The fear that planning would be approved around the Thornborough Henges has come to pass. I attended the meeting today with trepidation, only to have my fears confirmed. This will not be the end of this fight, but it will get harder.
Please, all you people who care about our ancient sites, talk about Thornborough, maybe through publicity we can shame those who don’t care into seeing the error of their ways.
I live in hope!
Latest News
August 26, 2008
Found during this season’s dig at Green
orkneyjar.com/archaeology/eday2008.htm (the first came from Eday Manse in 1861 and resembles those from Pierowall [1981] and Pickaquoy [1864]).
Why Neanderthal man may not have been as stupid as he looks
Neanderthals were not as stupid as they have been portrayed, according to a study showing their stone tools were just as good as those made by the early ancestors of modern humans, Homo sapiens.
Scientists who spent years learning how to make replicas of the stone instruments used by Neanderthals and Homo sapiens have found the Neanderthal tools were just as efficient as anything made by Stone Age man.
August 24, 2008
From The Scotsman
A BRONZE Age structure thought to have been used as a sauna has been saved from destruction by the sea after a team of archaeologists moved the entire find to a safer location.
The building, which dates from between 1500BC and 1200BC, was unearthed on the Shetland island of Bressay eight years ago. It was found in the heart of the Burnt Mound at Cruester, a Bronze Age site on the coast of Bressay facing Lerwick.
But earlier this summer, because of the increased threat of coastal erosion, local historians joined archaeologists to launch a campaign to save the building and to move it somewhere safer. A third of the mound had already been lost to sea erosion.
The central structure was carefully dismantled and each stone numbered before being moved to a site a mile way next to Bressay Heritage Centre.
And today, following the completion of the unusual removal scheme, the Bronze Age building will be officially opened at its new location by Tavish Scott, the MSP for Shetland.
Douglas Coutts, the project officer with Bressay History Group, said the structure was one of the most important archaeological discoveries ever made in the Northern Isles.
The building was hidden in a mound of burnt stones and is thought to have been used for feasts, baths or even saunas.
The structure comprises a series of dry-stone, walled cells, connected by two corridors. At the end of one corridor is a hearth cell, thought to have been used for heating stones, and at the other end is a tank sunk into the ground which is almost two metres long, more than a metre wide, and half a metre deep.
Mr Coutts said: “Burnt mounds don’t usually consist of very much more than a hearth and a tank and a heap of burnt stones. But in Shetland, we seem to have much more complex structures with little rooms or cells leading off from a main passageway which connects the hearth and tank.
“We have approximately 300 burnt mounds on Shetland but only four or five have been excavated and, of those, the Cruester mound is the most fascinating and complex. It looks as if it has been in use for anything between 500 to 1,000 years.”
He added: “We think these cells may have originally been roofed over in a beehive shape.
“One theory is that these structures may have been used for cooking meat or tanning hides.
“But it is possible they could have raised steam by heating the water and that these little cells could have been used as saunas.”
Tom Dawson, a researcher at St Andrews University who also worked on the removal project, said coastal erosion was threatening thousands of archaeological sites around Scotland.
“The local group here came up with a novel idea for dealing with the problem,” he said.
“It is great to have had the chance to give new life to this particular site and make it accessible to future generations, while also learning something new, not just about Cruester, but about burnt mounds in general.
“This structure is important in world terms. There are thousands of burnt mounds in Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia but only a handful are known to have structures within them.”
Mr Scott praised the partnership between the local history group and outside archaeological bodies.
He said: “This exhibition will be a great asset for visitors to Bressay and local people. The more we understand about the past, the better informed we are about the future.”
From IOM Today
ARCHAEOLOGISTS may have unearthed evidence of a prehistoric tragedy at Isle of Man Airport.
They are working on a theory that fire could have razed a Bronze Age village to the ground in a cataclysmic conflagration in the area known as Ronaldsway.
Prehistoric remains including three human skeletons, discovered during earthworks for the airport runway extension project, made headlines around the world.
The excavations have been completed some two weeks ahead of schedule and the site, equivalent to about 20 football pitches, cleared ready for construction work to resume.
It was initially thought that pottery fragments, found under the route of a proposed taxiway extension in the north east of the airfield, dated back some 4,000 years to the late neolithic era.
But following a further study of the artefacts, experts from Lancaster-based Oxford Archaeology North have provisionally revised that chronology by some 500 years.
It is now believed that what has been uncovered is a further part of a Bronze Age settlement first discovered when the runway was built in the 1930s.
Several of the half-dozen circular structures unearthed at the site featured charred earth indicating evidence of burning.
The experts now believe these are Bronze Age homes dating back 3,500 years that appear to have burnt down.
Two cairns, in which were found the human skeletons, appear to be slightly more recent. One of the burials contained fragments of a ring or bangle which had been worn around the upper arm.
Andrew Johnson, field archaeologist at Manx National Heritage, said: ‘We now think these circular structures are Bronze Age homes. It certainly seems possible that some of these buildings have in some way been burnt down.
‘The site stretches from a south west to a north east direction and it does seem likely that if fire took hold in the south west then, given the direction of the prevailing wind, the possibilities of disaster are obvious. It’s an interesting speculation.
‘The cairns appear to have been built slightly later, potentially after the conflagration. Perhaps in what psychologists would now describe as a process of closure, the settlement’s use was changed from a living community to a place of the dead.‘
Hundreds of pottery shards and pieces of worked flint were recovered, together with domestic rubbish in the form of shellfish and bones.
Mr Johnson said the age of the remains had been revised after a much more detailed look at the pottery fragments. Radiocarbon dating may be used to get a more accurate date for the human skeletons.
He said: ‘We are certainly not disappointed that we are now looking at Bronze Age rather than neolithic remains, absolutely not. Slight revision of working theories goes with the territory.
‘This dig has been an enormous success in terms of working with the airport and the construction team. It has been quite a difficult job but everyone involved in it can feel justifiably proud.
‘By providing a body of new evidence on the Bronze Age period, it will probably contribute several important pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. But it also gives us an opportunity to completely reassess the excavation that took place in the 1930s when the site was being developed as an airfield. It will take us forward some significant distance.‘
All artefacts have been removed for study and conservation and a preliminary report will be prepared by Oxford Archaeology. It is likely that the team will return in the spring when construction work moves to the eastern end of the airport where the promontory is to be built out to sea.
Airport director Ann Reynolds said: ‘I understand that no archaeological project of this scale and complexity has been undertaken in the Island before in the course of a major construction contract. It has been a major achievement for all concerned.‘
Mrs Reynolds confirmed the runway project had not been delayed and was scheduled for completion by December 2009.
August 22, 2008
Found this news item from 1998 concerning Bradup circle.
archive.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/1998/1/31/178175.html
-----------------------------------------
“A historic moorland stone circle has vanished.
Walkers and local residents are unable to find the Bradup circle – dubbed ‘Riddlesden’s Stonehenge’ – which used to be a few yards off Ilkley Road on Rombalds Moor.
Hilary Simpson, who lives near the bronze age site, is appealing to Keighley News readers for information about its disappearance. She believes it was disturbed by contractors digging a gas pipeline across the moor almost three decades ago.
Other theories put forward by residents and visitors include:
theft by pagan worshippers
rockery thieves
their removal by a former landowner.
Mrs Simpson, of Bradup Farm, says sun worshippers visited the site after she moved in 12 years ago, but couldn’t find the circle. “Every so often someone knocks on my door and asks where it is,” she says. “The stone circle will have been here for thousands of years. Friends and locals remember it clearly up to about the late 1960s. Somebody must be responsible for it being removed, and for the sake of heritage someone must be made to reinstate it.”
Former Riddlesden resident Ken Pickles, who has walked the moors all his life, also believes the circle vanished around the time the gas pipe was laid. “I first walked this moor in 1945,” he says. “In the late 1960s there were definitely 12 there. It was a perfect stone circle. It offends me that children should be denied things like this. It was Riddlesden’s Stonehenge.”
The stone circle has been marked on Ordnance Survey maps for many years though recent editions have described it as ‘remains’. There were originally 18 stones but by 1929 just 12 remained, the others used in the construction of nearby Bradup Bridge.
A stone circle expert who visited in the early 1990s found what he believed to be the site, but just one stone remained next to a pile of rubbish and oil drums. Another possible site is a few yards west, where several large stones lay strewn in the thick heather.
Gavin Edwards, Bradford council’s archaeology officer, says he tried to survey the circle 20 years ago as a student, but his team was unsure it had found the right place. He says: “It was a bit enigmatic. It’s a few stones. Even reports in the 1930s described it as very damaged.”
Mr Edwards says the Bradup site could not strictly be called a ‘stone circle’ but was more likely a prehistoric burial ground. He believes his council predecessors liaised with British Gas to ensure the pipeline avoided historic sites on Rombalds Moor.
British Gas spokesman John O’Grady says workmen laying the pipe in 1971 could not have damaged the stone circle because they worked within a strict 45-foot-wide corridor containing all their machinery. He says the original contractors’ map shows the Bradup circle as ‘remains’, 100 feet south of the edge of their corridor.
But Mrs Simpson claims the only access from Ilkley Road to the construction site would have been from a farm gate on the other side of the stones. A direct route from the gate to the work site would have been across land occupied by the circle.”
-----------------------------------------
Several of us (including me) have been quick to point a finger of suspicion at the owners of the local farm concerning the disappearance of these stones but it seems that they are just as concerned about what happened to them as us. Apologies are duly offered.
August 21, 2008
Germany: DNA used to trace modern descendants of Bronze Age remains.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7573772.stm
BBC video clip of interview with a scientist who used DNA analysis to trace the modern descendant of Bronze Age skull remains found in a cave in Germany.
A catastrophic fire which “skinned” a precious moorland to its rocky bones has unexpectedly revealed some of the most important prehistoric archaeology found in Britain.
The uncontrolled six-day blaze on Fylingdales Moor in North Yorkshire has exposed a lost landscape dating back 3,000 years which is now to be made accessible to the public by English Heritage.
Unique rock art and unprecedentedly clear bronze age field boundaries have emerged from the soot and cinders which were all that was left of two-and-a-half square miles of the North York Moors national park when fire crews and heavy rain finally swamped the area in September 2003.
The intense heat destroyed the entire blanket of peat which had accumulated over the area, close to the North Sea coast, since farmers abandoned it for unknown reasons in around 1000BC.
“We have always known that this part of the world is very rich in prehistoric remains,” said Graham Lee, senior archaeological conservation officer for the national park. “But the sheer number of new finds exposed by the fire is the most exciting development in archaeology in my experience.” The rock art list for the site, part of a vast moor also used by the RAF’s Fylingdales satellite tracking and early warning station, has grown to almost three times its previous size, with more than 100 sets of mysterious lines, cups and circles discovered since the fire.
“One of the very rare features exposed by the removal of the entire plant and soil covering is a set of defined borders to the areas cultivated in the bronze age,” said Lee.
The North York Moors form one of Britain’s most important prehistoric sites, with the wild, rolling uplands the equivalent of Leeds or Manchester in their day. In contrast to most of the rest of the country, their population had its heyday in the second century BC, and has since dwindled to today’s scattering of neat villages which largely depend on tourism.
“The fire was environmentally disastrous,” said Lee, whose colleagues joined landowners after the fire in reseeding the heather. “But it gave us access to a landscape which we could never have reached otherwise, on such a scale. No archaeologist has the means to dig out an area like this. What we have found as a result has altered perceptions of the period. It also raises questions about the scale of what else lies hidden over the rest of the North York Moors.”
Finds include stone age flint tools and drainage runnels and trackways from the 18th century alum industry, which used shiploads of urine from London to break down shale and produce the chemical for dyes and other ground-breaking uses in the Industrial Revolution.
“We’ve brought things almost up to date by making detailed surveys of slit trenches and foxholes used for training on Fylingdales in the second world war and since forgotten,” said Lee. “And the most recent finds are shell craters left over from artillery practice, which carried on into the 1950s.”
The wealth of the Fylingdales finds will now be collated with a £26,000 publication grant from English Heritage, following a local exhibition of the principal discoveries. “Everyone had to work very rapidly, because the protective cover had vanished,” said Lee. English Heritage’s project officer for Fylingdales, David Went, said the fire had “opened up a whole new chapter in our understanding of the moor”.
August 20, 2008
Sad News....
APPROVAL is finally expected to be given next week for the quarrying of 1.1 million tonnes of sand and gravel less than a mile from three Neolithic henges.
Nosterfield Quarry, near Masham, produces 500,000 tonnes of sand and gravel a year and is the source of 20 per cent of the material in North Yorkshire. The new permission – taking quarrying further away from Thornborough Henges – will extend its life by two years.
An application for a larger site was refused permission in February, 2006, because North Yorkshire County Councillors decided the extraction of 2.2 million tonnes of aggregate would have an unacceptable impact on the archaeological remains.
In January last year approval was given to a revised scheme extending quarrying across 76 acres of Ladybridge Farm at Nosterfield.
It was quashed after The Friends of Thornborough Henges began a legal challenge in the High Court.
Now the application has been reviewed. When planning committee members meet at Masham Town Hall on Tuesday next week the Director of Business and Environmental Services, Richard Flinton, will recommend that permission be granted.
In a report to councillors, Mr Flinton said: “It is considered that there are now no grounds for refusing this application on matters relating specifically to archaeology.”
The Yorkshire Branch of the Council for British Archaeology remains opposed to the scheme because of its fears about affects on the Thornborough Henges – a site which has been described as the Stonehenge of the North.
The CBA said it considered the application by Tarmac Northern Ltd would have an unacceptable impact on the setting and said the archaeological remains from the Neolithic and Bronze Age should be preserved in situ.
The Friends of Thornborough Henges have renewed their objection and Yorkshire Archaeological Society says the quarrying will have “an unacceptably erosive impact upon an overall archaeological landscape.”
But English Heritage has welcomed the revised scheme. It said: “We feel it has addressed our initial concerns with regard to the preservation of archaeological deposits of national importance by omitting the southwest corner of the previous application site.”
yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/Quarry-approval-expected-near-three.4402980.jp
August 18, 2008
From the Derry Journal
An ancient underground chamber which could date back 2,000 years has been unearthed near Clonmany in Inishowen.
Discovered by Clonmany man Sean Devlin, the previously unrecorded structure appears to be an underground tunnel or souterrain.
Mr Devlin revealed yesterday that he first discovered the underground chamber several years ago while landscaping his front garden, but didn’t make much of a fuss about his amazing find at the time. The historic significance of the tunnel only became apparent recently after Mr Devlin showed it to amateur archaeologist friends.
“I knew it was an exciting find and I did show it to some people but never to any real experts,” Mr Devlin, owner of Devlin’s Fireplaces in Bridgend, told the ‘Journal’. “I had been doing my lawn and dug it out accidentally with a digger. It was a big round circle with a tiny dark tunnel leading off it which seems to go quite far.”
Souterrains are underground man-made drystone built structures roofed with large lintels, comprising of one or more chambers linked by tunnels called creepways. Their entrance is concealed at ground level. They are usually found in locations near to ringforts, cashels and early ecclesiastical sites. Interestingly, Clonmany means ‘the meadow of the monks’.
Mr Devlin says he may try to improve the underground chamber: “My children couldn’t believe it when we found it – it was great. And the tunnel seems structurally safe and dry so eventually I might do it up and maybe try and put some kind of lights in there to make going in there a bit easier.”
Derry man and long time amateur archaeologist Eddie Harkin, who visited and examined this fascinating structure with colleagues Tommy Gallagher and Brian MacNeachtain, confirmed that it has at least three chambers with a creepway linking each one.
In one chamber Mr Harkin says there is a quantity of bones – which may or may not be human – deposited in niches along one side of the souterrain wall. He also found part of a quern stone as well as a quantity of shells.
According to Mr Harkin, archaeologists believe that sounterrains were used as places of refuge, as many of them have defensive features such as low set lintels built into their roofs. They may have also been used for storing food. Indeed, it is possible that this souterrain continues and may be connected to the sixth century monastic site across the road.
A member of his local heritage group, Mr Devlin says he is delighted to have discovered this ancient monument in his garden and he hopes to learn more about it when an archaeologist from Dublin examines it some time soon.
August 17, 2008
telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/08/15/scibronze115.xml
The discovery of the middle-aged man’s remains and burial casket, or cisk, was made by an amateur archaeologist, Trevor Renals, as walked on Constantine island (near Harlyn)
Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom – Aug 15, 2008
August 15, 2008
Heard about this on local radio...not sure how accessible it is to the general public.
bbc.co.uk/cornwall/content/articles/2008/08/07/marinewatch_hs_coastalerosion_feature.shtml
and this from the Western Morning News 16/08/2008
A WALKER strolling along a beach made an amazing find when he stumbled across the remains of a Bronze Age tribal chieftain protruding from the ground.
The discovery of the middle-aged man’s skeleton and cisk – or burial casket – was made by amateur archaeologist Trevor Renals on Constantine Island, on the North Cornwall coast.
He noticed that fragments of what appeared to be human bone had become exposed owing to coastal erosion.
Experts were so excited by the find that they performed an emergency week-long excavation of the site to extract it in a race against coastal erosion and storms.
The Middle Bronze Age find is thought to be of an important man, possibly a chieftain, and is very unusual because cremation, not burial, was popular in the period and other skeletons are not normally found so well-preserved.
Click here!
Mr Renals said: “I was walking along the coast – it is a particularly rich area for remains – and I was actually looking for flint and there was one area that was particularly eroded from pedestrian access.
“While searching one particular area I found a front tooth and another piece of bone and I looked to see where it had come from.
“I could see from the bit of flint sticking out of the ground that it was actually a stone-lined cisk.
“When I realised it was actually a burial I got in contact with the county archaeologist.”
Mr Renals said he also identified the base of the spine, pelvis and femur.
In a race against time and the elements experts from Cornwall County Council Historic Environments Service and the National Trust began an excavation of the site after it was discovered.
The trust, which owns the land where the skeleton was found, said Constantine Island was once part of the mainland.
A spokesman said: “It is rare because it is a skeleton – they were cremated or the bones didn’t survive.
“As soon as we found out we had to make arrangements for it to be excavated because of the danger of it going into the sea. We knew that storms were coming and we had to get it removed.”
It is believed that the man was from the Middle Bronze Age of about 1380-1100BC and may have been an important member of his community.
The spokesman said: “We think he was probably a middle-aged male.
“We don’t know how tall he would have been because the long bones were fragmented. We know he had quite small teeth for a man.
“Little is known about the man but he may have been of importance to the small community that he would have come from as it appears that special care was taken over his burial.
“To build a cisk and cover him with stones and possibly, turf on top wouldn’t have been done with everyone.”
The cisk and remains are with Cornwall County Council’s historic environments service.
Mr Renals, 42, an ecologist working for the Environment Agency, said he was excited to identify the site and said that walkers on the coastal path had not noticed it – despite sitting on and walking over the ancient casket.
“The cisk was right on a quite popular path and people had been sitting on it and walking over it and not realised they were inches away from an ancient skeleton,” he said.
“I feel very privileged, more than anything. I didn’t just treat it like animal remains. I was very cautious to show him respect.”
Mr Renals, from Wadebridge, North Cornwall, said the man had been buried in a crouching position typical of pagan rituals.
“It’s clearly a pagan burial because it is a north-south alignment which is a pagan alignment
“And the body is looking out west towards the sea.”
Mr Renals added that the site had been excavated just in time as in winter storms would lash the tidal Constantine Island, destroying the site.
The ANCIENT SKIES film project
Greetings!
Grant Wakefield from PMW Creative here, and I’d like to bring the following to your attention....
ANCIENT SKIES will be a 4k resolution ‘FullDome’ planetarium show that explores the relationship between ancient cultures and the night sky – principally the Megalithic of Northern Europe – and will be the first to showcase the emerging science of Archaeo-Astronomy. With the sponsorship of one of the world’s top 3 Planetarium companies, SKY-SKAN, an extensive pre-production phase has just been completed, with 60 minutes of location material shot principally in digital timelapse under motion control.
The ANCIENT SKIES FullDome demo reel is available at
vimeo.com/1496364
A companion reel EMPIRE OF STONE is available at vimeo.com/1521048
And a dedicated page for the project is available at
pmwcreative.org/ancient_skies.html
I hope you find it of interest.
Grant Wakefield.
August 12, 2008
There is a public consultation which all can participate in.
Please go to stonehengeconsultation.org and read through the documents containing the proposals, and use the feedback form to give your opinion.
“Stonehenge is perhaps England’s most famous and important ancient monument, inscribed with Avebury as a World Heritage Site in 1986. The need to care for it properly has been recognised for many years, as has the need to improve its landscape setting and its presentation to visitors.
Publication of the World Heritage Site Management Plan in 2000 was an important step forward; at its heart was a vision of Stonehenge surrounded by open grassland. Two major projects were planned to support this: to remove the roads from around Stonehenge by placing the A303 in a tunnel, and to relocate visitor facilities to a new centre away from the Stones. Public Inquiries were held into each, and the outcomes reviewed at length.
Although the Government decided that the A303 road improvements were unaffordable, it has made a commitment in December 2007 to review the Management Plan as the overarching strategic document for the Site, and to complete environmental improvements at Stonehenge, including new visitor facilities, in time for the 2012 Olympics.
This work includes examination of the case for closing the A303/ A344 junction to improve the setting of Stonehenge. A new Stonehenge Project Board, chaired by the Ministers for Culture and for Transport, has been set up to oversee this work.
These proposals are now the subject of a three month public consultation until 17 October 2008.”
HAVE YOUR SAY
(stonehengeconsultation.org /haveyoursaygrey.html)
You can read more about this consultation by viewing the pages of this website, downloading literature in PDF formats (see right hand column) and by visiting the public exhibition (see: stonehengeconsultation.org /publicexhibition.html).
After reading through the proposals, have you say by completing the electronic feedback forms indicated below:
WHS Management Plan Feedback form: stonehengeconsultation.org /haveyoursaywhspl.html
Environmental Improvements Feedback form: stonehengeconsultation.org /haveyoursayoptio.html
Thanks!
August 11, 2008
From Thisiswiltshire
A SENIOR druid is gaining worldwide attention as his protest at Stonehenge continues into its second month.
Demonstrating on behalf of the Council of British Druid Orders, King Arthur Pendragon has vowed to remain at the site, living in his caravan, until the historic site is opened fully to the public.
He said: “I’ve been here five weeks now. I’m very cold and very wet but I’m staying here.”
“I’m getting a lot of response from foreign tourists. They agree with me and say it’s too expensive.”
Pendragon, 54, has been camping close to the World Heritage Site since the Summer Solstice on June 21 and is hoping his protests will encourage the Government to remove the fences around the monument, build a tunnel under the A303 and grass over the A344.
He said: “The thing that really annoys me is that not only have they spent so much money on public inquiries and doing nothing with it, but it is a sacred site. It’s not a cash-cow.”
A public inquiry was set up in 2004 to look at ways of improving the traffic flow in and around the Stonehenge area.
Among the many options that were discussed were a new dual carriageway and a 2.1km bored tunnel.
The plans were scrapped in December last year after ministers decided the costs, which had spiralled from £223m to £470, could not be justified.
July 31, 2008
More than 100 new examples of prehistoric art have been discovered carved into boulders and open bedrock throughout Northumberland and Durham.
The 5,000-year-old Neolithic carvings of circles, rings and hollowed cups, were uncovered by volunteers.
One of the most interesting discoveries was an elaborately carved panel on Barningham Moor, near Barnard Castle in County Durham.
English Heritage now wants to extend the project to Cumbria.
Kate Wilson, inspector of ancient monuments at English Heritage, said: “We know virtually nothing about this art. That’s the exciting part of this discovery.
“What we need to do now is to discover how this art relates to other prehistoric features in the landscape.
“We are talking about very simple and abstract art, using circles, lines and triangles. Mostly the designs are pecked into stone in the shape of simple cups and rings.”
Archaeologists have discovered thousands of examples of prehistoric rock carvings in the area in recent years.
Many feature on a website backed by Newcastle University, which includes about 6,000 images.
Ms Wilson added: “We are sure there remains a lot that is still undiscovered in Cumbria.”
Samuel Palmer to the Ruralists..
An exhibition that has opened at the Victoria Gallery, Bath.
Paul Nash’s Eclipse of the Sunflower is there, also Druid Landscape, Megalithic Landscape and work by Graham Sutherland, and The Ruralists of course who lived in Wiltshire, Inshaw painted Silbury and the Owl. Small portion of megalithic paintings there but they are split over the two exhibitions....
victoriagal.org.uk/index.cfm?alias=ancient
Catalogue £20!
English Heritage launches online TV
English Heritage, in association with The History Channel, have launched a new selection of short films – some dealing with Silbury Hill and Stonehenge.*
‘A walk through the tunnel’ is one such film and shows the scale of damage inflicted on Silbury when a tunnel was dug into it in 1968. The film is presented by Jim Leary and also shows some of the finds made during recent consolidation work at the monument. It’s a little puzzling why this information was not made available to the public during the consolidation work, via English Heritage’s Silbury Updates webpage, and to date there is still no link from that page to this new EHTV website.
July 30, 2008
A dig to unearth the remains of a 14th Century manor house and stone circle is to take place in the Lake District.
The search will take place at Castlerigg, near Keswick, where there is already a well-preserved stone circle dating from 3,000 BC.
The hunt is taking place after a farmer found what he believed to be the remains of a manor in his field.
It will be lead by Bassenthwaite Reflections with the permission of English Heritage.
Volunteers with an interest in history are being urged to take part.
A spokesman for the Castlerigg survey, said: “Aerial photographs and ground searches have revealed markings of two potentially important sites.
“There are 14th century references to the castle, which was abandoned around 1460. Notes written in 1770 state the ancient seat of the lords of the manor of Derwentwater went into ruins.
“In trying to find evidence of the manor we’ll be looking for building foundations and trenches.
“Our volunteers will also be asked to try to find buried stones or filled in sockets which might have formed a ring.”
Archaeology, ecology, local food and folklore – this Friday at Simonside, organised by Northumberland National Park with support from the Forestry Commission and local landowners.
see:
journallive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-news/2008/07/29/family-discovery-day-at-simonside-61634-21421294/
July 25, 2008
Day of lectures about Cadbury Castle and its landscape.
Saturday 20th September 2008, North Cadbury Village Hall, 9.30am – 4.30pm.
Speakers: Dr richard Tabor, Clare Randall, Susan Jones
Details and booking form: www.southcadbury.org.uk
Press release;
A Victory for Democracy and Accountability;
Local councillors have hailed the decision of the High Court to block housing at Bullinghope as a victory for local democracy and accountability. On Thursday 24th July the Court ruled that Herefordshire Council had manipulated the democratic UDP process to allocate land for housing at Bullinghope simply to fund the Rotherwas Road .
Campaigners have hailed the decision of the High Court to rule out housing at Bullinghope to fund a road scheme as a late but welcome victory for better town planning processes in Herefordshire.
Dinedor Hill Action Association had brought an action to the High Court under Section 287 of the Town and Country Planning Act.
The Court ruled that the Council had manipulated the democratic UDP process to allocate land for housing at Bullinghope simply to fund the Rotherwas Road and had thus:
- ignored the findings of the Unitary Development Plan enquiry
- Given inadequate consideration to the impact of development on the area
- Prejudiced a proper countywide assessment of future housing
DHAA spokesperson Peter Cocks said: “This victory puts the Council on notice that it must adhere more closely to proper planning processes. The Council must not use inappropriate housing development to fund new roads.”
“Allowing more housing in this area would have set an appalling precedent for urban sprawl in Hereford with all the implications that has for the destruction of valuable countryside and increasing traffic congestion. We are delighted that the High Court has backed the original decision of the planning inspector.”
“By not following proper practice the Council forced local people to go to the High Court at tax payer expense. This is completely unnecessary and all the Council need to do to avoid it in future is follow the rules and stop treating the public with contempt.”
“The cabinet has shown its willingness to trash the environment and its own policies on affordable housing in order to get big housing developers to buy it roads to nowhere. This is not a good sign. In fact, when climate change and the demand for 16,000 new households should be top priorities, it’s appalling. This judgement means no more big houses in the wrong places.”
“Cabinet need to show in future that they can follow simple procedures so that they avoid being reprimanded like this in future.”
July 24, 2008
nice pics again orkneyjar.com/archaeology/nessofbrodgar/index.html
July 18, 2008
Out of the Ordinary – Earth Mysteries Festival
A unique knowledge sharing experience
12th – 14th September – Equinox Full Moon near the Long Man of Wilmington in Sussex
Earth mysteries, ancient & forbidden knowledge, consciousness, healing, spirituality, sacred sound, live music, performers, community, green energy and spreading the love.
OOTO is a magical family event that resonates with the rhythms of the cosmos. The focus of the festival is education, healing and then entertainment. (Edutainment) We are building a stone circle on the site dedicated to world peace, called the “Peace circle”.
Last year, using ancient techniques, we aligned the stone circle to the equinox sun and this year we will be aligning the circle to equinox full moon, this is not to be missed!
Please visit our website:
outoftheordinaryfestival.com
and join us on Myspace:
myspace.com/outoftheordinaryfestival
or on Facebook:
tinyurl.com/OOTO-facebook-group
July 15, 2008
posting this as finally some photos (and short vid) that show something, including a peeled stone orkneyjar.com/archaeology/ringofbrodgar/index.html