<gets back up, laughs at riot gear - http://www.guilfin.net/gallery/?id=pxINET610 >
happens all the time. But what really gets me in this instance is some bloke with far too much time and money on his hands buys a bit of land, becomes the de-facto Squire, decides that the current arrangement of the village is all wrong, and sets about "restoring" it
Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with too much time and money:
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/browse.php?site_id=546
but Dashwood always made sure that his crazy schemes benefitted the locals, not moved them
maybe it's a new vs old money thing ... trad. aristos brought up in the correct handling of an estate vs people who reckon they can buy anything
So, where my train of thought is leading is how "accurate" is the model put forward by Keiller, and is it really worth it. When you visit Avebury in the C21, how much are you seeing of 5kBC, and how much are you seeing someone's personal fantasy. Pete's told me about the stone(s) that Keiller couldn't decide which was the right way up, and tried several
One of my favourite moans is "heritage" - that tendency to re-arrange a historical site into a visitor-friendly "experience", with a gift shop. Those jousting days at Berkley Castle would probably really piss me off. I knew all about the Stonehenge reconstructions:
http://www.guilfin.net/gallery/?id=pxINET328
and knew about the Avebury ones abstractly, but watching the film set it concrete, literally ... perhaps what we know and love as Avebury is more our hopes and wishes about what the site was, then any kind of verifiable reality. A heritage site
The fact that there were some smelly oiks living there already makes it doubly uncomfortable. Perhaps we're going along with Keiller's conceit because it also suits our ideas about the past, so we're happy to overlook the forced demolition of a village.
Anybody else actually got/seen a copy of Stukely. PeteG's comments about Marsden are pretty relevant - a virtually unknown site, but yet just as "important" (whatever that means, but that's another word that really pisses me off in this context). What did he actually say about Avebury and Marsden, are we actually under or over -estimating the value of the Avebury area. Would we have given it as much attention if it wasn't for the close proximity of the A4 and Silbury
just a few thoughts ...
RG
