The Swallowhead Spring | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

Littlestone Jan 20, 2006 05:10:45

Apologies if I've missed it but there doesn't seem to have been too much discussion on TMA about the Swallowhead Spring (though I note that goffik, megalith6 and C33 mention it in their Fieldnotes, and Jane in her Weblogs). I'm not really into 'mystical experiences' but the first time I went to the Swallowhead was five or six years ago; I was alone, the place was quiet and still and it felt very, very, very ancient indeed - ancient not in an abstract way but ancient in a way that had held meaning for the generations of people who had gone there before - and had gone there for a purpose.

Mark Gillings and Joshua Pollard, writing about the Roman settlement(s) around Avebury say that, "...a pre-existing cult complex related to a shrine or temenos centred upon Silbury and the Swallowhead Springs."* suggests that the Swallowhead was still important to people when the Romans arrived in the area. Michael Dames devotes several pages to the Swallowhead, writing that, "The sixteenth-century topographer John Leland emphasised the connection: 'Kennet riseth at Selbiri hill bottom', while Stukeley again and again links Swallowhead to Silbury..."** Strangely, Aubrey Burl in his Prehistoric Avebury does not seem to mention the Swallowhead at all.

So, I was just wondering what folks thought about the Swallowhead Spring; feelings/impressions when they were there, snippets of information they'd picked up or read about, ideas or theories about the Spring's place in the grand scheme of the Silbury landscape.

* Avebury by Mark Gillings and Joshua Pollard. ISBN 0 7156 3240 X. pp 99.

** The Silbury Treasure by Michael Dames. ISBN 0 500 27140 2. pp 107.

moss Jan 20, 2006 07:25:23

Replying to Littlestone

One of the things that made a deep impression about how water is seen by our earlier ancestors was in fact a camcorder moving picture made by Pete.... He had captured that rare moment when the water rushes over the drybed of the river, rising through the dry chalk and cascading down - a life giving and magical force, a special event. Its strange how Burl misses out on water, when he describes so acutely in "Rites of the Gods" the symbolic nature of the lives of these people.. but as I am only half way through the book perhaps I have'nt got to it. I suspect that the Swallowhead Spring is ancestral to Silbury, in the sense that it is remembered as a first settled place..

Pilgrim Jan 20, 2006 13:24:19

Replying to Littlestone

Hi. Littlestone,

** The Silbury Treasure by Michael Dames. ISBN 0 500 27140 2. pp 107.
A good read - he does the "Thom" thing - coming up with a unique measurement that describes the relatrionship between the Hill, Swallowhead, and other ground features. Plausible (to me - but what do I know?) and a nice attempt to decipher the unknowable. Loved his "mother with child" impression of the Hill and it's moat - once seen, never forgotten! The moat! The moat! stop drilling holes and look in the moat! Writing this on the floor: desk gone, cat's on holiday, and a trailer outside waiting to be loaded......

Love to ya

Peace

Pilgrim