Porthgain and Abereiddi quarries

Abereiddi Cottages

These two small hamlets are to be found on the Pembrokeshire coast within a mile of each other, Porthgain has the industrial remains of old buildings built to support the quarrying of slate and granite. Slate was originally quarried at Abereiddi for roofing tiles, it was not of particularly good quality, the slate from North Wales was superior, and Abereiddi slate was thought to last only 40 years or so. The quarry itself is in the area of the blue lagoon, originally it was just a large hole but when the quarry had finished the rock that lay between the sea and the disused quarry was blown up and it became a rather beautiful blue lagoon.

Blue lagoon
The black stone ruined quarry buildings can still be seen on
either side of the gap.

In Abereiddi itself, six small attached cottages were built of the same blackstone.

The Street, Abereiddi labourers cottages
These housed the labourers and their families plus also itinerant Irish labourers.
It is sometimes difficult to understand today how these small welsh villages worked, especially as they are all but deserted of welsh people and what houses are left are more often or not holiday homes. But look at any 19th century photograph and you will see a flourishing population of maybe a 100 people with plenty of children. Life would have been hard, sanitary conditions non-existent and water probably fetched from a well but the quarries provided a livelihood for the families.
Porthgain was developed on a greater scale over the century, its quarry was owned by several different companies, all English, and based in Bristol. It changed hands quite a few times mostly due to the fact that profits were low and money had to be spent on machinery and new buildings. Speculators came with high hopes but the cards were stacked against them, mainly because transport was difficult, there was no railway line nearby, and everything had to be carried out by ship, either to various ports in Wales itself or down to the Severn Estuary and Bristol.
There was also a slate quarry in Porthgain, but it was decided to open a granite quarry for supplying gravel for roadbuilding.

The Granite quarry


It was still the period of macadam road building, this was simply different grades of gravel laid on top of each layer, which in turn was rollered down, eventually culminating in a fine layer of gravel. For this operation to be successful, the granite had to be crushed into the various sizes. The quarry was a quarter of a mile from the village itself, and tramways were built to and from, one tramway also going to Abereiddi.

line of old tramway

In the beginning the trams were pulled by horses, but over time two small engines were acquired.
A new harbour was also built for the ships to come in and be loaded by crane, so there was a lot of capital expenditure.
In Porthgain itself what remains of the industrial buildings are dramatic, the great brick hoppers built against the cliff face are still there, here the different sized gravels would be loaded from the top and taken from the bottom of the chute, also a large shed still remains on the quay,this is now used as a restaurant.
Its an eerie place, and walking over the cliffs to the ruined buildings facing out to sea is a savage reminder of all the people who laboured with heavy materials during this period.

Ruined buildings by granite quarry


For them it paid a good wage, but old photographs show thin men their faces lined and tired, work that hauls rock and slate from the ground was tough and backbreaking, and one has only to remember the hard lives of the welsh miners to realise this.
Porthgain also has a 'street' of five labourers cottage, and these are still in use today, there was also a larger house for the manager, and of course the old Sloop Inn still remains.
At one stage bricks were made of the slate dust, they were much heavier than ordinary bricks and there was'nt much of a market for them.

Buildings by harbour, the brick hoppers

Abereiddi slate quarry had opened around 1838, and mining of slate continued on and off, Porthgain's quarry opened in the 1850s, and mining continued right up to the 1930s but again the present company owners landed up in the hands of the recievers, and this time there was no rescue, final closure for the workers must have come as a shock and an eyrie silence would have descended on the place. The dust that would have shrouded the place and the small cottages would now disappear; some of the workers were offered work in Bristol but for the rest, they must have moved away to find jobs elsewhere.

Presceli Mountains

Sheep and stones beneath sun and dark skies

Tuesday is a grey rather bleak day for setting out to visit mountains but rain is forecast tomorrow so greyness must be faced. My torturous route through the back lanes of Pembrokeshire takes me on a delightful tour of small hamlets with sheepdogs sprawled in the road, old churches and even speckled hens parading around in the middle of the lane. Wales is at its verdant best,summer may be over but the hedgerows are still heavy with greenery, blackberries, wild honeysuckle, red berried hawthorns and the sound of splashing water as the car goes over humped bridges.
At last I find my way to Carn Meini, and stop by the moor to take a photo of Waldo's striking stone memorial - his history is not told but what a magnificent place to be remembered.
Foel Drygarn looking towards Carn Meini



Then to Foel Drygarn, a spectacular Iron age fort with three late bronze age barrows inside. Parking in the little layby which is the start of the path to the fort, and by the way the much longer walk to Carn Meini - home of the bluestones - we traipse through a field dotted liberally with sheep. On the far hill, four landrovers are bringing a great stream of sheep down, tooting their horns, the sheep are tightly bunched, though they are so far away I can't see any dogs. Up the steep path to the stony eminence of Foel Drygarn, great slabs of vertical rock guard it well, there are three periods to the fort, but what makes it so spectacular are the three late bronze age stone cairns in the centre. They form a straight line looking towards the spiky top of Carn Meini. They are large and untidy, the stone slipping away on all sides, this of course has happened over millenia, with perhaps more slippage due to people climbing in the last 100 years or so
One of the barrows on Foel Drygarn

Wilderness is forced back to these stony outcrops, up the side of the mountains fields creep then give way to moor and rock, and this yellowish grass of the moor is eaten velvet smooth by the sheep, just leaving patches of gorse and rushes round the little streams that run down the side of the mountain. This open expanse of mountain, moor and sky always lifts the heart and everything in life pales into insignificance - if there is a god to be met than he is here, if its ones soul, then it happily takes flight into the grey cloudy sky full of mountainous clouds and rain.
Of course there is also bleakness up on this tor, iron age people forced to live in a defensive mode, pinned to the rocks and a small livelihood which at all times must be defended. The three bronze age cairns are probably there for a different reason, their occupants are most likely tribal elders; they have been awarded this high eyrie to record their eminence and eternity is given to them under the great pile of stones.

Gors Fawr circle seen from a distance


Back down, turn round to the village and off in search of Gors Fawr circle, which is but a couple of miles down the road; Slowly the geography of the place had started to creep into my consciousness, how everything was near to each other,and as I walked to this little stone circle I realised it stood on the same part of the moor as Waldo's grave.

Standing Stones at Gors Fawr
Another surprise was of course on finding the two standing stones that stand a little way from the circle lead the eye towards Carn Meini's rocky presence on the skyline.
In N.P.Figgis's book, (Prehistoric Preseli) he says there are 16 small stones, squat stones of inderminate shape, mostly of the local erratic stones, some of which are bluestone type. There is supposed to be the remains of an avenue towards the two larger stones, but as there is so much stone around it is difficult to judge. He puts there smallness down to being typical of western Britain or Ireland, but of course they are miniscule to Avebury or Stonehenge. But they have a pleasing presence here in this quiet moorland, and I could quite happily live in the area divorced from all the problems that humans bring into ones life.

Small stones of the circle


To end with the words of Jacquetta Hawkes from her book The Land;-

"It is this immense antiquity that gives our land its look of confidence and peace, its power to give both rest and inspiration. When returning from hill or moor one looks down on a village, one's destination, swaddled in trees, and with only the church tower breaking the thin blue layer of evening smoke, the emotion it provokes is as precious as it may be commonplace. Time, that has caressed this place until it lies as comfortably as a favourite cat in an armchair. Caresses also even the least imaginative of beholders"

Of course the Land of Wales does not have such spires, the grey dull chapel must suffice to walk back to, but when walking back to Avebury the same feeling is felt, some decry the little village in the centre of the great stone circle, but as the church spire appears above the trees, ones heart suddenly aches with such a longing for something that is just out of reach that sometimes I wonder if its our inherited ancestors genes that suddenly call out with such longing for times that have vanished - why is there this yearning for the past?

Know all things to be like this

The other night the harvest moon was reflected in a mirror, its bright light captured in the room, of course the moon moved on, but the poem below seems to echo ones thought when contemplating a moon in a mirror........

--------

Know all things to be like this;

A mirage, a cloud castle,

A dream, an apparition,

Without essence, but with qualities that can be seen.

----------------------

Know all things to be like this;

As the moon in a bright sky

In some clear lake reflected,

Though to that lake the moon has never moved.

--------------------------

Know all things to be like this;

As an echoe that derives

From music, sounds and weeping,

Yet in that echo is no melody.

-----------------------

Know all things to be like this;

As a magician makes allusions

Of horses, oxen, carts and other things,

Nothing is at it appears.

----

Samadhirajasutra

Autumn Equinox

23rd September, and the light and dark of days and nights are equal for a moment; late summer drifting into autumn, the natural world drifting towards its annual death. But it does it so exquisitely that death itself is glorious.
The hedgerows are full of blue-black sloes, when winter comes the branches of the blackthorn will be witch black, coal black like an evil presence; the red hawthorn berries have a gentler hue, the leaves of the tree colouring into soft shades of yellow and orange red. The grasses in the field are shot through with brown ribbons of dead grass but viewed from the distance it gives a soft orange hue to the green. In summer before the second cut of hay, the wild grasses are a palette of soft browns, purples and silver shot through with the colour of white from the field parsleys and tall red-brown spikes of the dock flowers, if you examine it closely the tiny flower is yellow but overall the plant is a rich luscious tobacco brown colour.
The swallows are still here, wheeling about in their never ending pursuit of insects, in this aerial soup above the earth, insects are transported, perhaps gossamer light spiders. For they are also emerging, they weave their webs amongst the tall dead plants, here a wasp struggles feebly as a yellow spider winds her web tightly. She has positioned herself well by the cream flowerheads of the ivy, a source of nectar for the late wasp.
This morning it was confirmed that a cow has blue-tongue disease, a virus carried by midges, it has sadly made it across the Channel from the continent where it is rife, and arrived in Suffolk. Is murrain and plague to cross the land one wonders, foot and mouth in Surrey and now this second disease, both carried by the wind, nature may be beautiful but no law governs her, chaos and destruction are the gifts that she can bring as well.

I started with the equinox, the death of summer and light, but in the old farming world of yesteryear, food would have been harvested and stored, apples would scent lofts, dried herbs the kitchen, farm animals would have been brought into the byres and barns to face winter, somehow this modern world seems a much bleaker place to live in we are beset by worries and fears, all that technology gives is a faster route to news of disaster and despair, perhaps sometimes it is better to live in ignorance.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.


The last verse of John Keats poem - Autumn

fragments

The little river Kennet, which often flows through my thoughts. Under its clear water green trailing water plants; its small ripplings talk quietly of times past..

River Barrow - Ted Hughes

the light cools, Sun going down clear
Red-molten glass-blob, into green embers crumble
Of hill tree, over the Barrow
Where the flushed ash-grey sky lies perfect...........

-----------------------------------


and Gary Snyder on a different continent

ten million years ago an ocean floor
glides like a snake beneath the continent crunching up
old seabead till it's high as alps
Sandstone layers script of winding tracks
and limestone shining like snow
where ancient beings grow............

"when the axe-strokes stop
the silence grows deeper- "

Chinese Water Dragon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_dragon#The_dragon_as_mythical_creature


This dragon is a chinese water dragon, you can see the pads of water lily plants where his feet should be. He belongs on an old silk piano cover, (probably 200 years old) and is surrounded by beautifully embroidered chrysantheums. Fine grey silks on a background of cream, he hangs in the hall hopefully to bring good luck on the house. The myth legends of chinese water dragons can be found on Wikipedia, interestingly he is supposed to have formed from the long fish, or carp. And is said to swim upstream battling against all odds to reach the dragon gate. This is a bit like our salmon, swimming each year upstream of our rivers to spawn in quiet waters. Again the celtic salmon is a fish of knowledge and a very important symbolic element in celtic tales, though he has not turned into a dragon.
The chinese water dragon is also found in Chinese neolithic depictions and has a long history and a diverse upbringing. A five toed dragon belongs to the Emperor, four toes to his courtiers and a three-toed dragon belongs to the ordinary people. It would have been a treasonable offence to depict a five toed dragon.

Other Dragons

An Anglo Saxon Dragon - Beowulf slaying Grendel in his barrow...


The king once more
took command of his wits, caught up a stabbing-knife
of the keenest battle-sharpness, that he carried in his harness;
and the Geats' Helm struck through the serpent's body.
So daring drove out life: they had downed their foe
by common action, the atheling pair,
and had made an end of him.

The Welsh Dragon, or Red Dragon.

At Dinas Emrys, the traditional site of Vortigen, it is said that a great battle took place between the red dragon of Wales and the white dragon of the Saxons.
Vortigen wanted to lay the foundations of his new capital at Dinas Emrys but every time stones were laid they all disappeared. Merlin, or Myrddin the young magician told the king the reason why. Apparently beneath the ground was a pool, and in the pool was a tent with two dragons sleeping there, if you waken them they will fight. And so, it is said, the two dragons woke up and began fighting the white dragon of the Saxons and the red dragon of the Cymru, they writhed about until they eventually disappeared from the hill. So that is why Dinas Emrys is a wooded tump and the red dragon lives, with only minor excursions from the saxons as they buy their holiday homes in Pembrokeshire and live fairly amicably with their welsh neighbours.

From; The adventures of Tom Bombadil

There was an old dragon under gray stone;
his red eyes blinked as he lay alone.
His joy was dead and his youth spent,
he was knobbed and wrinkled,
and his limbs bent in the long years to his gold chained;
in his heart's furnace the fire waned.
To his belly's slime gems stuck thick,
silver and gold he would snuff and lick:
he knew the place of the least ring
beneath the shadow of his black wing
Of thieves he thought on his hard bed,
and dreamed that on their flesh he fed,
their bones-crushed, and their blood drunk:
his ears drooped and his breath sank.
Mail-rings rang. He heard them not.
A voice echoed in his deep grot:
a young warrior with a bright sword
called him forth to defend his hoard.
His teeth were knives, and on horn his hide,
but iron tore him, and his flame died.

Professor J.R.R.Tolkien

This is a fairly common medieval story of dragons, hoarding their gold waiting for the knight in shining armour to vanquish the poor old dragon....

Folklore and Myths about dragons

http://www.theserenedragon.net/origins.html

This is one of the dragons to be found on the font of St.James Church at Avebury, a christ like figure is depicted with two dragons at his feet, though I must admit finding only one dragon. The font is an earlier saxon font with later Norman embellishments, the arcading below the dragon is reminiscent of Norman blind arcading to be found at Malmesbury Abbey.

Jottings

One of the things that comes to mind when contemplating great exhibitions like the Terracotta Army at the British Museum, is that you are looking at something out of its context, the craftsmanship is superb but the driving force of the belief that undertook this great work has vanished.
It is so with much of the western view, we look, detached from what we are seeing, not understanding Indian elephant gods, Mayan temples, or stone circles. We bring our ideas to bear on the matter and yet it is as if the lense of our eye has become detached from the inner seeing vision of our soul.
Western science has skewed our vision to only see a factual account, we can dissect, describe, attribute but we can never push beyond the physical boundary. Yet religion and belief is always beyond that boundary; now it could be argued by the cynical, hey we can make up any number of fairytales for the naive to believe, and many religions if not founded on this, have of course used it to brutally control the masses.
So are we looking at a primitive need by mankind in justifying his world he has to make up another world. Here we come to the 'why' of course, The Emperor Qin who had the terracotta figures made believed in an afterlife, he was frightened of death and its void. The paradisical nature of Utopia, The Otherworld, is created so that we can step into another world that is so different from the pain and suffering of this world. Of course the christian faith had to construct another pain-wracked hell for non-believers, but this cheap refinement was after all made by the priests. Take for instance this edict;-
The Council of Arles in 452, and Tours in 567, The Archbishop of Bourges in 584, Childebert in 554, Carloman in 742, and Charlemagne all condemned the superstitious regarding of stones, fountains, trees, etc, and enjoined the destruction of the venerated objects. Patrick, Bishop of the Hebrides, desired Orgylus to found a church wherever he should find standing stones. In 959 the Saxon King Eadgar issued an edict against 'enchantments, necromancies and divination' and ordered priests 'totally extinguish heathenism and forbid well-worshipping'
(ref; Aubrey Burl - Great Stone Circles).

In hindsight there is something ludicrous when one religion sets out to dominate another but it illustrates the complexity of the different faiths, the 'believing' in a set of objects and goals. In the above quotation we have dominance of course, the ruling head of the land would ally his reign with his god, both are in the end supreme beings beyond the realms of the ordinary mass, so it is somewhat strange that the Emperor chose to take his people with him, albeit in a servile manner, arrayed for war they would fight the demons and enemies on the other side.

Autumn - Ephemeral Seasons.

Making a Place in Space

This comment which came up in a book, has lived with me for a long time and I use it in a sense to evaluate what I am looking at when I visit longbarrows or cromlechs, I expect most people do.
The first thing that one notices at prehistoric sites is their landscape, and the question must always come to mind as to why people settled within a particular area. Their stone monuments are supposedly places of ritual and ceremonial enactions, and much energetic modern intellectual speculation is spent on trying to fathom out the reason why. The answer is of course we don't know, their is no written evidence, so what evidence there is to gather must come from archaeological exploration.
Three very famous longbarrows lie within a 40 kilometre distance of my home, Stoney Littleton, West Kennet Longbarrow and Wayland Smithy. All have distinct features and an incredible presence within their modern landscapes, and I suspect the same could be said that when originally built they would also have an awesome effect on the neolithic people.
Making a space in place is marking a home spot, a territory to return to, a place where the ancestors can rest and be visited; a longbarrow by its very presence will accumulate its ancestral stories and folklores.
The first thing to notice about the later Welsh cromlechs, (and taking them as an example )is there very cave-like appearance, this perhaps gives us an inkling of what a tomb, the resting place of ancestral bones was all about. Originally through the much earlier periods of mesolithic and paleolithic man, cave dwelling was part of their lives. Simplistically put, this ancestral link to caves came down through to the neolithic period, and when the longbarrows were constructed out of very solid natural stones, the appearance would have suggested going into a cave. This can best be explained by the fact that the constructed stone chambers only go back a short distance compared to the very long length of the barrow itself, the back soil and turf (the major part) of the barrow in actual fact represents the hill or cliff in which the chamber/ cave is situated now this of course is only a theory......

Wayland's Smithy long earthen structure outlined by stones;

the front two chambers and facade being the entrance to the 'cave' as in the photograph below.

The above entrance is a 20th century reconstruction, but

the 'before' picture below, probably taken in the 1930s by Massingham, gives a somewhat different view...

...........................................................................

Stoney Littleton has a different facade, plain, its entrance stones decorated with fossils and the large ammonite stone on the left, but inside the six chambers are very 'cavelike' , and often this is interpreted as a returning to the 'womb' . This statement needs some explaining, it has been suggested that if neolithic people saw the 'earth' as a living body, a mother form, fertility symbol, then returning the dead to the earth/mother, would in some ways keep them alive or renew them. This was after all a primitive culture, that made offerings of flint, pottery, and food into pits and postholes, one presumes in the hope that the earth/mother would make more of this bounty.

Inside Stoney Littleton barrow

The entrance of Stoney Littleton

................................................................

West Kennet Longbarrow

Facade and blocking stones of West Kennet when the longbarrow was 'closed down'

Stoney Littleton is also restored, and was in fact 'closed down' by the neolithic people at some stage by erecting the large blocking stones in front of the entrance and filling up the interior with earth and stones.

Frisky bullocks

One of my favourite walks along the Cotswold Way needs a somewhat risky undertaking to both life and limb, not necessarily to me but to Moss my collie. We have to confront about 40 odd bullocks grazing in a very large field of about 50 acres. Not exactly a field more a steep sided small valley with a large wood at the bottom. It has in it the remains of an old trackway that went from the Brockham Roman site in the Langridge parish across the great valley that the A46 traverses in a north south direction, to Charmy Down and Solsbury Hill.
Three weeks ago was our first encounter, Moss had jumped over the great stone stile into the field and immediately flew back again, when I climbed up the steps I could see why, a dozen or more black and brown faces on the other side. Chiding him for being a coward, I took the opposite direction on the trackway hoping to loop round the cattle, of course they followed, charging poor old Moss with me swearing at them, but this detour did lead me to discover a rock strewn stream emerging from the hillside, and we did eventually reach the safety of a gate.
Once more yesterday deciding to take this particular walk, the cattle happily were still far down at the bottom of the hill, but of course these devious creatures were there to meet us on the way back. Fooling them was easy I just walked on the other side of of some barbed wire fence in the 'quarry' field, and they followed and mooed on the other side, I only had to cross a few yards to the stile and Moss just jumped over a stone wall further on. The sad thing was that some of this wall had been knocked down, obviously by people also frightened by the bullocks.
Knocking down stone walls by walkers is hardly going to make the farmer happy, but as this pathway is part of the Cotswold Way some solution should be arrived at so that walkers can get past these creatures without having to scramble under barbed wire or knock down walls.

The view of another small valley along this walk.

http://www.travelmag.co.uk/article_1314.shtml?page=1

Japanese Anemones

In my garden are two great displays of these tall Japanese anemones, far too early for this time of the year as they are supposed to be autumn flowering. There exuberance is extraordinary probably down to the strange weather we have been having this summer. But suddenly I realised that they have a story behind them. A small plant of these flowers was given to me about 25 years ago by a person who lived in Box in Wiltshire, and they have now grown from small beginnings to giants dominating their positions. The garden they came from, had the remains of a large roman villa under its surface. This villa was enlarged in the 3rd or 4th century by a wealthy owner, and apparently has the largest collection of roman mosaics in the country, with mosaics being found in 20 of the 41 rooms in the complex. The villa was excavated by Hurst in 1967, there are probably pottery and mosaics at Devizes museum somewhere in a dusty box.
The people who owned the Georgian house, obviously had a love of roman things, for I remember that Kate had decorated her house with that dark orangey/ochre affect dado, and the rooms all had strong colour washes.
But leaving aside roman villas and returning to anemones, the following is taken from W.Robinson - The English Garden 1895 -


I have a feeling that these steel engraved plates were copied from photos, for they have a precision only seen in a photograph.


He says of these plants that they are useful for borders, groups, fringes of shrubbery in rich soil, and here and there in half shady places for wood walks. Obviously a different era..... apparently the plant was introduced in 1858 so was relatively new when he wrote his book.
Plants were brought back by plant hunters through the 19th century, and my garden is part of a 19th century garden/parkland. In fact traces of the old garden can be found running through the bank at the bottom. A great rockery that spans four gardens (200 feet) can still be faintly seen falling down to the small valley below, which once had a stream running through. The victorian person who made this large garden also was responsible for the Botanical gardens in Victoria Park, so he was also obviously interested in exotic plants from afar.
When we first came to this house, at the bottom were two old Japanese trees, now both dead, one pink,double petalled, and the other single petalled of a deep carmine pink. On the bank, under the large sycamore tree, also grew bamboo, but one year it flowered and then never appeared again. Also in this bank the notorious Japanese knotweed makes an appearance every now and then. This knotweed was introduced during the Victorian era, has creeping underground roots so that it now takes over large patches of ground and is fairly indestructible. It has become a garden escapee and now can be found rampaging along rivers, canals and damp ground.
Luckily it does'nt like the dry conditions that the sycamore tree creates, so it is not a problem, though ground elder is. But before we dismiss ground elder as another tiresome weed, it was also introduced by medieval monks because in the early months of spring it can be eaten like spinach, sorrel or Good King Henry (fat hen).....

Is the Swallowhead a Sacred Spring?

Stukeley "There are two heads of the river Kennet: one from a little north-west of Abury, at Monkton, runs southward to Silbury Hill: this affords little water, except in wet seasons. At Silbury Hill it joins the Swallow Head, or true fountain of the Kennet, which the country people call by the old name Cunnit, and it is not a little famous among them. This is a plentiful spring."

...The actual sources are indeed two.. one which rises in Clyffe Pypard field, some four miles to the north-west, and the other in the parish of Broad Hinton, some four miles to the north east of Abury: at the latter village these two streams unite, and flow in one channel to Swallow Head, the very picturesque basin whose springs are generally very abundant, and largely increase the infant river: indeed there are seasons when the two real sources have been known to be dry, and the only water in the Kennet has come from this spring.

Other seasons have occurred within my memory when this, too, has failed, and the dry bed of the Kennet has been planted with potatoes.

p175 in Rev. A C Smith's 'Guide to the British and Roman Antiquities of the North Wiltshire Downs' (1884). Referenced from TMA - SwallowHead Spring

one which rises in Clyffe Pypard field some four miles to the north-west. This statement by the Rev.Smith is probably wrong as there is no evidence of a stream rising at Clyffe Pypard and joining up with the stream from Broad Hinton...

Swallowhead Spring - a sad spectacle today with modern 'offerings' disintergrating on the stones.

The answer to that question is I don't know, but because the enigmatic Silbury Hill is just a few hundred metres away could there be some relationship between the two. First of all, the Swallowhead is at a junction where two small rivers meet, the Winterbourne as it is today called, coming down past Avebury, curving round Silbury and then apparently, as it takes a left hand swing by the spring it changes it name to the Kennet. The Kennet is seen as a new river, because the Swallowhead is its source. Now this conjunction of two rivers is important, some might see it as a marriage of the waters, but in neolithic thinking maybe this merging,- and who is to tell whether in prehistoric times the spring was much more energetic than it is today - was an important fact.

The Willow tree facing the supposed meeting place of Kennet and Winterbourne, taken from the Swallowhead Spring

Why, well looking further afield, a somewhat similar homage to water can be found in other places. Bath which is only about 30 kilometres away has the hot springs which the romans capitalised on and built a great temple to the presiding celtic Goddess Sulis there. Just outside the city, Bitton has a similar conjunction of rivers, the little river Boyd meeting the river Avon, a large barrow also dominates the scenery here..

Stanton Drew circles also have an avenue down to a river; an argument could be put forth here that the river was a means of transporting people, but it is significant that these three stone circles were put up right next to the river, thereby including the river as part of the sacred landscape. And of course Stonehenge with its Avenue down to the river as a processional way, and the disappeared large Hatfield barrow by the river Avon.

Here we come to the term 'sacred landscape' what does it mean? For me it means the long term habit of prehistoric people recognising the landscape as a living form, and in doing so gave it a subjective personality, its life forms being an integral part of their lives. Bringing their dead to a special place, recognising the bones of the dead were similar to the stones that they so laboriously erected to construct megalithic tombs....

There are other pointers that the Swallowhead could have been seen as sacred in the roman period, now this is strong circumstantial evidence, there was a roman settlement at the foot of Silbury with the roman road from London to Bath running alongside. There were several wells discovered in the 19th century round the base of Silbury, one of them had a great quantity of small stones atop a large half ton stone which seemed to be vertical within the shaft of the well. Underneath these stones was a variety of roman stuff, coins, pottery, bones, antler tines and

roman coins. An odd assemblage, though it could be argued that this stuff was votive, it could also be seen as rubbish thrown down the nearest receptacle.

Roman wells have a history all their own excavated they often reveal the destruction of the roman settlement or villa. Bodies, pottery, animals and altars are all to be found deposited therin, a testimony to the overthrowing of the roman regime by the local population.

So a word of caution has to be introduced when investigating the depths of wells, they can contain all manner of historical vandalism.

None of this votive evidence remains at Swallowhead because obviously it has been swept away over a long period of time., but the tantalising 'cave like' atmosphere that the Romans constructed round the hot springs of Aqua Sulis, tells us that a little more was going on.

For instance having mentioned the Bitton barrow at the junction of two rivers, a church also lies within a hundred yards and a 'heathen temple' or roman shrine is said to lie nearabouts.

The Apollo Temple at Nettleton Shrub, situated by the Roman Fosse Road, is also overlooking a brook, the settlement on the other side of the Fosse. There is also evidence of Dubonnic coins found in the vicinity, which could mean that native iron age people also lived/worshipped at this spot as well, and that is why the Apollo temple was sited here.

..........

Counterbalancing my argument, is of course the question of a long time period, and the relationship of particular religious ideas being carried down through the centuries by different generations, who would of course bring different and innovative ideas. Silbury for instance could be the creation of a single mind bent on domination, on the other hand, imitation of other built large barrows could be the reason for its presence in the landscape. The spring could be seen as an ordinary source of water, its magical aspect only being picked up when the right combination of religious ideas came along. For instance at times through the Bronze Age when offerings were deposited in water or bogs. This particular ritual act would have been found in the later Iron age, when the pagan religion of that time worshipped in natural places. Being picked up at this stage by the roman colonisers, who had a similar religious perception of the world. We can, in other word, circumscribe the argument as having started at one point and finished nicely with water worship at the other end, but can not really lay claim that water, or at least the presence of a sacred spring, was a constant factor through the prehistoric period ......

And the further question must be asked, IF the Swallowhead was a special spring, how then did its relationship with Silbury hill feature in the general overlay of sacred landscape, because if Silbury was also built because of the low-lying water aspect of the site and the river that curves round it, and in a sense was part of a 'flooded' landscape,( similar for instance to Glastonbury Tor overlooking its 'fen' landscape,) it would'nt have been important at all...

Palisaded enclosures date....

Lichen,stone, grass and lavender

A small bunch of lavender flowers left at the barrow, a harmonious colouring

Ebbor Gorge

Take the road to Priddy from the Wells Road, and as you drive through this stonewalled landscape remember that you are entering a truly prehistoric landscape that goes way back into the past. Barrows, swallet holes, Priddy Circles and of course caves and rock shelters.
If you drive into the village of Priddy, stop for a moment and admire the large village green with an old fashioned farm on the other side. Drive up the hill to the church, and there is a barrow sitting in the field next to it. But to find the lane to Ebbor Gorge, you must take the first lane sharply left just as you enter the village, drive past the picnic place on the highest point of the hill, and descend down for a few hundred yards till on the left there is a car park for the Gorge.
The "scramble" walk is well indicated, you descend into the wooded depths of the gorge, high trees, dark green luscious growth and ferns on old fallen trees, patches of open ground gleaming pale in the sunlight, the white perfumed meadowsweet that loves boggy ground is on show. Then the scramble, you enter the narrow defile of the gorge where the shelters are situated, and begin to climb sharply over great natural stone steps with the sheer rock faces on either side, where there is sun the blue flowers of the nettle leaved bellflower cluster at the path's edge and a small stream trickles down the steps, at one point the path becomes so narrow between the rocks that it looks impassable.
The shelters are dark and gloomy places, Victorian grottoes comes to mind, Neolithic and Bronze age finds have been found, perhaps they were more burial place that living quarters. Upwards to the viewpoint over the gorge itself, steep, steep cliff like faces of rock covered with vegetation and tall trees in the gorge below, gives it a rainforest look and of course there is also a misty view to Glastonbury Tor with Wearyall Hills' long length blending into the landscape.
If you drive back to Priddy you should see some of the Nine Barrows on the horizon, turning left from the carpark takes you to Wookey Hole, and not too far away is Westbury Sub Mendip, where I believe half million year old bones were found…..
Its a middling demanding walk, steep paths and a bit of rock climbing.



Prehistoric Cave Art Is A Mammoth Find

It might not have the instant impact of modern graffiti but a mammoth carved on to a wall in Cheddar Caves 13,000 years ago is being hailed as one of the most significant examples of prehistoric art ever found in Britain. The carving - a little larger than a man's hand, is only the second piece of representational cave art found in Britain, and contemporary with the golden age of cave art in Europe... the rest can be found in the following article...

http://www.westerndailypress.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=146238&command=displayContent&sourceNode=146064&contentPK=18105499&folderPk=100268&pNodeId=145795

Clouds

...... Often when walking early in the morning one becomes aware how truly magnificent the clouds are. Whether the dull grey blankets that stretch from horizon to horizon, or the truly beautiful sunrise, as the colours chase gently across the sky.


Today this other nebulous natural world decided to set out its full array of outstanding creativity. Another world lives above our heads, great white mountains softly moulded, blue duck egg lakes lie tranquil amidst the snowy peaks. They are undershot with horizontal banding of dark grey islands and far to the west the grey blanket of rainclouds are already dispensing vertical misty shadows onto the earth below. The emerging sun delicately edges its attendant clouds with soft apricot and cream, it cannot gain dominancy just yet and bleach out all the colours.

No wonder the ancients looked up into this sky and wondered and saw a physical presence in nature, later, people turned this other world into the habitat of gods, and in doing so reduced the magnificence of nature to the paltry affairs of man.

Looking up and seeing this ethereal world, we are rationally expected to give names to the clouds, - cirrus, cumulus, nimbus, the following passage shows how easily latin words flows into the description of clouds or flowers.....



Just three Latin words unlock the meanings of most cloud names: Stratus meaning layer; cumulus, the word for lump or heap; and cirrus, which means wispy or curly. Add to this basic group the word nimbus, which means 'pouring down rain,' alto, the word meaning middle, and fracto for broken and you've got almost the entire sky covered.
Stratocumulus? That's easy - a layer of lumpy clouds. Cirrostratus - a wispy, curly layer of clouds. Cumulo-nimbus - big lumpy clouds that can pour down rain. How about fractostratus - a smooth layer of clouds that looks sort of torn apart.





There we have it, our beautiful world of clouds reduced to names, fairytales and myths long gone, but nature has no need of words, from a palette of colours the skies will be painted, billowing clouds will form animals, ships and people to the imaginative eye, clouds will race across the sun darkening the land and sea sometimes bringing such darkness as hurricanes and storms rage that it would seem the very end is near.

We cannot expect to go back to a past time, when the sky was god or the land a goddess, but it is comforting to know that once a very long time ago, before we became all knowing that the sky was indeed a mystical place, with its scattering of stars and great Milky Way and that it inspired stories.

The following link is an article written by John Vincent Bellezza, about the Divine Dyads of Tibet, or at least a part of Tibet. Before buddhism, or the Bon religion,there was an earlier neolithic/bronze age religion which fed into the later mythologies. The Divine Dyads are mountain (male) and lake (female) pairings of gods, and are part of the sacred landscape of Tibet, similar in fact to the early mythologised Celtic landscape of Ireland, with its four provinces and central Midhe..
In Bellezza's book Divine Dyads, he mentions circles and straight rows of stones similar to that found in European megalithic culture, but the nature of Tibet is such that very little archaeological work has been done. Though his book is long it is not exactly an easy read, this due to the fact that he uses the Tibetan language, to explain all the named gods, natural features, etc.

http://www.asianart.com/articles/bellezza/index.html

The Metrical Dinshenchas

http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T106500B/index.html

Stoney Littleton Longbarrow

Friday, another beautiful day, sod painting the utility room, there is more to life than applying paint to walls. To get to Stoney Littleton, via Homebase and paint, one has to drive across Bath, up the Wellsway and onto the A367 to Radstock but then just by Burnt Inn and the Fosse Way, turn left down to Wellow, and drive along an enchanting lane for three miles. It dips and curves, in and out of shadowy woods, small valleys and open country. Entering Wellow turn right and continue along the lane for about half a mile and then to the left is the sign to Stoney Littleton.
I parked at the top of the lane by the farm buildings, you can drive all the way down for about a mile and park by the Wellow Brook for the longbarrow, but today decided to walk the lane.
Moss already anticipating a decent walk, is off and out of the car and we make our way down the narrow lane. There are not many flowers at this time of the year, the first flush being over, but the air is warm and there are butterflies around on the blackberry bushes. The elderberries are already turning dark red and the lane disappears into a tunnel of trees creating a cool atmosphere. The Wellow Brook burbles contentedly to the left, snaking its way through the fields, and I take a photo of the Barrow crouched on the far hillside. Stoney Littleton sits under the ridge, its entrance facing upwards, maybe to greet sunrise, there is a ceremony around the 23rd December, when the sun is said to strike the back of the chambers.
At last we arrive at the small stile and bridge that crosses the brook, here one must stand and take in the azure blue of the demoiselles as they swoop across the water landing on pretty pink flowers to show off their colours. Then it is up through the fields till you reach a gate and enter the very stony field of the Long Barrow. Poppies, oxeye daisies and a great vegative black stand of beans, probably field beans. Over the stile, Moss has to be lifted over this one, and then we are in the little paddock dedicated to the barrow. As we approach the entrance I spy people inside, and so I sit down outside to gather in the peace of the surrounding countryside. Two people emerge, a ponytailed man, a woman and then...... A North American Indian, complete with aquilian nose and ponytail, we all greet each other (he did indeed raise his hand in that fabulous 'how' gesture) and Moss barks furiously at these Hobbits that have emerged from the dark cavern of the barrow, refusing to be friendly with the men.
My mind is already bouncing along with totem poles and ceremonial pipes enacted in front of our own native longbarrow, it seems so extraordinary that someone who understands the whole ceremonial ritual in another far country should be here. They depart and Moss and I go down the narrow passage to the chambers, its cool and dark but just a little scary, stanchions are inserted in some places along its length. Coming out into the bright sun, sitting and reflecting on the landscape, and remembering that there are other longbarrows that have been found along these valleys, and perhaps just as interesting, the tufa that was found further south by the Wellow brook, was the magic power of the ammonite on the doorway a symbol of the tribe who lived here, and did the tufa have some function in their lives.
Down back through the fields, and as we get to the stile, the three are there looking at the Brook. I wait by the stile for some horses to pass, Moss does'nt like horses either, and the people drive off, my Indian friend waving out of the car as they go. Back along the lane following the sound of receding hoofbeats, there is a small black child on a white horse and his father is riding also, maybe one day I'll bring Fitnit down here and get her on horseback at the Wellows Riding stables.

Facts and figures; Stoney Littleton is 36 m in length, 18 m in breadth; it is orientated SE/NW, of approximately 20 longbarrows to be found in North Somerset, 6 are SE/NW, 5 E/W, and the rest are sited to all points of the compass, perhaps showing that there is no fixed plan as to ritual placing of sites in the landscape. There is also no distinct pattern as to how they are arranged in the landscape, Stoney Littleton entrance faces upwards, but some longbarrows are parallel to slope, and some some right angle to slope, with three on level ground and two on top of a hill. Stoney Littleton is about 2 kilometres from Bray's Down Barrow, and there are other barrows situated in about a 15 kilometre radius .

Colt Hoare and the Reverend Skinner excavated SL in the 19th century, they tunnelled from the top as the entrance was blocked up with stones and earth. Apparently there had been a blocking stone at the entrance but this has disappeared. They found bits and pieces of human bone in several of the chambers (there are 6), and a complete burial pot was found but this has since disappeared.Colt Hoare described the barrow as one of the finest in Britain, but perhaps he was somewhat mistaken in that judgment, WKLB being exceedingly fine as well.

Phenomenology

For Edmund Husserl, phenomenology is an approach to philosophy that takes the intuitive experience of phenomena (what presents itself to us in phenomenological reflexion) as its starting point and tries to extract from it the essential features of experiences and the essence of what we experience. This has been called a "transcendental phenomenology". Husserl's view stems from the School of Brentano and was developed further by philosophers such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Max Scheler, Hannah Arendt, Dietrich von Hildebrand and Emmanuel Levinas ...

Phenomenology is a word I come up against time and time again, the latest in the book "the Spell of the Sensuous by David Abrams" described thus in the blurb as how to "reveal the subtle dependence of human cognition on the natural environment".

So this sets the stage for some thinking on my part, having as it were explored my thinking on narrating the landscape, what actually happens when a mind starts to relate to its surrounding.

Phenomenology has three slightly different interpretations, Hegel and Heidegger give other dimensions their interpretations can be found on Wikipedia here... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology

Edmund Husserl's philosophical discipline was "the things themselves" experiencing the world as it is happening in the immediate now. The very subjectivity of experience that can be found in the senses as we see, hear, smell touch, etc and the way language was formed to express our sense of the natural environment. It would argue that science plays a secondary role in all this because science draws together only parts of a disassembled truth. Science, like any other discipline, is constructed on a subjective understanding of the world it has not been "grounded" though on the basic experience of the world.

"to return to things themselves is to return to that world which precedes knowledge, of which knowledge always speaks, and in relation to which every scientific schematization is an abstract and derivative sign language" Maurice Merleau-Ponty

the above probably states it very clearly more then I do, and this theory has been explored by such people as architect Christopher Alexander in his four books on the Nature of

Order. Here Alexander has used through the medium of architecture and paintings an exploration of the inner centrality that the things around us are imbued with, and that art expressives itself through not only the thinking mind but is shaped by what it percieves - interaction works from both directions - and by comparing and contrasting different art forms and materials used, he shows his thinking, and of course his belief.

The other discipline phenomenology can be found in is archaeology, here the exponents are Christopher Tilley, Richard Bradley and others. They use this philosophical tool to explain the religious beliefs of prehistory. Whether it works in this context I am not sure, the unknown is just that, unknown, to explain it from your own subjective experience is to step lightly on unbroken waters, but every ripple from an alternative viewpoint will muddy those selfsame waters and one is in danger of falling through and drowning.

Richard Bradley has two front cover pieces on his books of Mark Johnston's photo-montage of the circular in nature, some of stone circles, Johnston describes our approach to circularity as somewhat flawed in a photograph because we only image the horizon as a straight line, in reality our human vision encompasses a circular vision (stand and turn round and watch the sky meet the land and note how we really do live on a globe) - the circle of the world is reflected in the circle of our inner perception.

Perhaps what he means by the circle of our inner perception is our closed mind, which bumps against the phenomena of the outside world and tries to rationalise everything in its path. Religion is not rational, neither is belief, but people employ their minds to believe anything, because they wish to give sense to the world around them.

So going back to Christopher's Alexander belief in an 'essence' in all living forms, which should manifest itself in organic design and use of natural materials are we to believe him? does a rounded, cob built house with a thatch have artistic merit or does it hark back to a romanticised historical past. Does a hand thrown pot painted with natural clay dyes have any more resonance with our souls than a beautiful highly decorated glazed pot. One is of course the result of technical excellence, the other a more homely reminder of our roots.

Gary Snyder - Old Woodrat's Stinky House

Us critters hanging out together

something like three billion years

Three hundred something million years

the solar system swings around

With all the milky way

Ice ages come one hundred fifty million years apart

last about 10 million

then warmer days return

A venerable desert

woodrat nest of twigs and shreds

plastered down with ambered urine

A family house in use 8000 thousand years,

and four thousand years of using writing equals

the life of a bristlecone pine -

A spoken language works

for about five centuries,

Lifespan of a douglas fir;

big floods, big fires, every couple hundred years

a human life lasts eighty,

a generation twenty.

Hot summers every eight or ten,

four seasons every year

twenty-eight days for the moon

day/night the twenty-four hours

and a song lasts four minutes

a breath is a breath

Argument ad Baculuum

Note; Argument ad baculuum to give an example..... a religious reply to a moral sceptic's question;- Why should I believe in such and such a way, is simply "because God requires it of you" in other words if you don't you will be punished argumentum ad baculum comes down to the use of threat, appealing to a 'force'. Threats of course are never a logical justification for acting one way or another... if there is a god, and hell fire, than it might be prudent to obey god; but the threat of punishment is not a principled reason for obedience. ........A.C.Grayling

Casuistry is a broad term that refers to a variety of forms of case-based reasoning. Used in discussions of law and ethics casuistry is often understood as a critique of a strict principle based approach to reasoning. For example, while a principle-based approach may conclude that lying is always morally wrong, the casuist would argue that lying may or may not be wrong, depending on the details surrounding the case. For instance, the casuist might conclude that a person is wrong to lie while giving legal testimony under oath, but (the casuist might argue) lying is actually the best moral choice if the lie saves someone's life. For the casuist, the circumstances surrounding a particular case are essential for evaluating the proper response ... Wikipedia explanation.

Paganism... nature beliefs characteristic of ancient paganism reflect the origins of religion as mankind's first attempt at science and technology. Its science because it takes in how the world works, it taught because the wind blows and invisible powers puff their cheeks and blow, and also that crops grow and rain falls at the will, or the whim of - the gods...
so according to Grayling, people watch the Easter ceremony on tv to replenish their faith in dim superstitions whose roots lie when our species was in its infancy, and which were dreamed up then to fill the vacuum of humanity's early ignorance

http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2326109.ece

Silbury Reflections

Yesterday I walked all round Silbury on a warm sunny day, that by happenstance turned out to be Lammas so I was rewarded by the event of a Druid ceremony on top of the hill, though in truth I was supposed to be recording what was happening with the contractors work to restore the mound to its original state.
Moss and I commenced our walk from the carpark, over the road, and there is the river beautiful as ever, long green fronds moving under the water, always invoking Rossetti's Ophelia drowning. Though rotten Rossetti made his wife lie submerged in a bath of cold water to get the effect, and probably gave her pneumonia. But the river is sparkling clear, making those soft chuckling, rilling noises as it flows under the silver leaved willows. There is a green verdancy about after all that rain, an exuberant green energy, broken by patches of flowers and the field of ripening yellow wheat. As we walk along the path I spy a partridge ahead, suddenly little chicks appear from out the undergrowth, maybe eight,I hold on to Moss's collar as they awkwardly take to the air, the mother continues along the path with a little one following furiously and they escape under the bar. Continuing to the bridge, and over the stile, where I see a hare sitting as bold as brass in the grass, his ears are a much darker colour than his body and so enormous, I sit on the stile and he sits in his field, Moss investigates the hedgerow, a perfect moment, magical of course a hare on Lammas day.
Photographing Silbury now, I notice the monorail running like a zip up her side, the rail is aligned with the straight ditch that leads to the river, and I wonder if they are draining the water from Silbury this way. Though later I am told there was no need to drain water. Up Waden Hill to take in the view, West Kennet longbarrow in the distance, crowning its ridge amongst the vast space that is the Wiltshire downs. Sweeping round now to Silbury, the neat square of the archaeological/contractors compound under the hill, on top men in bright orange move around the great necklace of its silver fence which sits ungainly on top. Moss is on his back rolling happily in the grass and we descend to follow the path once more. More photos, there is a crane hiding neatly in the hedgerow away from the compound, and as we come up to the road, a crew of two, camera and interviewer, one of the men rush over the road to me, had I seen the druid procession along the path. I had'nt, no one had followed me, and I am glad that the partridge and hare are now in hiding and can watch the humans play their games.
Walking along the road to the visitors centre, I meet two women with pushchairs, plump and slightly panting from their exertions they are definitely druidical in their colourful clothes, we greet each other. Further on I pass three people coming out of the compound, the two girls are in shorts, archaeologist team, but the man is dressed in a formal brown suit, it looks like Professor Ronald Hutton is here to witness the pagan ceremony, coincidentally I am reading his books at the moment, a sceptic like me, he is honest in his appraisal of this 'otherworld'and records, like all good historian should, the passing of this particular history.
I stop and take photos of the entrance to Silbury, a solitary helmeted Skanska man stands guard just below, waiting for Terry the Druid to make his climb to the top of the mound. People are gathering, but I go on, first to stop at the visitors centre to gather information. During my conversation with the girl there, we got to talking about the platform on top, and maybe its levelling during the Saxon period, when it seems to been made into a stockade, evidence of postholes in a trench have been found, but has only one trench was opened I suppose this can't be confirmed.
Walking now down to the little bridge, here along the path I can watch Terry the Druid conduct his ceremony, Hail and Farewell rings down from the top of the hill, part of the ceremony is to go to the four quarters of the hill and call on Lightening, but sadly (or happily) it does not appear, he kneels down and seems to dig the earth, is he taking or giving I wonder?
Musing at the bridge, watching the clear water make its way down the river, one realises nothing really matters in the world, the moment is captured, Moss will at the end of the walk take one last cold drink from the river, sating his thirst and resigning himself to the end of a happy ramble looking for elusive mice and voles.