Jane
I’ve been struggling for ages now to know how to convey what I felt about Brodgar.
I have deep emotional attachments to two sites which have built up over years of repeated visits: Uffington White Horse and the Rollright stones. I am moved everytime I see them.
And though I am frequently ‘wowed’ by new places, rarely do I feel ‘love at first sight’ for a place. But Brodgar... whatever I say will not be enough. It is wild, carefree, astonishingly beautiful, rugged and -in the truest sense of the word- awesome.
The effort to get here is immediately rewarded and the length of the journey 100% worth it. It’s situation on a ribbon of land between two lochs is a master stroke of dramatic genius from whoever decided to build it here. Each stone is gnarled, weather beaten and beautiful like the face of a beloved grandfather. And the angle of tilt of the henge reminded me of the angle of the tilt of the Earth itself.
In a matter of a few minutes we saw Brodgar in all weather conditions, the most stunning good fortune, however, was the appearance of rainbow, which turned this most magical of places into The Sublime.
We returned to Brodgar every day of our week on Orkney.
By Tony Gussin of the North Devon Gazette.
The silent earth of Exmoor has given up some of its secrets in the form of a prehistoric home dating back 3,500 years.
Members of the North Devon Archaeological Society were thrilled to uncover the remains of a Bronze Age round house as they carried out a two-week excavation at a site near Parracombe.
It was the third year a dig has taken place on the site, and last year the team uncovered an almost complete prehistoric pot, now on display at the Museum of Barnstaple and North Devon.
But although nothing as intact was found this time, the group was still delighted when members uncovered a series of stone clad ‘post holes’ clearly marking out where the walls of a round house once stood.
Similar to a replica which can be seen near Braunton Burrows, the structure would have had a conical thatched roof and measured around 30 feet across.Continues...
Surprisingly, it’s quite a long drive down to the southern end of South Ronaldsay island, which you can reach from Mainland thanks to the Churchill barriers. But the Tomb of the Eagles is SO well worth it.
The tomb was discovered, excavated and is now run as a family business by Ron Simison, now well into his 70s, who had the vision to understand and realise the potential of the tomb and it’s contents as a major tourist attraction. But don’t be put off by that. This ain’t Disneyland.
Part of the Simison family farm has been converted into a visitor centre with car park, shop and ticket booth (where Ron’s daughter-in-law took our entrance fees of 3 quid) and a splendid exhibition area. Ron’s granddaughter gave us a lecture on the artifacts found in the tomb and allowed us to handle some of them. She showed us the skulls of people buried there and put the whole of the place into the context of neolithic Orkney. We hadn’t even seen the tomb yet and were already having a great time.
Next, donning foul weather gear to face the best of Orcadian summer days, we made our way down the path towards the Bronze Age house and Liddell burnt mound which Ron had also discovered and excavated. To my delight, Ron was there and would be our guide. Softly spoken, witty, knowledgeable and, refreshingly, without a care for diplomacy, he launched into his fascinating spiel. He showed us quern stones and tools he’d found and described everyday Bronze Age practices based on what he’d dug up here. All six of us thought Ron was a wonderful, admirable man. I felt quite starstruck to have met him, actually.
And then on to the main event: a short walk towards the cliffs and the tomb itself!
The tomb, built into the cliff edge like an eyrie, is certainly no more dramatic or unusual in it’s construction than other Orcadian tombs, like Wideford or Unstan. What makes this special is the fact that it’s so much part of the landscape; no wonder it wasn’t identified until Ron stumbled across it.
The entrance is low and long and you get in by lying on an oversized skateboard and hauling yourself along with a conveniently placed rope. Inside the tomb there are stalls and side chambers, a bit like a cross between Blackhammer and Fairy knowe. For striking dramatic effect, one of the side chambers is lit from within and houses a collection of skulls.
All six of us were all very excited about this place. The whole ‘Tomb of the Eagles Experience’ was thorough, in good taste, personal, meaningful, informative and thought-provoking. Even Cloudhigh and Jamesie, who are not tomb-chasers like the rest of us, thought so. Certainly one of the highlights of Orkney.
We took the cliff top path back to the farm and below us watched fulmars and kittiwakes soaring, gullimots and razorbills diving and seals bobbing around in the sea below us.
from BBCi
Druids tried to spiritually clean them but now it is a vet’s turn to see if he can physically restore them to health.
The ancient Rollright Stones on the Oxfordshire/Warwickshire border have been off-colour ever since vandals daubed them in bright yellow paint.
Hi-tech ultrasound equipment used by vets to clean plaque from animals’ teeth is now to be used in an attempt to restore the stones. It is hoped the device will leave rare lichen on the stones untouched. Continues...
by Lynn Jackson, from This is East Dorset
AN AMBITIOUS project to uncover ancient archaeological remains dating back to the Bronze Age is due to start in east Dorset next month.
A team led by archaeologists from Bournemouth University plans to investigate a number of round barrows from around 2000BC at Knowlton Circles, south of Cranborne, as well as other ancient monuments along the Allen Valley.
Historians believe this part of Dorset was heavily occupied 4,000 years ago, but very little is known about how these early people lived.
Project leader John Gale, who is organising this summer’s dig with both university students and local volunteers, said: “It could be very exciting. There are hundreds of round barrows in this area, although many are hard to spot on the surface.
“Ancient monuments on Cranborne Chase have been relatively well studied but there’s been very little excavation work carried out in the Knowlton area and along the Allen Valley.
“The last major dig in this part of Dorset was sometime in the 1890s, but since then it’s hardly been looked at.”
As well as Bronze Age remains, archaeologists have also unearthed evidence of a nearby Romano-British settlement dating back to the first century AD.
Now, the university-led team hopes to do more exploratory work on this widespread site, with a view to carrying out excavations over the next four years.
Students and volunteers are set to start the dig on August 9, and will be on site six days a week, with Saturdays off.
Visitors are welcome to come and see how the work is progressing.
Published 27 July 2004
From BBCi, 22 July 2004
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3915397.stm
Excavations are set to begin at what experts have described as one of the most important archaeological sites in Scotland.
They are trying to discover exactly how much damage was done by a major fire at the site last year.
The dig is taking place on Traprain Law, a hill near East Linton in East Lothian.
The area is noted as having been a major population centre in the late Bronze Age, 3,000 years ago.
In 2003, a fire started by a discarded cigarette end burned through grass and vegetation, damaging some historical remains and exposing others to potential erosion.
It left an unstable mixture of soil, mud and ash.
Investigators are now examining the worst affected areas hoping to carry out rescue and rehabilitation work.
Among the early finds in the current operation have been parts of a mediaeval building, as well as ancient tools, pottery and beads.
In the period AD 80 to 400 Traprain Law’s inhabitants had regular contacts with Roman visitors.
A huge hoard of Roman silver items was found on the hill in 1919.
July 19, 2004
form icNorthWales
EXPERTS have been brought in to help turn ancient bronze age copper workings in North Wales into a major tourist attraction.
Focus for the Copper Mountain project, which includes the old port of Amlwch in Anglesey, will be the historic Mynydd Parys mines and open cast sites. These played a major part in launching the industrial revolution in Britain and western Europe.
Now the mountain will be at the centre of a two-pronged bid to get visitors rolling in.
The Amlwch Industrial Heritage Trust has taken on consultants Gifford and Partners to draw up a detailed conservation management plan. The brief is to outline a programme of repair and restoration.
Another company, Parkin Heritage and Tourism, will draw up a development study and business plan.
The two reports will form the basis for future bids for funding.
On July 27 a team from Gifford will be setting up a day-long surgery at Amlwch Town Hall to get local opinions.
Project archaeologist Babita Sharma said: “We hope to speak to people to understand how they feel about their unique heritage.”
16 July 2004, from 24hourmuseum.org.uk
Yorkshire campaigners opposing the proposed planning application by Tarmac Northern to quarry close to Thornborough Henges in North Yorkshire, say the application contravenes the local council’s policy on quarrying in the area.
Heritage Action claim that North Yorkshire County Council’s ‘Minerals Action Plan’, which regulates mineral extraction and quarrying in the region, recommends a reduction in the supply of sand and gravel from the county by 500, 000 tonnes per year.
This they maintain is not consistent with Tarmac’s proposed plans to quarry the nearby Ladybridge area. Continues here...
I seem to get lucky with rainbows :-)
Image credit: Jane Tomlinson
If it weren’t for Ron Simison (pictured right) the Tomb of the Eagles would probably be undiscovered and certainly unexcavated. This man is not only a hero, he is also very knowledgable, entrepreneurial, pioneering and exceptionally witty. Here, TMA contributor ‘Hob’ (pictured left) enjoys Ron’s sparkling dry wit.
Image credit: Jane Tomlinson
Rennibister souterrain was ‘discovered’ in the 20th century when it collapsed under the weight of a tractor passing over it!
It has since been reconstructed and is really impressive. The Historic Scotland information board describes how it was a underground food store, it’s entrance within the floor of a round house.
The length of the souterrain:
The grille on the ground nearest the camera is at the furthest end of the souterrain. You can see Moth just climbing out of the entrance which is at the other end.
Image credit: Jane Tomlinson
The square entrance with metal ladder doesn’t exactly ‘invite’, does it?
Image credit: Jane Tomlinson
Nothing to see here except a VERY large grassy mound.
Image credit: Jane Tomlinson
Not much to see here at all, except a very large grassy mound, and no trace of any entrance.
The very friendly farmer whose land it lies on, told us it was excavated in 1974.
As at many sites in the care of Historic Scotland, a large weatherproof box can be found next to the tomb containing a powerful large torch to aid the visitor’s enjoyment of the site.
I want the job of going round all the sites on Orkney checking if the battery still works :-)
Can you imagine this polite -quaint even!- thoughtfulness on the part of the authorities lasting more than 5 minutes in England?Some miserable twat would undoubtedly half-inch in.
Image credit: Jane Tomlinson
The lane cuts through part of one of the cairns outer circles.
Image credit: Jane Tomlinson
Away from the main clava cairns, walking west for 500ms, is this peculiar place, clearly part of the larger complex.
Image credit: Jane Tomlinson
The long cairn lies just north of the round cairn and dominates the horizon.
Image credit: Jane Tomlinson
Restored in 1980. And quite a nice job they made of it, too.
Image credit: Jane Tomlinson
Despite the fact that this ‘stone circle’ is within the village of Aviemore, I quite liked its semi-urban location, nestling like a village green ground suicide-grey bungalows at the back of the fire station.
Moth had spotted this one in TMA but I had completely overlooked it. But we were so close we had to swing by. I had no expectations whatsoever. I thought maybe they were just another couple of unassuming cairns. But noooooo! These are Mighty Rock Monsters! And there are two of them.
The main one is a long – really long!- cairn made of piles of stones and with rather neat edges that stretches on for about 50 metres I guessed, possibly even more. At the ‘top’ end it even has a horned forecourt effect. As I approached on the polite wooden walkways that take you over the boggy ground, I saw that the passage entrances to the long cairn (there are two entrances) had nasty iron gates on them. It didn’t look promising. However, they were only shut rather than locked (presumably to keep animals out), so I bent over and shuffled in towards the huge interior chamber, built in the style typical of round these parts and on parts of Orkney, with neat flat stones, delicate corbelling and vertical stalls.
A round cairn, build in the same way, of piles of grey stones stands about 500ms away and is equally as nice, but much smaller.
Why isn’t this fantastic place better-known?!
I wanted to get off the paths and look for some standing stones marked on the map just to the south, but I had noticed that on virtually every tussock or bush was a large, fuzzy, brown caterpillar. Caterpillars freak me out, so I was unable to. In fact the more I looked, the more caterpillars I saw. I trod carefully back to the car.
Uffington White Horse and its Landscape
Investigations at White Horse Hill Uffington, 1989-95 and Tower Hill Ashbury, 1993-4.
by D Miles, S Palmer, G Lock, C Gosden and A M Cromarty
Oxford Archaeology Thames Valley Landscapes Monograph 18 (2003)
ISBN 0947816771
£24.95
What I hadn’t anticipated was the depth of the ditch, which is pretty complete all the way round. The construction of this part of the monumnet alone is astonishing.
Image credit: Jane Tomlinson
The silhouette of the circle against the big tall skies hereabouts never failed to impress. That this is a monument to the heavens was quite obvious to me.
Image credit: Jane Tomlinson
At times the sky really was this blue. And the light it cast showed up the ‘grain’ of the stones.
Image credit: Jane Tomlinson
Strange place and we couldn’t get close up to have a poke about to investigate properly. Looks like a cairn or mound with a coupla standing stones sticking out of it. Very odd. Fantastic views of the Brough of Birsay from here!
It’s in the middle of a small housing estate, next the fire station. Rather incongruous, but I quite liked it.
Image credit: Jane Tomlinson
This didn’t immediately ‘wow’ me like I thought it would. It wasn’t that I was disappointed exactly but I didn’t get that ‘buzz’. It was only when I got up very close to the individual stones, particularly the really wafer thin one, that this place excited me. The angle of the top of each stone was thrilling and had a really angry graphic quality.
I was surprised by the little henge it was in, which seemed too small for the height and sharpness of the stones. My God! When all the stones were up it must’ve been quite an intimidating sight!
Unstan is a great example of a stalled tomb and is particularly easy to access. No expensive ferry fares to Rousay, no long drive over the Churchill barriers to Isbister, no entry fees or booking required, easy parking, easy to find. But just because it’s easy, don’t think it’ll let you down. It’s great.
From the outside, the knowe is tall – about 2.5ms, I guess, and unlike many Orcadian tombs which are built on slopes, stands proud from it’s flat base like an upturned pudding basin. It doesn’t have a henge like Maeshowe.
A mercifully short stoop through a short passageway takes you into the chamber, which has been re-roofed with a concrete bowl with skylight. I like the way Historic Scotland have done this to many tombs on the islands as you still get a sense of the interior space and those wonderful stalls.
Drive up almost to the top of the hill, park and walk down to the tomb. It’s a horrible walk on a rough, well marked track for about 3/4 of a mile, but by christ, it’s worth it. What a fabulous tomb!
Nestling into the hillside, the crouching, squashy pancake layers of the mound don’t come into view until you’re quite close. It has a little passage entrance at the front – too low to get through – but on the top of the mound, which you just can’t resist climbing on, is a large horizontal metal sliding door. I pulled it back to reveal a dark gaping space with a metal ladder, inviting me to get in! I’d already grabbed the torch which Historic Scotland had politely left in a weatherproof box next to the information board, so down I went.
What magnificent construction! Corbelling just like at Maeshowe and Fairy Knowe – tight, precision engineering and a tall, tall chamber, boxy and with three side chambers and the front passageway going off it.
This was probably my favourite tomb of all on Orkney. Tons of character, fantastic views, beautiful construction, lots to discover and poke about with. It wasn’t long before Moth and Hob were inside, too, crawling into side chambers, squealing with delight, taking photos and generally having the sort of great time that only modern antiquarians do. Jacqui descended into the tomb and even Cloudhigh and claustrophobic Jamesie got in. It was quite a party.
Hob and Jacqui hadn’t been here and were going home next day. They didn’t have a car with them. We did. It was past 6.30 and it would probably be closed. But we went just on the off-chance. We got lucky AGAIN.
Avoid the commercialism. If you’re not bothered about buying postcards and want to have the place to yourself, do as we did and go after the visitor centre is closed at 6.30. Park in the empty car park. Walk round the side of the visitor centre towards the beach on the deserted grassy path. Follow the ‘time line’. Pay no fee. The four of us had the place to wander through, consider and be amazed at without coach parties or tour guides; the time to stare and wonder and think and imagine. Moth and I returned next day at the same time and with guide book in hand made our own tour.
Skara Brae was first place on Orkney where I got a real sense of the LIFE (rather than the death) of neolithic Orcadians. It was easy to imagine people living here: hear the low rumble of their voices, smell their dinner cooking, bump your head on the fish drying on racks over the fire, feel the smoke stinging your eyes, smell the damp sheepskins, hear a child crying for her mum from the warmth of her little stone slatted bedstead...
The people who lived here were no different from us. Their dreams and aspirations were precisely the same as ours: to feed, raise and love our families as comfortably as possible. You can be very close to them here.
Absolutely enchanting and unmissable.
I didn’t expect mighty megaliths or a Caithnessian Carnac, but I was mildly disappointed at first view that each stone was so very teeny.
But what they lack in size, they make up for in numbers. Mighty numbers! Rows and rows poke up through the heather, some a bit wiggly and knocked off course now, but many still running in straight lines down the hillside pointing in the direction of the coast.
It took me a while to like it here, but in the same way as one mackeral isn’t very impressive but a great shoal of fish all dancing together become beautiful, so did this place.
I had high hopes I’d be able to ‘do a Dorian’ (see page 424 of the big papery TMA) among the little stones here, but I was disappointed. The weather was too cold even to take ones gloves off, let alone reveal one’s cherry muffins.
Amid the modern paraphenalia of a bustling light industrial and trading estate on the edge of Kirkwall harbour hides this underground chamber. Vans and trucks rush past delivering crates of fish only metres from its weird surface mound, which is fenced off and locked.
Going down into it is really quite steep, though not as steep as Mine Howe. You descend about 3 metres into the ground. To the right is a small storage chamber area, about 1 metre cubed and the passageway leads off to the left, curving round slightly and running for about 4 ms. You have to stoop. It then opens up into a large chamber with four really extraordinarily beautiful pillars, with supporting capitals tied into the walls of the chamber. And lovely corbelling. Another masterpiece of construction. Take note ye architects of ugly industrial buildings! A functional building can be beautiful and long lasting!
Like many of the tombs and souterrains hereabouts, a powerful torch is provided for the visitor, this time by the keeper of keys in the jewellery shop round the corner.