you"
I have no truck with someone who doesn't understand bus timetables :)
Ironstone - thanks for your measured comment. Please don't get me wrong, I totally disapprove of what they did, like you said in an earlier comment "stupid, greedy, prats" with the emphasis on stupid. 10 years is a long time in prison though - would have thought six would have served as both appropriate punishment and a very strong deterrent. They'll just have to behave themselves, cough up more information if they have it and hope to get out on licence sometime in the next decade.
Yes but I think the magnitude of the value and the fact that 80% of the coins are unaccounted for pushed this into another league, theft as opposed merely to failure to report. Obviously in comparison to punishments for crimes involving fatality they look disproportionate but that's a fault of the criminal justice system. As a deterrent I hope these sentences send out a very strong message.
I couldn't help thinking the sentences were somewhat harsh - a big jump from 3 months to a collective 18 and half years.
"such finds should be reported to the local coroner within 14 days and failure to do so risks an unlimited fine and up to three months in prison"
People get less than that for killing someone through dangerous driving. A young lad who stabbed his 17 year old girlfriend to death in Calne got 12 years - probably out in six.
Now I've looked at some maps, I walked past about 300m from this back in May, it's very very close to where I grew up. It's exciting to learn that I was apparently living on the route of a Viking retreat.
This story has the sentencing (10 years and 8 and a half years), pictures of the culprits (one of them has a kind of beard thing and a neck tattoo) and some photos of the lovely baubles.
What a pair of stupid greedy prats; they stood to make a decent sum of money quite lawfully though it seems they may not have had the landowner's permission to search. Even so.....