Silbury Hill 180
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Silbury Hill

Silbury Hill trespassers

Sanctuary S
Sanctuary Jan 12, 2013 10:01:54
Replying to tjj

tjj wrote:
nigelswift wrote:
"you cannot ban the public on the grounds that the hill is being damaged"

The "consensus" here is not to "ban the public" but to better explain the damage problem to them and appeal to their better nature. If they are going to say "well some achaeos and the occasional film crew and official Druid goes up therefore I'm going to as well" I'd suspect they are looking for cover to do what they intended to anyway.

Personally, I would be against renovating and throwing open the main path as that would result in 500x more people going up and a commensurate increase in erosion.

My stance on this in the past has always been to 'ban' or rather educate visitors not to walk on Silbury, now after reading all the posts in this thread I've learnt that Silbury is not going to collapse and is in no imminent danger other than surface erosion (which is happening all the time to the Henge banks). I still think people should be educated not to walk up as that clearly is what is most beneficial for the monument and the best way to do this is information boards explaining why.

Perhaps we should have a new topic to discuss 'what does Silbury mean to you' ... why for example does the official Druid need to go up there when Silbury can be appreciated (venerated even) from so many other high vantage points nearby. For myself, it is far more than an ancient mound of grass covered chalk - hard to put into words.

Finding out what Silbury Hill actually is and why it was built would probably be even more benificial to us!

V VBB
VBB Jan 12, 2013 10:09:31
Replying to Sanctuary

Sanctuary wrote:
tjj wrote:
nigelswift wrote:
"you cannot ban the public on the grounds that the hill is being damaged"

The "consensus" here is not to "ban the public" but to better explain the damage problem to them and appeal to their better nature. If they are going to say "well some achaeos and the occasional film crew and official Druid goes up therefore I'm going to as well" I'd suspect they are looking for cover to do what they intended to anyway.

Personally, I would be against renovating and throwing open the main path as that would result in 500x more people going up and a commensurate increase in erosion.

My stance on this in the past has always been to 'ban' or rather educate visitors not to walk on Silbury, now after reading all the posts in this thread I've learnt that Silbury is not going to collapse and is in no imminent danger other than surface erosion (which is happening all the time to the Henge banks). I still think people should be educated not to walk up as that clearly is what is most beneficial for the monument and the best way to do this is information boards explaining why.

Perhaps we should have a new topic to discuss 'what does Silbury mean to you' ... why for example does the official Druid need to go up there when Silbury can be appreciated (venerated even) from so many other high vantage points nearby. For myself, it is far more than an ancient mound of grass covered chalk - hard to put into words.

Finding out what Silbury Hill actually is and why it was built would probably be even more benificial to us!
Job done, monograph in the shops soon!

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