Silbury Hill 180
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Silbury Hill

Silbury updates

nigelswift N
nigelswift Jun 9, 2007 08:14:47
Replying to Littlestone

and the bureaucrats a kick up the backside.....

In truth though, a kick up the backside isn't the precise answer when it comes to heritage bureaucracy. VBB has put his finger on it when he says EH shouldn't be "in sole charge". Or at least, I would suggest, should be much more open to public participation in their decisions.

Two recent examples of things that would have gone better if they'd simply made the public party to discussions rather than adopting a "we alone must decide" attitude :

First, how on earth, at a minute to midnight in the Silbury project have they STILL not decided whether to put a marker in the fill or not? Could this not have been resolved to everyone's satisfaction years ago?

Second, we have on the 5 March "To put your minds at rest, there are certainly no plans to deposit anything inside Silbury Hill" and then on 1 June we have "We are not placing offerings inside the Hill, other than the 'time capsule' being designed by the children of Avebury school."

Its all self-inflicted embarrassment IMO.
Its good to talk.

L Littlestone
Littlestone Jun 9, 2007 09:46:31
Replying to nigelswift

Yes, but that ignores the satisfaction factor that a clip round the ear and a kick up the backside would give ;-)

As for deciding whether or not to put a marker in the fill boggles the mind. I've said elsewhere that it's virtually impossible to introduce an infill of this size without it being detectable (and if English Heritage don't know that they should). Even if the composition of the fill is absolutely the same as the original (and that's highly unlikely as there are bound to be minor differences in composition) the way the fill is packed into the tunnel is never going to be exactly the same as the original.

It's just unprofessional bol*ocks. Something similar happened when the beautiful British Museum Atrium was built a few years ago. Can't remember the exact details now but for one of the new doorways they used Portland Stone from France, instead of Portland Stone sourced in this country. The French stone looks the same as the English stone now but unfortunately ages differently. Estimates are that in about 60 years the French stone will look completely different to the original English stone.

Sigh... didn't someone check that? Or was it just a question of, 'get the cheapest and get it in quick'?

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