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Silbury Hill

When she stands on Silbury Hill lock

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Sanctuary S
Sanctuary Aug 31, 2012 22:02:21
Replying to GLADMAN

GLADMAN wrote:
Yeah, poor Silbury. But a fence is never going to put off the moron who 'just has' to climb it, is it?

But for my money Silbury's plight fades into insignifcance compared with that of many of our less well known sites. I've just returned from a visit to Picws Du (Y Mynydd Du) and experienced the sheer ignorance such high places are accorded by the masses..... for sure the Mam C and I were the only two out of perhaps a hundred to accord due respect (however you define that?) to a large Bronze age round barrow crowning the summit. No-one else gave a damn. Nothing. The centre of the monument appears to possess the remains of a cist. But not for much longer. Not at this rate. Silbury has it easy. But out of sight appears out of mind.

I've just returned from an early evening tramp up Ridge Hill, East Moor to take a few photographs of the once beautiful ring cairn on the eastern end. Words fail you when you see how the bastards have ripped this sacred cairn apart to make what appears to be a sheep pen out of it. As the following pix show this nigh on 70ft diameter ring cairn with a central standing stone which partial excavation has revealed a cremation burial under a granite slab has been violated to a degree that brings shame to all who have contributed to its demise (not that they care a toss!).
I really don't know what the answer is. Education doesn't seem to get you anywhere because in the main the overwhelming population today appear to
have their own problems to deal with and simply turn a blind eye to what they see as no big deal. A landworker I spoke to on the moorland road beneath the hill saw it as 'Just a heap of stones'.
https://picasaweb.google.com/100525707086862773355/RidgeHillRingCairn?authkey=Gv1sRgCOK3jZnhuoq-zgE#

T thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Aug 31, 2012 22:46:13
Replying to Sanctuary

Sanctuary wrote:
GLADMAN wrote:
...But for my money Silbury's plight fades into insignifcance compared with that of many of our less well known sites. .....
I've just returned from an early evening tramp up Ridge Hill, East Moor to take a few photographs of the once beautiful ring cairn on the eastern end. Words fail you when you see how the bastards have ripped this sacred cairn apart to make what appears to be a sheep pen out of it. As the following pix show this nigh on 70ft diameter ring cairn with a central standing stone which partial excavation has revealed a cremation burial under a granite slab has been violated to a degree that brings shame to all who have contributed to its demise (not that they care a toss!).
I really don't know what the answer is. Education doesn't seem to get you anywhere because in the main the overwhelming population today appear to
have their own problems to deal with and simply turn a blind eye to what they see as no big deal. A landworker I spoke to on the moorland road beneath the hill saw it as 'Just a heap of stones'.
https://picasaweb.google.com/100525707086862773355/RidgeHillRingCairn?authkey=Gv1sRgCOK3jZnhuoq-zgE#
This is exactly the problem. If it was an isolated incident, maybe it would be less hard to bear, but it's widespread and continual, all over the country. These are the sites that need to be protected, awareness raised and the state of preservation recorded and monitored. All over the country. Not just one mound in Wiltshire (I know, I sound like a broken record).

Unless you're out there seeing the damage, every trip, week-in, week-out, it might be easy to dismiss the ongoing damage to these obscure sites as unimportant, as minor, especially when compared with the threat to the Really Important Sites, which need round the clock monitoring or they will turn to dust before our eyes. But I refuse to see it that way.

These obscure sites all represent this country's heritage and are vital in understanding the full scope of what was going on here in prehistoric times. The interrelationship with each other and with landscape forms, all of that is being lost, rapidly.

But no-one raises a whimper, because they're not in a World Heritage Site, they're not visible to the coachloads of tourists. So no-one minds if another little cairn is trashed, another little barrow is ploughed out, another little stone is toppled and broken, because they're not important enough. Well I bloody well think they are. These are the sites we should be most concerned about, the ones not on the guardian bodies' radar.