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Update on the future of Silbury Hill

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Pilgrim P
Pilgrim Jul 25, 2005 23:33:53
Replying to nigelswift

Hi, Nigel,

At least they seem to have moved away from the shoring-up of the void spaces, recommended by their own commitee earlier this year:

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/FileStore/about-us/pdf/ehac/EHAC_minutes_Feb05.pdf.

>*ITEM 5 – SILBURY HILL: OPTIONS FOR STABILISATION (EHAC 2005/4)
5.1 The Committee was asked to consider three options for the future of Silbury Hill following the collapse of the vertical shaft:
1) do nothing;
2) fill the voids;
3) support the voids.<

The section concludes:

>5.11 The Committee agreed that:
i)
Option 3 was preferable, more engineering advice was needed and there was no need for haste;
ii) the site should be open for monitoring purposes and in situ preservation would be one of the key strategies in future.

With regard to the retunneling of the 1968 tunnel, it could be that EH see the amalgamating of all the tunnels into one big hole as the best way to unify the backfilling progress: according to Figure 11 in the report by Canti et al at:

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/upload/pdf/Silbury_Hill_CFAreport.pdf


both the 1849 tunnel, the 1968 tunnel, and the produced void would need to be addressed to at least the start of Silbury II.

Personally, I don't know what's best fo the Poor Bloody Hill, but at least this news seems to indicate a shift in policy in the treatment of its ailment: a shift perhaps bought about via HA muscle!


Peace

Pilgrim

X

V VenerableBottyBurp
VenerableBottyBurp Jul 25, 2005 23:57:49
Replying to Pilgrim

Hi Pilgrim and all above,

There are numerous problems with this but looking at just one:

The re-bore of the tunnel will cut an additional 200mm from the walls and floor for the length of each tunnel and they cannot ensure that the backfilling will leave less void space than exists at present.

Whereas, remote filling via bore holes will lose one hundredth or less original archaeology that the rebore would cost and definitely will not leave larger void space than there is at present.

Leaving it as it is without touching it will not lose any archaeology at all, and will not cause any additonal damage – and although some limited rearrangement of strata is expected by slow and minimal migration , it will be less than has occurred since 1969 and it is predicted that the present voids will not migrate to the point it would cause surface damage.

VBB