Re: Could Silbury mark a source of the Thames? | Forum

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Could Silbury mark a source of the Thames?

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goffik Feb 3, 2010 19:10:19

Replying to thesweetcheat

Trewsbury looks interesting! To me, anyway, being sited so close to the source of the Thames...

Some years back, I worked - and pretty well lived - in Lechlade for a couple of years, but didn't have transport of my own, and had little spare time to go exploring. My interest in the old stuff, and wells, hadn't really taken off at that point, anyway. I wish it had. There's some really interesting and historic places round there! It was from there that I first visited Uffington White Horse, with a friend who had a car, on the Summer Solstice of 1991. The first of many visits. Fabulous place for a day out...

Lechlade, being the furthest navigable part of the Thames, always interested me anyway. A friend and I took a small 2-man boat as far as we could one day, but were thwarted a short way up by some thick weeds! A lovely part of the country though. Typically postcard-English, I'd say, with it's rolling green fields, stone houses and profusion of antique shops! ;) And it is, of course, home to the Lechlade Cursus.

Ackroyd's book is fantastic, by the way. It spans many timelines, so will appeal to anyone interested in any period in time. There's some great nuggets of information, such as the time when, in 1014ce, King Olaf of Norway threw cables connected to his ships around the pillars of London Bridge, and sailed his ships away, pulling it down, thus giving birth to the well-known song "London Bridge is Falling Down"!

G x

tiompan Feb 3, 2010 19:18:23

Replying to goffik

goffik wrote:

Ackroyd's book is fantastic, by the way. It spans many timelines, so will appeal to anyone interested in any period in time.
G x

Ackroyd has done a lot of greta stuff centred on London even in the early of "Hawksmoor " etc . But Iain Sinclair is the psychogeographer of the Wen .

tjj Feb 4, 2010 00:01:49

Replying to goffik

Have just been reading a web-site about the Thames, which tells you pretty much everything you need to know about the Thames. Thirty eight tributaries feed into the Thames on its way to the sea; its source is as thesweetcheat said, is disputed between Trewsbury Mead and Seven Springs a little further north – which is the source of the Churn.
http://www.the-river-thames.co.uk/thames.htm

Scrolling down the link page there is a good map of the Thames catchment area which shows the Kennet; it also illustrates well that there could be many contenders for the title of ‘source’. To the people who built Silbury from the chalklands they lived on and who somehow transported the massive sarsens from Fyfield Down to build the stone circle and the Avenues, the Kennet was their source … their link to great sea beyond.

Up around Lechlade the land is a flood plain, the soil is not chalky and there are no remaining burial grounds to my knowledge. Except perhaps at the at Inglesham the site of a lost village where now only a farm and the redundant church of John the Baptist stands. It is a very special little church and stands on a mound surrounded by water meadows in a meander of the Upper Thames. Anyone interested in the Christianisation of ancient sites will know that John the Baptist represents midsummer eve.