Question for those who have climbed Silbury

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Dan1701 D
Dan1701 Mar 25, 2013 16:00:28
Replying to bladup

Oh, I don't dispute that the Silbaby mound is man-made, I'm just disputing when.

Look at the old series of maps; you have a series with a couple of houses on, right the way through from 1886 to 1961, plus a trackway going northwards off the road to the fields north of the main road (thus showing that the road and field were about the same height).

Then, all of a sudden in the 1976 map, the main road shows a deepish cutting all along the northern side. The houses disappear, as do tracks north from the main road, and Silbaby appears.

I'm not disputing the Stukely map; it does indeed show a mound in about the right place, but I am highly curious as to how a hundred years of OS survey mapping (which was initially an artillery map, hence highly sensitive to topographical features) could miss a mound as big as Silbaby. I am also struck by the similarity in volume between the Silbaby mound, and the amount of rubble the cutting would have produced, and the lack of a similar amount of rubble anywhere else in the locality, unless of course the top third of Silbury hill is modern (joke alert!).

It therefore seems like anyone disputing the Silbaby-as-modern-dump hypothesis would need to show where a few thousand tonnes of excavated chalk from the cutting went, other than into a dump at the side of the road.

At present I cannot locate the relevant planning applications for that road work, which would show what was done, when it was done and where the spoil went. Can anyone assist here?

B bladup
bladup Mar 25, 2013 17:02:42
Replying to Dan1701

The answer may lie in the fact that the OS people over the years have been [how shall i put this] a little slack in many parts of the country [Cope for one has a few times gone on about how slack a lot of OS maps are], The 25000 OS map of Dartmoor is a good example because there's loads of ridges and even hills that aren't even shown or are just plain wrong, just don't put to much trust in maps because they're never 100% right, that's why google earth and the like are popular, because what you see is at least real, even though it's flat and the earth isn't.

H harestonesdown
harestonesdown Mar 25, 2013 17:24:29
Replying to Dan1701

Dan1701 wrote:
Oh, I don't dispute that the Silbaby mound is man-made, I'm just disputing when.

Look at the old series of maps; you have a series with a couple of houses on, right the way through from 1886 to 1961, plus a trackway going northwards off the road to the fields north of the main road (thus showing that the road and field were about the same height).

Then, all of a sudden in the 1976 map, the main road shows a deepish cutting all along the northern side. The houses disappear, as do tracks north from the main road, and Silbaby appears.

I'm not disputing the Stukely map; it does indeed show a mound in about the right place, but I am highly curious as to how a hundred years of OS survey mapping (which was initially an artillery map, hence highly sensitive to topographical features) could miss a mound as big as Silbaby. I am also struck by the similarity in volume between the Silbaby mound, and the amount of rubble the cutting would have produced, and the lack of a similar amount of rubble anywhere else in the locality, unless of course the top third of Silbury hill is modern (joke alert!).

It therefore seems like anyone disputing the Silbaby-as-modern-dump hypothesis would need to show where a few thousand tonnes of excavated chalk from the cutting went, other than into a dump at the side of the road.

At present I cannot locate the relevant planning applications for that road work, which would show what was done, when it was done and where the spoil went. Can anyone assist here?

I really can't see the whs archeaos coring something without checking the history of that particular bit of land with the records. so i'd say the onus is on anyone believing so to prove otherwise.