Re: Slightly OT: The Gop | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

Silbury Hill 180

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Trespass on SSSI sites

bladup Sep 4, 2012 03:12:45

Replying to thesweetcheat

thesweetcheat wrote:

Yes, I do. I can't necessarily rationalise it entirely and I know that different people have very different views on this.

Here goes. The obscure sites need protecting, but from irrepairable damage. Upland cairns are not damaged by people sitting on them or climbing on them, you have to make a big effort to move any stones (ask Lubin how difficult it is to restore one that's been messed about with). Similarly, most barrows in fields aren't damaged by occasional visitors walking over them. But they are damaged by constant livestock erosion and incremental ploughing. I think - to me- it comes down to what will actually cause damage. If loads of people start visiting a little barrow in the middle of nowhere, it may become at risk of damage from those visits - but most aren't in danger of that happening, so visiting, taking pictures, recording any existing damage (which might not be apparent from below, particularly where the damage is an excavation into the top) has value, which can be weighed against the possible damage (if any) caused by the act of visiting itself. But Silbury is definitely at risk, because lots of people would love to climb it if they thought they could do so legitimately - far more than climb it now clandestinely. So the risk of damage is very real and one person climbing it will be seen by others as an endorsement of a view that it's okay to do so. There are also lots of well-known sites that are finely balanced, examples being West Kennet, Wayland's Smithy, where it would be lot better if people kept off the mound as it is noticeable getting worn.

I know that really there's no difference on lots of levels with climbing another less-known barrow, but in truth the consequences are likely to be very different. Volume of visitors (and the precise behaviour of them) makes it different.

Obviously, if your objections are based on belief rather than damage, that makes for an entirely different view, i.e. you wouldn't climb on any barrow, even if you knew it would cause no damage, because you believe it is disrespectful - I don't share this view, I'll be honest. Dead is dead, as someone said. Everyone walks over multiple graves in any medieval churchyard, but I don't think it's disrespectful to do so.

That's the best I can do, this late on a schoolnight!

I get it, Well put!! I'm not sure more people would go up silbury though, by the look of the various tracks lots of people go up anyway, like sanctuary said it may be better to control one path, and foreigners [ and british ] who can't read english just see the steps going over the fence and think they want you to go up, i just feel that everybody who wants to go up, goes up anyway, everything else you said i agree with 100%.

Rhiannon Sep 4, 2012 07:30:03

Replying to bladup

"i just feel that everybody who wants to go up, goes up anyway"

well you're wrong there Bladup. Because when I was a kid we stopped at Silbury and my dad and I would have probably climbed up it, but the notices were there even then and they stopped us, because we read them and went along with what they were saying. I only had the dimmest awareness of prehistoric things then (everything starting with the romans) - like most of the people that stop there, no doubt.

And there are many times since when I've thought 'ooh wouldn't it be nice to see what the landscape looks like from the top' but the overwhelming thing that stops me is that when I think about it, on balance, I've been asked by the people who look after the site and therefore (one hopes) have its best interests at heart - not to do so. It's not exactly 'sticking it to the man' but in this case the man is someone who loves prehistoric sites and wants to look after them.

I don't accept at all that if people want to climb it, they will. Because I don't and I'm sure many other people here come into the same category. I rather think that people who do, when they know they've been asked not to, to protect it, are putting their own gratification in front of the right of everyone else to enjoy it without it being spoilt. You might say, well Those Sort of people are going to climb it whatever you say. But some of them might think again if you educate them and make it clear why you're asking them not to walk up the hill.

To suggest because some people do, we might as well make it official and let everyone is absurd. Do you know how many visitors that place gets! Can you imagine the state of the hill if you let all those people walk up it? It's chalk grassland on the hill (SSSI as people have said) and as soon as you wear away the top layer of plants, you will start carving a massive hole into the earth, as you'll see if you look at sheep tracks on that kind of land. It would have huge wandering scars up it in no time, and every time it rained they'd get bigger. The alternative would be some kind of winding stairway. RIP Silbury.

I think Silbury's a special case and I just don't understand the mindset of someone who'll climb it, I think it's totally arrogant and smacks of doing something deliberately because they've been told not to. What is Silbury to them, why do they want to climb it? They can't simultaneously have all this neo-pagan respect for it and then add to damaging the very thing they profess to respect. It's bullshit I'm afraid.

Some people used to chip bits off stonehenge and you can call it hyperbole but I reckon it's not so different. We've stopped them doing that, even though there's lots of stone to go round and the damage wouldn't be that noticeable.