Celtic Gods

One of the interesting things about research is that it throws up new ideas to follow through. Books that have not been read for a long time get picked off the shelf and thumbed through and so it is with my latest thinking on religion.
Firstly I had gone back to Miranda Green (The Gods of the Celts) for an overview on fertility goddesses. One of the interesting things about this area round Bath is the Romano-celtic overlap that is fairly strong. Before I have always put it down to the fact that 'Celtic' (the term should always be used loosely for it means several different tribes) soldiers in the Roman army often brought their own gods with them.
So for instance at Cirencester we have the Roman'three matres' icongraphy, a more homely version of hag, woman and maiden. The Roman intermingling of gods is well attested in the romano-celtic temples around here. We also have in Bath a schematised version of this trio, an abstract representation of the three mothers, abstract artwork is a major Celtic feature.
Cernunnos is also to be found in Cirencester, the horned god accompanied by his animals. Cernunnos was a major god in the Celtic pantheon, and it has been argued that he, like Shiva, was 'Lord of the Animals'. Shiva was also called Pasupati which had the same meaning.
Now this Indus-Europeanc strong connection is argued very strongly by Peter Berrisford Ellis in The Celts, firstly we have the figure of three, so important in the celtic tradition, he gives as examples the Hindu belief of the Trimurti consisting of Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Shiva the Destroyer, and there is even a triple image of Cernunnos in Gaul as well, though to be quite honest he normally appears as a single god. Anne Ross gives two good examples of Cernunnos/celtic god in two stories, which will be attached later, which finds him calling all the animals to him, we may even see him in the later figure of Pan. Cernunnos sits in the same lotus pose as many of the Hindu gods, though he wears the antlers of an earlier European age, he takes the posture of his eastern counterpart.
Irish history is served by three territorial goddessess - Eire, Banba, and Fotla, three craft gods Goibhniu, Luchta and Credhne and of course the three terrible Morrigan creatures, who personnified death and war - Macha, Badb and Nemain.
Ellis goes on to describe how Celtic philosopy developed and here I must quote for it is important to understand how the Celts saw the relationship between this middle earth and the 'otherworld'. Of how souls through reincarnation could move from one world to another, back and forth, an endless recycling; and it is important also to note that the concept of the patriachal Holy Trinity of the christian church was defined by a Celtic Gaulish bishop in his work De Trinitate...
but to quote;.
"This philosopy can also go deeper for the Celts saw Homo Sapiens as body, soul and spirit, the world was divided into earth, sea and air, the divisions if nature were animal, vegetable and mineral, and the cardinal colours were red, yellow and blue"

The language of the Celts, which can still be found in Irish or Welsh etymology had many names for the world around them, we only have one name for the sun or moon, but they would have had several, similar in fact to the eskimos who have many names for snow and its textures.
Amongst Irish mythology, the naming of the Otherworld's various geographical landscapes is like a fairytale telling; Tir na nOg (Land of Youth); Tir Taienigiri (Land of Promise); Tir na tSamhraidh (Land of Summer); Magh Mell(Plain of Happiness) Tir na mBeo (Land of the Living); (Magh Da Cheo (Plain of Two Mists) Tir fo Thuinn (Land Under the Wave); Dun Scaith (Fortress of Shadows).... Tolkein would have had a rich etymology here for the telling of his fabled The Ring.
But where is all this leading, this telling of tales, of course where it leads to is that basis on which our Celtic saints took with them ideas of the old celtic gods and transcribed them into the first native christian belief. ...............

This first story is from Ann Ross - Celtic Britain and concerns Finn and the Man in the Tree, the man is Dercc Corra Mac Hui Daighre (The Peaked Red One)which is of course a reminder of the peaked hoods, the cucullati wear
The story is simply told Finn whilst out in the woods spies a man in a tree, a blackbird on his right shoulder, he holds a bronze vessel in which a trout swims, and at the bottom of the tree is a stage. The man would take an acorn, crack it, give half to the blackbird and eat half himself. He would then take an apple, split it in half and give half to the stag. Then he would drink from the bronze vessel, and by so doing he, the blackbird, stag and fish drank together.
Though Cernunnos wears antlers, the 'peak' is fairly significant but it can sometimes be a mistake to match the icongraphy found in the celtic list to a descriptive passage found at a later date.

Miscellaneous

The plaited strings inside Silbury
Tired of churches for the time being, thoughts return to Silbury and its primary mound. I think this is to do with autumn and the absence of flowers in the garden. The primary mound revealed a whole host of wild flowers in the pollen and seeds analysised in Whittle's Sacred Mounds, Holy Rings book, that were in the surrounding land at the time it was built. Picking up Michael Dame's The Silbury Treasure and reading through the first chapters, an illustration of this inner mound came bouncing off the page, for he had drawn it with the 'strings' (plaited grass) radiating starlike from the centre. This was presumably to help (if we are to believe Dames) structuring the circular nature of the mound, the strings cutting through the wattle fencing which had been identified around the mound by Atkinson in his 1968 excavation, and also sarsen stones which would appeared to have circled the primary mound. One stone had of course offerings of bones and twigs, and to quote Dames;-
Dean Merewether...."Sarsens were also found at other places round the circumference of the vegetable core mound ' on top of some of these were observed fragments of bone, and small sticks, as of bushes, and, as I am strongly disposed to think, of mistletoe.... and two or three pieces of the ribs of either the ox or red deer..".
Now he rests this hypothesis of 'radiating strings' on very thin ground, a mention by Dean Merewether who wrote that;-
'on the surface of the original hill, were found fragments of a sort of string, of two strands, each twisted, composed of (as it seemed) grass, and about the size of whipcord'
but on such small matters theories are born, and it may well be the case, that the strings were used as guiding principles in the building.
Richard Atkinson's later description follows through from Dean Merewether; as he wrote in Antiquity..........

'Initially, a circular area about 20 metres dia was enclosed by a low fence, supported by widely spaced stakes. Subsequently a low circular mound of clay with flints 5 metres in dia and 0 .8 metres high was built in the centre of the enclosed area, and covered by a heap of stacked turf and soil extending outwards to the fence. This central core was then enclosed within four successive conical layers of mixed material dug out from the flood plain of the adjacent valley, to complete a primary mound with a dia of 34 metres and an estimated height of 5.25 metres.
So we have evidence in this enclosed primary mound, cut off from the light of day for 4000 years, of the captured past, there was no gold to be found, which the earlier antiquarians were so obsessed with, the 'heroic capitalism' as Dames beautifully puts it, that seeks treasures in the old tombs of the dead. A more simpler truth was to be found buried beneath the great weight of the larger mound of Silbury, plaited grass, small sarsen stones laid round the mound, and a wattle fence to keep the soil from slipping. The great treasure of course were the seeds, mosses, snail shells, small bones, fragments of a neolithic past - a small slice of knowledge in a vast sea of unknowing.
As for Dean Merewether's 'mistletoe' this also may or may not have been true, but a 19th century antiquarian with a fertile imagination and sacrificial stories of druids and golden knives cutting mistletoe, could also have given into a bit of wishful thinking that here in the heart of Silbury a branch of sacred mistletoe had been placed.
As a small note and considering that I have done a lot of reading into Sheel na gigs, Dames points to the fact that as he considered that Silbury had been built as a great fertility goddess, the shape of Silbury and its corresponding moat in the landscape resembling the 'pregnant neolithic goddess' found abroad in earlier neolithic context. There is also a tenacious thread that would see sheela na gigs as the same goddess fertility figure, especially in an Irish context.. Whether this 'celtic' imagery that you occasionally see in the Irish church , is a fertility goddess is impossible to say. But it is also possible that a faint echo of mythological females goddesses/queens that ruled in the early part of Irish history cannot be ruled out, the church transfiguring a goddess figure of fertility into a depiction of sin.

http://northstoke.blogspot.com/2007/05/silbury-hill-seeds.html

ref; Michael Dames - The Silbury Treasure

Fyfield Church

Notes; Fyfield Down is famous for the 'Celtic field system' still lightly sketched across the landscape. These prehistoric and Roman field boundaries form a lattice across the hillside. There is the possibility that the Roman field boundaries were still in use into the later Saxon era, and that the formation of Fyfield (its boundaries resemble a triangle), its apex on high on the marlborough Downs at Hackpen Hill, and it is believed that Fyfeld may have been a villa-estate in the late Roman period. This evidence is deduced on late 19th finds near Fyfield village. The evidence of the Roman road not following the modern A4 but taking its path from North Farm following a curve from 'Piggledene' sarsen stream, down Piper Lane, and probably somewhere near Fyfield Church. Acccording to a report by Gillian Swanton, the road is not the customary agger type but 'a sequence of road structures continues eastwards the line of the A4 from North Farm' and that this road is thought to be a sarsen road.

'Development'

this photo shows that the underground car park has been built to ground level .



My restoration theme continues, basically because I had forgotten what had sent this thread of thought off in my head. Yesterday I went into Bath to go to the railway station for something. Now many people who do not live in Bath will not know that this lower part of the city, called Southgate, has been razed to the ground for development. It is here that the railway and bus stations reside, a fulminating heart of comings and goings, only.............. the new bus station does not exist at the moment, but will I'm sure one day.

The Buseometer, though to be honest not quite sure why it is call that.

I took some photos of the chaos that now confront you, and read on the billboards that new shops and carpark were being created (just in time for the recession), though to be quite truthful the old 1960 Southgate complex was an eyesore, but some people do get upset about the tearing down of old buildings, someone once wrote a book called The Rape of Bath, after the 1960s bonanza of squared concrete buildings that were so hideously ugly.

The new buildings going up and the chaos it causes

Well we are to have another bonanzo of pseudo type 'classical buildings,' and I'm not being horrible here, and even the UNESCO delegate that just happened to be in town last week to see if Bath needed its World Heritage Site label removing, was given to remark that it was probably an improvement at Southgate to what had gone before. No they were here to look at the plans for another much larger development by the river Avon, called the Western Side project. A large acreage of disused land that was once home to the great manufacturing factories such as Stothert and Pitt. Again we have similar classical looking buildings to be built but in this case some of them will be 9 stories high, spoiling the symmetry of the real classical Georgian buildings on Bath skyline, and it is here that the fate of Bath depends, the arguments have been fierce.

A more tranquil scene of The Circus

Restoration

For several days I have been thinking of writing about restoration done to two longbarrows, Wayland's Smithy and West Kennet longbarrows, but inspiration is fickle and facts few. WKLB was restored after the excavation by Atkinson and Piggott in about 1956, and Wayland's Smithy in about 1960, again after excavation by these two archaeologists.
The argument is of course was it right to 'restore' the great sarsen megaliths, and were they restored to their original place. What we see today are tranquil pictures of how the stones may have looked in the past, we have no way of saying this is how it was, and nineteen century antiquarians have also occasionally got it wrong in their restorations.
Some barrows like Pentre Ifan are denuded of their top cover, and though the stones themselves are picturesque, they would not have been exposed when they were built, so sometimes it could be argued we have a false image of what was really happening.
Be that as it may, Wayland's Smithy in 2006 when I took the following photographs was a place of tranquillity and peace, and I spent a long time there, my next visit was to be on a sadder occasion with other people in the rain. Perhaps it is best to capture the Autumn colours of the first occasion.

Old Photo probably taken in the late 1930's, showing the longbarrow before restoration

The stones/peristalith round the barrow

A favourite photo of Moss trying to stare me out of stillness, and get the show on the road.

dappled sun and autumn leaves on the 4 facade stones, there should be 6, one to the far left, and one on the right.

The entrance, not sure of the 'originality' of this entrance

The stones caught in the shade of the beech trees

The back view, notice how neat the mound is.

Old Walks

Moss under Oldbury Hillfort


The weather is wet and miserable, even the race course was squelching under foot this morning, the sky had dark grey-purple clouds and the wind stung the cheek with its coldness. When the weather is bad autumn is a miserable affair, fireworks leave the dog a shivering wreck, they have been going on for days now, no gentle bangs but its as if someone is dropping bombs on the far side of Bath.
There are walks I have'nt been to for months, Brockham Wood for instance, walking down the path to emerge at the old Roman crossroads, now bisecting the golf course, past the horses and geese in the field and then skirting round to the next wood, with that beautiful panorama of the low-lying land that Bristol sits in. With all this rain it reminds me of the story when there was a terrible flood in 1607 century (Bristol Channel Flood) and thousands were drowned.
But not to dwell on ceaseless rain and water, following the old track one comes to Pipley wood, Moss jumps over the stone stile, and I follow him down the steep slippery path to the grassy knoll below. This wood clings to a steep slope, in some places it can be very dangerous, the paths through the wood are boggy, fallen trees strewn around, and yet if you sit on the bench someone has managed to get down here, the views are beautiful.

Early morning lazy sheep

View from Pipley Wood

River Kennet in Flood last year

Saint Non and her story

St.David's Cathedral

I had forgotten St.Non, and the little chapel by the sea, several times I had wandered down to it over the years, following the sharp cliff edge, meditating on the peace and quiet. Here it was that the realisation that paganism and christianity shared a common heritage came to me, that religion is not so sharply defined as we would imagine it. In fact the two wind around each other, christianity taking its stories from a pagan past; we may see it as a domineering force and indeed great cruelty has been inflicted in the name of christianity by humans, but it is there we can stop, for it is the small narrow minded vision that is responsible here.
Peter-on-the-Wall in Essex, Winterbourne Monkton in Wiltshire, they are like small insects in the mind, forever buzzing around demanding some sort of explanation from me. Perhaps there is water involved, a river running through the landscape, gathering the stones as it goes, perhaps a goddess wanders through, fertility and abundant golden fields. Perhaps it is the prehistoric or saxon stones captured in the fabric of the churches, sometimes in the foundations, sometimes circled round the churchyard.

So what is St.Non's story.... we are told that she was a nun and seduced by King Sant, and that she gave birth to St.David in a stone circle, whilst all around her thunder and lightening reigned but within the circle was peace and quiet...
Let us follow her story a bit further, or at least embroider it, and here I quote from T.D.Breverton - Welsh Saints;
"Non seems to have the attributes of the Celtic goddess Anna, Nonna or Dana, mother of the gods and ancestress of Celtic nobility. The cult of St.Anne is still strong in Brittany. In the Northern Tradition, she is Nanna, mother of the slain god Balder, and in the Roman deology she is Annona, goddess of the harvest/ The ancient Celtic goddess becam St.Anne, the mother of our Lady, and the grandmother of Jesus, during the general conversion to christianity across Europe."
So there we have it a direct line of female descent running through the religious thread.... we can trace her through Mary Magdalen at Winterbourne Monkton and the strange female on the font, or up on St.Anne's Hill in the Pewsey Vale.....
The spring at St.Non is supposed to have sprung up when she gave birth to St.David, and by the chapel there is a retreat, a somewhat austere house facing out to sea. She wandered down to Cornwall via the sea one presumes, for we can pick up her legend at St.Alternon, where she was invited to in AD 527 by her sister, and a well named after her, where the insane were precipitated into to cure them of insanity! Her death took place in Brittany, and her bones are supposed to rest At Dirinon in Finistere.
She is regarded as the mother of the church in Wales and is supposed to have said "there is nothing more stupid than argument"

Note;According to Elizabeth Rees - Celtic Saints, Passionate Wanderers, near Fishguard in the valley of the River Cleddau, there is also another church inside a stone circle at Scleddau village, the church has disappeared but there are seven springs on the site.

The other ruined medieval chapel, and according to Rees there are 15 along this bit of the coastline, is Justinian's chapel.
Here we must, follow the myth of the 'Celtic Head', to understand how Justinian came into prominence, a magical/miraculous happening. First of all it is St.David that gave him houses on the Island of Ramsey, and it was here that the poor monk was murdered by his servants, apparently he told them to work harder. They cut off his head, and where it fell, a spring gushed forth, but Justinian did'nt just lie down and die, no he picked up his head and walked across the sea, coming ashore at St.Justinian Point, (the photo is down below of his chapel which is situated by a rescue sea service) where he wished to be buried. His remains are interred in St.David's Cathedral, next to St.David himself.

The Bishop's Palace next to St.David's Cathedral

There is one more saint in this area, Ailbe, son of Non's sister, and his name has been somewhat corrupted to St.Elvis, and of course St.Elvis double chambered cromlech bears his name. This cromlech next to a farmhouse, had another chapel called St.Teilo. This no longer exists, but might have been incorporated in the farm buildings, it could still be seen in the 1940's.

Saint Ailbe, according to Breverton, is one of the greatest figures in the Irish church, and he evangelised southern Ireland. Irish legend has him being suckled by a she-wolf and retiring to the 'Land of Promise, a mixture of the Celtic 'Otherworld' and paradise.

Here we take a sideways drift, and contemplate that other famous Elvis Presely,

did he have welsh descent? Elvis and Presely (Prescelli mountains)...

St David and the surrounding area

St.David's Head promonotry fort, with walling and foundations of small round huts still to be found - though not by me....

Coetan Arthur

On this rock strewn headland there are three cromlechs, firstly there is Coetan Arthur;- (SM7253 2805) an "earth fast" sub-megalithic tomb; its capstone pointing down the valley that runs underneath Carn Llidi and is supposed to resemble the line of Carn Llidi.

The following pair of cromlechs are found under Carn Llidi, a bit difficult to find but head for the WW2 footings of concrete and they lie behind there. The capstone of the one below points out to sea. Carn Llidi - SM7352 2789201.The second cromlech capstone, rested on the ledge of the backing rock outcrop

The one against the rockface

The other cromlech close by

St.Elvis Cromlech

St Justinian Church


St.Non's; stones can be seen in the field

St.Nons Well

St.Peter-on-the-Wall-Chapel

In a blog on my other site, I mentioned Saint Cedd as he sat beneath a great oak tree, and I shall perhaps write about this saint later, but on Tuesday we visited the Saxon chapel of St.Peter on the Wall, founded by Cedd in AD 654 ,the chapel still standing in a bleak location by the sea.
Firstly you must imagine the scene, the flat Essex landscape merging with the great estuary, and then the drive through the village of Bradwell on Sea to the position of the chapel on its promonotory facing the grey expanse of the sea.
Park the car in the grassy car park, walk along the straight long track between brown ploughed fields to the building sitting on its grassy knoll; you are one of many pilgrims to have walked this way, this may be somewhere to visit as a tourist but never forget that pilgrims came with a great deal more in their hearts.
The building is not beautiful, uncompromising it has stood for 1400 years. Grey in the sunlight, it is made up of reused roman stone and tiles, refurbishing tiles and bricks complete the top half.
It is built on top of roman gateway, foundations to a fort, the old Fosse running parallel to the entrance of the chapel, the Roman fort of Othona it is thought, one of The Forts of the Saxon Shore.
Touch the rough texture of the worked stone at the corner, look down at the half hidden buttresses in the grass layered with the red of Roman roof tiles, turn the ring on the great oak door pushing its heavy weight till the interior unfolds before your eyes. The austere simplicity of rough grey stone and flint walls dimly lit by the light from the windows. Benches in front of the modern altar to sit quietly on and take in the atmosphere.
Now let the mind travel along its walls, here are the arched domes of the waggon doors when it was used sometime in the medieval period as a barn. There is another arch facing you, now blocked in, that would have led to the basilica type apse at the East end. Focus on the great colourful cross high on the wall, for this chapel is still used twice a day by a local 'Othona' christian community. then note in the right hand corner, a long vertical stone with a candle on top, at the base is a large rounded stone, with flowers grouped around it. A puzzling enigma, is there a touch of paganism here?
One more thing to note here is the modern altar, a square rectangular slab of stone on three pillars, and here we come to the Celtic heart of this chapel, for it is these three modern stones that represent Saint Cedd's other communities..
The left stone is a gift from Holy Island, Lindisfarne, it was here that Saint Cedd was trained by Saint Aidan.
The centre stone is a gift from the Island of Iona, the Celtic mission in Britain started here; it was here that St.Colombus founded a monastery where missionary monks were trained.
The right stone is a gift from Lastingham, Cedd left Bradwell to build a monastery at Lastingham in the Yorkshire Moors, and it was here he died of the plague in AD.664

The bank of the promontory folds down into a boggy sea marsh, a nature reserve, filled with wild plants, a pleasing palette of greys and browns, shot through with the red of plant stems. A lone birdwatching hide stands almost birdshaped itself on its long poles, gaunt and lonely looking out to sea.
Going back to the car and settling into its warmth from the chill Essex winds, picnicking on hot tea and rolls a great flutter of wings and young starlings fell around us settling to drink from a puddle. Soon two more waves of these birds landed, harassed, ever so slightly by a blackbird, a thin flutter of nervous excitement running through the flock as they percieved danger, each a perfect image of his companion.

Information taken from; A booklet by H.Malcolm Carter - The Fort of Othona and the Chapel of St.Peter-On-The-Wall....

http://thelmawilcox.blogspot.com/2008/10/tree-of-life-in-chelmsford-cathedral.html

http://thelmawilcox.blogspot.com/2008/10/travelling.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Cedd

Journeys

Sunday; Strong winds and rain, the weekend has already unfolded itself into storm and greyness. Train journeys, a London packed with the hustle and bustle of people, each time I have wandered through the concourse of Liverpool Street, I have seen someone with a dog and thought about my Moss travelling through this maelstrom of people. Stand on a tube and look at the faces of those around, each has a story to tell, millions of people moving through a network of trains, linking back to their familar lives through mobiles. Here is a young girl, pale and scruffily dressed, three large crumpled carrier bags, is she moving from one place to another? There are the older people with their doggy bags (the ones you pull behind you) going for a weekend visit.
All races are represented in London, a hotch-potch of people that you only become aware of as you travel through the bleak landscape of the tube.
This is the capital of our country, for those who live in other parts of this fair land, and especially down in the West, we get angry that so much money gets spent on this city. It seems dirty, grey full of cars and a great confusing mass of people that disorientates you, it's fast moving, the blank stares and coldness reaches into the depths of your soul and sends a shudder through it.
Train journeys through the countryside are gentle affairs, the long haul up to Yorkshire to see my grandchildren, travels through the different aspects, so that here we find the flat plains of the Midlands, the rolling medieval rig and plough still captured in the fields. Sluggish brown rivers, almost overflowing in winter, will carry the flotsam of our modern age; a scatter of plastic, foam that has washed down from a factory, the trailing willows catching in their branches wisps of things. Gritstone brown stone houses through Derby, the Yorkshire moors still a dull brown unless the gorse or the heather lend their bright colours to the scene.
The tumbling down of the moors to the sea, as the bus winds down through steep lanes, sheep scattered amongst the grey stones of the moor, grass eaten to a velvet smoothness. And then the sea itself, blue or gray depending on the weather, the sharp lines of the cliffs, Whitby Abbey standing like some great guarding sentinel on top of the cliff, and then the homeliness of Whitby, old houses clustered round the harbour, the smell of fish and chips and holidaymakers crowding the narrow streets.
There is one more train journey from the past; this is the Orient Express on which myself and my daughter would travel to Switzerland on for Xmas and summer holidays to my in-laws house. I cannot remember much of the beginning of the journey only that when we reached France it would be dark and you would go to sleep on an uncomfortable couchette, the train waking you in the night as it shunted around a station, Paris I think it was. But it was the early morning as light broke and you crossed the border between France and Switzerland that stays in the memory - the morning sun on the mountains.
The journey back started at midnight catching the train at Vevey as it came into the station for a couple of minutes; a great monster, fond farewells, lifting the luggage onto the train. One disastrous Christmas with a wheelie case chock full of xmas presents, the whole lot was stolen, probably by a cleaner who came on in the middle of the night, nothing to be done the train rolled on the presents were lost.
Switzerland is the land of little trains, chugging up into the mountains, winding over narrow bridges and tumbling water. A family friend lived in a small Swiss house in Blonay by the train track that came up from Vevey, her garden down the driveway was full of flowers, tall sunflowers, and her house the traditional wooden one, plain, simple and white. She had been a dancer in her day and photos on the wall showed her in the heyday of youth.
Leni was my mother-in-law's best friend, though they would often have little arguments, she would come over to Sunday lunch, out under the loggia, a family gathering of friends and family. Arguing gently, Con my father-in-law, sometimes throwing his napkin over his head and explode with the words S.I.D., S.I.D, which meant 'sometimes I despair,' it normally produced laughter and the argument would be stopped. At these gatherings and tea in the afternoon, tricks would be played on the guests by Con and Marc, my daughter's cousin. Plastic dog poo, was one, false mustard and plastic cakes much to the fury of Lotta, who could not tolerate such games at the table. One trick fell foul of its target, the vicar from the church at Territet, manipulation of the cake plate had managed to make him pick up the plastic cake, and he plunged his teeth in as we all watched expectantly. The result was a very cross vicar who almost broke his teeth and did'nt see the funny side of it as the children howled.

Dewponds

Neolithic Dew-ponds and Cattleways by Arthur and George Hubbard 1905

The following photographs are taken from the above book, apart from the one glaring mistake they made i.e. Neolithic dewponds with which they entitled their piece then went on to describe Iron age hillforts, the book should not be read except for information..... but the photos show that the landscape was very different in those days with more trackways defined on the sides of the hillforts. And as I love old books and way out theories, this particular book is a great treasure....

This last sketch plan of Oare Hill and Martinsell Hill is interesting, take no notice of the wolf/sentry platforms, though they added a nice little piece about wolves, but for the dew-pond marked. It seems that a dewpond marked as a Saxon boundary on Milk Hill was noted in 825 see this link... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dew_pond

Most existing dew ponds date from the 19th or early 20th centuries, although a few may be 18th century. The only apparent ancient one is Oxenmere on Milk Hill on the downs to the north of the Vale of Pewsey. A Saxon charter of 825 refers to this pond as marking the boundary of Alton Priors, which it still does. It is possible that a pond has been here since that date but only if it has been cleaned out and its lining renewed every 100 to 200 years for Ralph Whitlock estimated that the life of a dew pond is 100 to 150 years.

Quotation from the Hubbard book;

The month which we now call January our Saxon ancestors called wolf-monat, to wit, wolf-moneth, because people are wont always in that month to be in more danger to be devoured of wolves, than in any else season of the year; for that, through the extremity of cold and snow, these ravenous creatures could not find of other beasts sufficient to feed upon. Richard Verstegan, Restitution of Decayed Intelligence in Antiquities 1673

So the moral being don't go wandering down that old Saxon trackway beneath Martinsell Hill in January for you never know there might be a wolf or two lurking......

SU 07303 69348 grid reference for Beckahampton dew pond?

Alphamstone Church

A return visit to this church reveals yet one more undiscovered stone. There are large stones set against the hedge, tidied away, they are thought to be part of a stone circle. The wooden towered church of St Barnabas set on a knoll overlooking the Stour Valley, lies in the heart of the Essex countryside surrounded by a small group of houses. Perhaps one should describe it as a modest unassuming building, except for the extraordinary facts of the stones in the graveyard, and the two just outside the church. But go inside the church, and against the west wall tucked neatly underneath the pews are two stones protruding through the wall. And here I will quote from the little church leaflet on these two stones;....

'The base of of the West wall is part of the original Norman church. Here, on either side of the original tower arch can be seen two large sarsen stones built into the base of the wall. This suggests that these stones had some religious significance, for the early Norman builders liked to incorporate pieces of early pagan worship into there buildings where possible.

Photos credits; Littlestone



Outside on the south wall, there is an old (16thC) porch, not used, it looks old and inviting but note the bricks that underpin the walling, two small badly worn faces decorate the entrance to the doorway.


Today you enter the church through the north porch (15th century), which is in fact earlier than the south porch. On entering the church you are at first struck by the cold and damp, the little kneeling pads are all embroidered with flowers and birds. The font is Norman plain arcading, and there are three tracied wood roods/screens facing you on the south side replacing the old Norman wall. These were in fact purchased from another church in the early 1960's.

I come to another digression here, and one that has a faintly unsettling effect on my secular rationale. On looking at the open bible on the lectern, I was greeted by a disturbing passage from the old testament, suffice it to say it was from Ezekiel, and the words whores and harlots figured quite frequently. THIS in the 21st century, was it given as a sermon, or is it a morality lesson left for innocent visitors to view - can the church still be seen to go along with the mad ravings of some local prophet who obviously had a hang up about women. As a female this was pure sexist, misogynist male terrorism and left a nasty taste in the mouth.

South Side

Stour Valley

North porch

Filled in doorway

Norman 'plain arcading' font

History of church; Like many churches Alphamstone has a long history, the little leaflet on the church says about 4000 b.c. . Bronze age man settling on a spur overlooking the Stour Valley. In about 2000 b.c they built a burial mound near the site of the existing church, and three incinerary urns were discovered at the beginning of the 20th century.

Of course the sarsen stones may be related to this burial mound, a stone chamber being formed in the centre. But on examining the stones this seems unlikely, they are large and rounded. According to the information in the leaflet, there are several boulders in the gardens surrounding the church, and that the builders would have had to go along way to find these boulders, which gives rise to the fact that they are actually stones from a circle. The village was probably inhabited for the next 2000 years with traces of first century A.D. Belgic Roman pottery, and it is conjectured that the churchyard fence may follow the line of the ancient Roman buildings, there is a sandpit not far from the church with evidence of a tile kiln dating from this period.

Two stones in front of the church

Stone near east buttress

Stones in hedgerow

Interesting marks

Hidden stones


There are fascinating articles by Thorgrim on the Megalithic Portal site about the sacred stones of Essex, follow the links for more information.
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=2146411030

http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=10813