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A visit to The Sanctuary, an ancient timber and then stone circle at the bottom of the Ridgeway and the A4

Early September 2009

Video of a visit to the Swallow Head Springs on August 1st 2009

A short video showing what LIDAR can do – you swoop in over Stonehenge, the Normanton Down barrows and the Cursus.

(The most surreal bit comes at the end when the ‘tile’ of this hugely detailed data is illuminated from different angles, as though the sun is moving through the day.)

The giant comes to life with this creative costume made using E L wire. I think it might be cruel to make one of the Uffington horse though.

Ah the thrill of fear as a child watching ‘Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious World’. This episode includes the Cerne Abbas Giant and some other English hill figures.

“The key to the giant’s identity may lie in something missing from the drawing: what did he have in his left hand?”

The locals report it’s supposed to be a head he’s chopped off – or a dog on a string. But an archaeologist gets involved with some geophysics equipment and appears to discover it was a cape, thus suggesting the figure is Hercules. He even gets out a bucket of whitewash and paints on the outline. To be honest the resulting figure looks quite convincingly balanced. But who knows – sometimes you find what you’re looking for, don’t you.

(Most is in part 2 but it’s worth seeing the end of part one not least for the strange local inhabitant).

A video clip of the Big Brother advert with the eye logo (posted by Chichclock). Though in light of the trampling at the Long Man in aid of Television, this almost seems tame now?

This You Tube presentation covers the first day of filming on the figure, including evidence of irresponsible practices on the part of ITV.

This is the You Tube video of the protest at the Long Man of Wilmington on Monday 2nd July 2007, against the stunt that involved 100+ women trampling all over the Long Man for the TV show “Trinny and Susannah Undress”

Clip from an episode of Robin of Sherwood (the eighties one, not the one on telly at the mo), entitled ‘Swords of Wayland’. – they don’t make them like they used too!

Hamish Miller dowses at the Merry Maidens. Video added by TScript.

You’ve not heard the tale of the Lambton Worm until you’ve heard it. Every child in the north-east knows it because of the famous song, written by C.M. Leumane in 1867 for a pantomime that was performed in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, at the Tyne Theatre. This website features a recording of the song, as sung by the children of Stobhillgate First School, in Morpeth, Northumberland. Spoken versions of the song’s lyrics are also available, in both the Northumbrian and the Geordie accent, as well as standard English. These files are fairly large, and take some time to download, so you’ll need to be patient. I should point out that the storytellers in the spoken versions have drastically slowed down the fast pace of their natural speech in order to make it easier for non-natives to understand. Also bear in mind that the website is an educational resource for schools, and so is aimed at children. This means that the tale is illustrated with cartoon-style animations, and also that the song can only be heard a verse at a time. Although this can be slightly annoying, the site is still well worth investigating, if you’ve never heard the tale of the Lambton Worm (or the true pronunciation of the name Penshah!).