How's Shaun? - I don't know, he never wrote back. He got in touch with the local paper saying that the TV programme had got it all wrong and that he would put the facts straight when he gets out of the nick. About Haloween, by my calculation.
In Bolton I've found that some of the OS marked boundary stones have been carved with ancient initials. I hypothesised that the initials were those belonging to William de Ferrers, an early feudal owner of Bolton. WdF is interesting as he got the town's market charter and died as the result of injuries sustained from a fall from his sedan chair. (You couldn't make it up).
I've found three carved stones - the archaeologist doesn't want to know 'cause it's me - and I've hypothesised (again) that there will be more waiting to be found. There's an 85 house development on Temple Road, adjacent to the Toothills site, that has run into difficulties. The original plan was to drain the mill lodge there, for more houses, and I objected on the grounds of newts and the wildlife project objected on the grounds of newts, so the mill lodge, consequently, wasn't drained. The access road, singular, to the 85 finished houses has been deemed too narrow and out of order. Bovis just went ahead - allegedly - and started to JCB away the lodge bank to widen the roadway, without planning permission and without the consent of the owner, a land consortium in Manchester. Ok. This has eventually been through the planning process and the appl. was turned down. (There's a tiny peace camp, two caravans and a hen, been set up to guard the reservoir bankside). I got in touch with the consortium, a man, his son and a secretary, and the lad sent me a 25" plan of the affected land. The plan shows the round barrow at Toothills, which I've renamed Hill Top Barrow, perfectly, but it also shows a line of boundary stones on the other side of the river, in scrub woodland. There's certainly five on the map, and there could be more. My next chore is to check them out, scrutinising them for the goitre driven landlord's initials!
There'll be nothing there but I will look. I've also written an article for the local history newsletter about the holy well of Halliwell. As they are trying to trace the origin of the original well and I hypothesise it's somewhere entirely different, they haven't printed it. Their holy well - it is on the maps as the holy well - is actually in the parish of Heaton. My holy well, an ochre ridden embarassment that the council try to drain seeps out of the side of the Toothill long barrow and is actually in Halliwell. Correctly, it's just round the corner from the former Halliwell Bus Station. I say that the Heaton holy well has no known healing properties - McKellian grew up very nearby - whereas the bloody well would at least cure anaemia.
Well you did ask!
