27 August 2011 CE
Images
The remains of some of the 50-60,000 posts stretched in 5 rows across the marsh and meadows of Flag Fen. The visitor centre here houses some of the offerings given-up on the site (from different parts of the UK) such as swords, stones, axe heads and jewellrey.
12/06/2005 CE
A Drove Road. Part of the Flag Fen field system (best seen from above), “lined by ditches planted with hedges (probably winter hard wood cuttings such as Hawthornes, Slow & Dog Rose) in shallow banks to make hedges. The road was built to drive cattle & sheep into fields & open fen without disturbing livestock. This is known as the ground is rich in phosphates from animal dung. It also contained sheep and cattle bones”.
12 June 2005 CE
July 1991
Entrance to one of the Bronze Age round houses.
Who lives in a house like this? – me please!
Bronze Age round house. Weaving frame complete with loom weights.
Bronze Age round house.
Bronze Age round house. I’m not sure if the chairs are a bit fanciful – I almost expected a little gnome to be sat on one!
Inside the Iron Age round house. It looks a bit sparse – I’m sure there would have been more decoration.
Another view of the trackway. The lines of posts are from (roughly) left to right.
Remains of the Bronze Age trackway. The lines of posts are from the bottom left to top right (following the line of the large timber in the middle and also marked by the info boards attached to the wooden railings).
Taken 24th July 2002: This is a shot showing the inside of the reconstructed Bronze Age round house, with William (aged 3 if you’re wondering about scale) doing some ‘cooking’.
Image credit: Simon Marshall
Taken 24th July 2002: This is the apex of the roof inside the Bronze Age round house. There’s a similar shot of the same bit of roof, before the reed and turf was added, on the Flag Fen Web site:
eastmidlands.info/flagfen/iron_age_roundhouse.htm
Image credit: Simon Marshall
Taken 24th July 2002: This is one of the reconstructed Bronze Age round houses at Flag Fen. It’s based on findings from an excavation at Fengate in 1976.
Image credit: Simon Marshall
Taken 24th July 2002: This is the best shot I managed to get of the timbers that are on display at Flag Fen. The room that houses them is very dimly lit, and sprinklers run every few minutes to keep the timbers wet.
These timber are the remains of a wooden platform which dates back to circa 1300 BCE and is thought to have been used for ritual purposes. The platform was in use for about 400 years.
Image credit: Simon Marshall
The Iron Age hut reconstruction at Flag Fen. Ah, takes me back . . .
Image credit: Andie Gilmour (Serenissima)
Articles
Another update on Flag Fen:
Eight Bronze Age boats discovered in a deep Cambridgeshire quarry are much older than it was first thought, carbon-dating research has revealed.
This site is about two miles from Flag Fen and it is where the boats will end up for conservation work. Probably ties up with Rhiannon’s news. (Most news is old news)
3,000-year-old fleet discovered in a Cambridgeshire quarry on the outskirts of Peterborough
A fleet of eight prehistoric boats, including one almost nine metres long, has been discovered in a Cambridgeshire quarry on the outskirts of Peterborough.
The vessels, all deliberately sunk more than 3,000 years ago, are the largest group of bronze age boats ever found in the same UK site and most are startlingly well preserved. One is covered inside and out with decorative carving described by conservator Ian Panter as looking “as if they’d been playing noughts and crosses all over it”. Another has handles carved from the oak tree trunk for lifting it out of the water. One still floated after 3,000 years and one has traces of fires lit on the wide flat deck on which the catch was evidently cooked.
Several had ancient repairs, including clay patches and an extra section shaped and pinned in where a branch was cut away. They were preserved by the waterlogged silt in the bed of a long-dried-up creek, a tributary of the river Nene, which buried them deep below the ground.
“There was huge excitement over the first boat, and then they were phoning the office saying they’d found another, and another, and another, until finally we were thinking, ‘Come on now, you’re just being greedy,’” Panter said.
The boats were deliberately sunk into the creek, as several still had slots for transoms – boards closing the stern of the boat – which had been removed.
Archaeologists are struggling to understand the significance of the find. Whatever the custom meant to the bronze age fishermen and hunters who lived in the nearby settlement, it continued for centuries. The team from the Cambridge Archaeological Unit is still waiting for the results of carbon 14 dating tests, but believes the oldest boats date from around 1,600 BC and the most recent 600 years later.
They already knew the creek had great significance – probably as a rich source of fish and eels – as in previous seasons at the Much Farm site they had found ritual deposits of metalwork, including spears.
The boats themselves may have been ritual offerings, or may have been sunk for more pragmatic reasons, to keep the timber waterlogged and prevent it from drying out and splitting when not in use – but in that case it seems strange that such precious objects were never retrieved.
Some of the boats were made from huge timbers, including one from an oak which must have had a metre-thick trunk and stood up to 20 metres tall. This would have been a rare specimen as sea levels rose and the terrain became more waterlogged, creating the Fenland landscape of marshes, creeks and islands of gravel.
“Either this was the Bermuda Triangle for bronze age boats, or there is something going on here that we don’t yet understand,” Panter said.
Kerry Murrell, the site director, said: “Some show signs of long use and repair – but others are in such good condition they look as if you could just drop the transom board back in and paddle away.”
The boats were all nicknamed by the team, including Debbie – made of lime wood, and therefore deemed a blonde – and French Albert the Fifth Musketeer, the fifth boat found. Murrell’s favourite is Vivienne, a superb piece of craftsmanship where the solid oak was planed down with bronze tools to the thickness of a finger, still so light and buoyant that when their trench filled with rainwater, they floated it into its cradle for lifting and transportation.
Because the boats were in such striking condition, they have been lifted intact and transported two miles, in cradles of scaffolding poles and planks, for conservation work at the Flag Fen archaeology site – where a famous timber causeway contemporary with the boats was built up over centuries until it stretched foralmost a mile across the fens.
“My first thought was to deal with them in the usual way, by chopping them into more manageably sized chunks, but when I actually saw them they just looked so nice, I thought we had to find another way,” Panter, an expert on waterlogged timber from York Archaeological Trust, said. “I think if I’d arrived on the site with a chainsaw, the team would have strung me up.”
Must Farm, now a quarry owned by Hanson UK, which has funded the excavation, has already yielded a wealth of evidence of prehistoric life, including a settlement built on a platform partly supported by stilts in the water, where artefacts including fabrics woven from wool, flax and nettles were found. Instead of living as dry-land hunters and farmers, the people had become experts at fishing: one eel trap found near the boats is identical to those still used by Peter Carter, the last traditional eel fisherman in the region.
The boats will be on display from Wednesday at Flag Fen, viewed through windows in a container chilled to below 5c – funded with a £100,000 grant from English Heritage which regards their discovery as of outstanding importance – built within a barn at the site. At the moment conservation technician Emma Turvey, dressed in layers of winter clothes, is spending up to eight hours a day spraying the timbers to keep them waterlogged and remove any potentially decaying impurities. They will then be impregnated with a synthetic wax, polyethylene glycol, before being gradually dried out over the next two years for permanent display.
Murrell is convinced there is more to be found down in the silt.
“The creek continued outside the boundaries of the quarry, so it’s off our site – but the next person who gets a chance to investigate will find more boats, I can almost guarantee it.”
guardian.co.uk/science/2013/jun/04/eight-prehistoric-boats-bronze-age
“Renowned Bronze Age archaeological site Flag Fen in Cambridgeshire will host a first-of-its-kind dig that makes the public integral to the project.
The idea combines both “crowdfunding” and “crowdsourcing”; for contributions starting at £125, donors can get their hands very dirty and dig for a day.
The venture’s website will also stream live video from the dig as well as host lectures and interviews with experts.”
More here...
Six dug out boats in excellent condition, textiles, woven fish baskets, wooden sword handles, a bowl of nettle stew complete with spoon...
guardian.co.uk/science/2011/dec/04/bronze-age-archaeology-fenland
“Flag Fen’s Archaeology Festival, part of National Archaeology Week 2007, will be officially opened by Francis Pryor on Sunday (22nd July) at 11.30am. Visitors will be able to try their hand at experimental archaeology, excavate real Roman remains and learn all about crafts like flint knapping, spinning and weaving.
Family tickets cost £16.75, adults £6, children £4.75 and concessions £5.50. Doors open at 10am and activities continue until 4pm.”
This page
24hourmuseum.org.uk/nwh_gfx_en/ART49286.html
unfortunately also describes the vandalism of moronic riff raff at the site, who smashed windows and gates and drove all over the herb garden – though the actual archaeology didn’t catch their attention, fortunately. They’re on cctv so may yet get their comeupance.
peterboroughnow.co.uk/news?articleid=2738561
The plans for the PREL’s waste plant were recommended for refusal by Peterborough City Council after widespread opposition. (This included fears that Flag Fen’s water levels would be adversely affected).
However, the final decision lies with the Secretary of State for Energy and the Government has already indicated that it wants Cambridgeshire and Peterborough to take 5.7 million tonnes of London’s waste by 2021. PREL has claimed it will only take waste from a 35-mile radius, and the plans will go before a public inquiry later this year when Government-appointed planning inspectors will make the final decision.
An archaeological dig is currently being undertaken at the site.
Peterborough City Council is to hold two public meetings about plans to build a renewable energy plant near the famous Flag Fen Bronze Age site.
Local residents and businesses will get the opportunity to question the company behind the £250 million, 29-acre waste processing energy park proposed for the site at Fengate in Cambridgeshire.
The two-hour meetings will be held on July 13 at Peterborough Central Library and on July 25 at Peterborough Town Hall Council Chamber.
The developers estimate that the plant could handle more than a million tonnes of waste each year. Innovative technology will then be used to generate electricity by burning the waste along with biomass (organic matter such as plants) at very high temperatures in an oxygen deficient environment.
Dr Pryor recognises the importance of renewable energy: “Anyone living in the fens has to be in favour of any electricity generation which doesn’t contribute to global warming and I’m wholly in favour, in principle. But,” he added, the location of the plant “seems to me really very insensitive.” While he considers the possibility of a visitor centre at the plant to be a good idea, he added: “It isn’t going to make up for the impact of the development.”
Responsibility for approving or disapproving the planning application lies with the Department for Trade and Industry. The city council has until September to compile a report and make comments for consideration.
For more information about the development visit prel-online.co.uk and to see the full planning application online see the Peterborough City Council website
peterborough.gov.uk/page-4166
Taken from the 24hourmuseum article at
24hourmuseum.org.uk/nwh_gfx_en/ART29265.html
A heritage campaigner has warned that Flag Fen could become the next Thornborough if plans to plans to build a waste processing plant near the famous Bronze Age site succeed.
George Chaplin told the 24 Hour Museum that a vast waste processing plant at Flag Fen could affect the site in the same way as quarrying has affected Thornborough.
“We at Time Watch are very concerned that Flag Fen could be turned into another Thornborough,” he said. “Sites like Flag Fen, which are already established as being extremely important, have been invested in,” he added, “and because of the investment we’ve already made what we should avoid at all costs is ruining that.”
The company behind the planning application is Global Olivine UK, which hopes to build a £220 million 38-acre waste processing plant to recycle waste and turn it into electricity.
While George suggested that many of the 20,000 visitors who flock to Flag Fen every year would inevitably be put off by the industrial plant, he also highlighted the potential for damage to archaeology still in the ground.
“We are concerned about the impact on archaeology by things like leakage,” he said, “and the impact on the local environment.” All this, he added, when instead we should be “turning Flag Fen into our archaeological flagship.”
His words follow the concerns, reported by the 24 Hour Museum last week, of Flag Fen Manager Toby Fox: “It’s absolutely on top of us. We are very concerned,” he said. “On a 30-acre site, the amount of rainfall that will hit a concrete slab and be used in the cooling towers will have a direct effect on the surrounding land,” he said. “It won’t be keeping the archaeological remains wet. We’re trying desperately to protect our heritage and we feel that this will compromise that.”
Heritage experts and members of the Flag Fen team are not the only worried voices. On June 23 it was reported in the city’s Evening Telegraph newspaper that Peterborough MP Stewart Jackson has called for a public inquiry into the plans. The same publication has also run stories relaying the reservations of residents and businesses in the area.
According to Peterborough City Council, the plans will not be approved or disapproved by them. Instead, because it is an electricity generating plant, it falls within the Electricity Act, putting responsibility for making a decision in the hands of the Department for Trade and Industry.
The council’s role is as one of several consultees who will advise the DTI on the application. Council officers will put together a report for councillors to consider, following which their views and recommendations will be presented to the DTI. The deadline for submission is late September.
Despite its restricted role, the council told the 24 Hour Museum that it would be taking archaeological, as well as other environmental, concerns into account.
“Council officers are carefully evaluating all aspects of the planning application,” reads a statement, “including the proposed development’s likely impact on highways, archaeological sites, air quality, landscape, wildlife, ground water regime, water pollution, waste management and noise nuisance to nearby residential and commercial properties.”
The 24 Hour Museum tried to contact Global Olivine, but calls and emails were unanswered.
From the article at the 24 Hour Museum
24hourmuseum.org.uk/images/head_nwh.gif
From PeterboroughNow 16 June 2005
In a clash between ancient history and new technology, fears have been raised that Peterborough’s renowned Flag Fen site could be forced to close if a giant waste plant is built.
Each year, more than 20,000 people visit the celebrated site in Fourth Drove, Fengate, which is recognised as one of the most important Bronze Age sites in Europe.
It was discovered by Dr Francis Pryor in 1982 when a piece of timber was spotted sticking out of the peat by archaeologists looking for a Roman road.
Since then, hundreds of relics have been discovered, including Britain’s oldest wheel, and Dr Pryor has gone on to find television fame as part of the BBC’s Time Team.
Today, the last day for public objections to be lodged, he said he had “serious reservations” about the controversial plans to build the Global Olivine energy-from-waste recycling site, which will cover 29 acres and dwarf Flag Fen.
He said: “The proposal as it currently stands gives me serious worries that it will adversely affect the undisturbed archaeological deposits on the site.
I also have concerns about the visual impact of the scheme and the way this will affect how visitors experience our Flag Fen.”
continues here...
A time-travelling family is back in the 21st century this week . . . after going back to the Bronze Age!
For the Pogmores are now enjoying the luxuries of modern life after taking part in a reality TV programme on ITV’s Central News. As revealed last month, dad Phil (38), mum Vickie (35) and six of their seven children had to face life without coffee, chocolate and mobile phones for the week, filmed at archaeological site Flag Fen in Peterborough. But after returning back to a normal family life again, dad Phil reckoned life back in 3000BC wasn’t all that bad.
“I’d go back like a shot. I loved it,” he said. “There were no telephones, TVs or computer games, no hustle and bustle . . . it was great.”
...story continues here...
Six members of the Pogmore family are spending a week living in a Bronze Age roundhouse.
The experiment, organised by Carlton Television, is taking place at the Flag Fen Bronze Age visitor’s centre.
The Pogmores are dad Phil (38), mum Vickie (35), Keeley (19), Gavin (17), Phil (15), Claire (14), and 12-year-old twins Steven and Brendan.
They are living and sleeping in a roundhouse typical of the age.
Visited 27/05/2016
I had a few hours to kill in Peterborough so thought I would head off to Flag Fen rather than aimlessly around the shops. My expectations were low as I do not usually enjoy these reconstructed educational parks, however, it was a nice day and so I decided I might as well at least enjoy a walk there and back. I headed for the Perkins Industrial Estate, down Fourth Drove and soon found myself in open countryside on a pathway that led directly to Flag Fen, through an open gate and into the park at the opposite end to the visitor centre and payment desk free to wander round at leisure. It was a Friday and with the exception of a school trip I seemed to be the only other person there which left me a little worried as to whether the place was closed to the public and whether I should be there or not. In any case I spent a most enjoyable couple of hours there, the place is really dedicated to trying to show how fen people may have lived in the iron age and includes a reconstructed round house, a building housing remnants of a wooden walkway across the fen and a building housing a movie hall and the preservation site for wooden boats discovered at the nearby Must Farm. A further building held exhibits featuring articles found during excavation and various archaeological digs. For the school kids there was also a building housing a mock dig site where they could indulge themselves and run off some energy. The park included a reconstructed Drove and marked out the line of the old Roman Road from Peterborough to Norwich. Pleased I had decided to visit, and surprised how much there was there, I slipped out the back gate and was soon swallowed up by the Industrial Estate and eventually spat out into the Queensgate shopping centre all of which rather left me wondering which time period I would rather be living in. I resolved the little matter of entrance fee just in case you thought I was freerolling!
Visited 7.4.13
Directions:
Well signposted from the eastern side Peterborough.
It was a long journey but we had finally arrived at our destination – the famous Flag Fen. Probably like many reading this it had been a place I had wanted to visit for a number of years and it did seem slightly surreal to actually be here at last. We parked in the car park and quickly crossed the bridge into the visitor’s centre.
We were met by a very helpful chap at reception who provided up with a map and a quick overview of the site. There is also a small shop and café area.
Despite being a lovely sunny day, I was surprised to find that except for a handful of other people we were the only ones there, so pretty much had the place to ourselves.
We visited the reconstructed Bronze Age / Iron Age round houses, the Soay sheep (plus new born lambs which Sophie in particular liked), museum and of course the famous wooden causeway. I had seen the wooden planks both on TV and in books and I must confess in real life it looks just as confusing – little more than a jumble of wood. It does take a fair degree of the ‘eye of faith’ to see it for what it actually is.
It took us about an hour to go all around the site before we headed back for a cuppa and a sit outside on the veranda. It was a very peaceful place to be although I would imagine (hope) it gets a lot busier in the summer? It only cost £8.00 for a family ticket and was well worth the entrance fee.
I am pleased to report that Flag Fen lived up to my expectations and I guess the only disappointment was not seeing Francis Pryor lurking about amongst the reeds!
Although we did see a heron close up and a fox lurking in the undergrowth.
Flag Fen is well worth the effort of a visit – I am sure you won’t be disappointed.
I first came to this site in 1985 when it was little more than a tent sheltering an excavation team. It was fascinating literaly seeing another World, that had been buried for thousands of years, unearthed before your eyes. Twenty years later I revisit Flag Fen to find an established visitor centre built to preserve these Bronze Age findings and to challenge our understanding of this, and other, Bronze Age societies. Flag Fen is perhaps more exciting to visit now as more is known about the place and this, in turn, excites as you can only wonder at what is yet to be discovered.
Visually Flag Fen is not the most eye-tingling place to visit and yet you sense that this is perhaps a very important historical site and ancient place of pilgrimage. Because the remains of this allignment are made of wood they must be difficult to excavate and even harder to preserve once excavated. In a way this gives the place more of a living history feel and all the more exciting.
The surrounding area, complete with an excavated section of Roman Road built on top of the Bronze Age allignment, recreates a Bronze Age settlement with huts and sheep from breeds farmed thousands of years ago. As much as this only recreates what we understand to have beeen around in antiquity Flag Fen is all the better for educating about the Bronze Age and for paying homage.
A display shows what Flag Fen intend for the future with more excavations planned. I look forward to revisiting it in another 20 years.
I’d never got round to visiting Flag Fen but after reading Francis Pryor’s Seahenge book my appetite was well and truly whetted. As it was Fathers Day I had parental visiting obligations to attend to before heading off towards Peterborough and having made a late start as usual, it was 3pm before I got there. I was worried about navigating around the southeastern side of the city after I had left the A1 but luckily Flag Fen is well signposted on the Peterborough ring-roads and it’s easy enough to follow the signs out through an industrial estate and then out into the low lying fens to the site itself. When I got there I was rather surprised to see only 6 cars in the car-park – not that I was complaining, I think most of them belonged to the staff who were very helpful and informative giving me a potted history of the site. Just outside the centre I noticed a container of umbrella’s for the use of visitors on wet days – I thought that was a nice touch.
First stop was the Preservation Hall, lots of displays and information on the way in and ‘atmospheric’ music playing unobtrusively inside. Many people might not get excited at what seems like a random jumble of old timbers on display inside the building but it’s not everyday you get to see the remains of a bronze age trackway still in situ. Thanks to the info boards it’s possible to work out the individual lines of posts that formed the 1 kilometre link between the dry raised areas of Fengate and Northey between 3300 and 2900 years ago.
Next stop were the reconstructed Bronze Age round houses. I was surprised at the amount of room inside while at the same time still being cosy – I want one! The interior was laid out as they believed these dwelling may have looked, with carved wooden beds, weaving frames, tables as well as a hearth etc but there was no sign of any reproduction bronze tools – probably thought to be a bit too ‘portable’ to leave on display.
Next up was the Holme-next-the-Sea timbers housed in their own barn – I’ll cover those in the Seahenge section.
By now I was getting short of time (Flag Fen closes at 5pm) so I only had time for a quick look at the rather fine Iron Age round house and like the others it was well furnished inside with suitable tables, beds, benches, wooden and pottery bowls and frame for the preparation of animal skins. A quick look at the excavated section of Roman road and then onto the museum. It’s only small but has a decent display of the various finds from the site including part of what is believed to be the earliest wheel so far found in Britain. I tried to get a photo but it was on a revolving ‘thingy’ and in the low light the picture came out blurred. My favourite displays though were the bronze swords, daggers and spear heads – the ones shown on the front cover of the ‘Seahenge’ book, for those that have it.
Time to go before the staff shut the gates and there were still parts of the site I hadn’t looked at or had had to rush, the web site recommends a couple of hours to look at everything, I would suggest much longer. Nice place, nice day out.
Details of site on Pastscape
Flag Fen is the site of a major Bronze Age wetland site. The site comprises a raised timber walkway of 1km long leading to a platform of around 3.5 acres in area. Associated with the post alignment are discrete deposits of ceramics and metalwork that shows evidence of deliberate damage, indicating ritual use of the site. Some artefacts may have been made specifically for water deposition whereas other examples, especially of pottery, appear to be genereal domestic wares. There is some suspicion that some of the metal artefacts date to the Iron Age and are associated with later relationships between the site and people from the surrounding area. The platform has been radiocarbon dated to between 1000 and 660BC, within the Late Bronze Age. The post alignment has been assigned a date of use from between 1300 and 900 BC from dendrochronology which would suggest that it is slightly earlier than the platform, although there is some overlap in the date ranges.
Nearby are the remains of Early Bronze Age field systems which went out of use in the early first millenium BC, around the same time as the construction of the platform. It is thought that the field systems are indicative of a settlement on the edge of the fen, also inferred by faunal remains and the domestic pottery finds.
The site is now operated as an open air museum with a visitor centre.
English Heritage. 2012. ‘English Heritage: The National Heritage List for England’, http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1406460 [Accessed 27-MAR-2012]
This is the new official Fag Fen website with a nice wizzy intro and more modern look, it also seems to have rebranded itself as an ‘Archaeology Park’. The old website at flagfen.com is still there at the moment.
Research document chronicling one of Europe’s most important Bronze Age excavations went up in smoke in 2000. What an awful story!
The Sea Henge timbers are in storage at Flag Fen. I’ve posted my photos of them to the Sea Henge section of the site.
Sites within 20km of Flag Fen
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Must Farm Logboats
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Peterborough Stone
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Robin Hood and Little John
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Peakirk Moor Ringwork
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Maxey Henge
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Maxey Cursus
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Deeping St Nicholas
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Barnack
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Monk’s Holes
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