Heritage Action - The Heritage Journal

Nearly one year ago Heritage Action reported on the proposal to build five new houses on the former Bonds Garage site just outside the north-east quadrant of the Henge (see 15 January 2008 ).

Apart from demolishing the garage little has happened since then; recently however Heritage Action has learnt that construction of the houses is soon to commence and a large photograph of what the houses will look like has now appeared on the site's hoarding.

Heritage Action is vehemently opposed to the building of these new houses so close (less than a hundred metres) to this World Heritage Site and believes that planning permission for their construction should be revoked.

The north-east quadrant of the Avebury Henge from the Bonds housing development.
Photo credit: Heritage Action

The very controversial building of the M3 motorway through the landscape of Tara has been revealed in a new and shameful light. Archaeologically, historically and culturally the Tara landscape is one of the most valued in Irish history, and yet the Irish government have gone ahead and pushed through one of the most severely fought over motorways in Ireland.

Do they rue the day, this road that pushed its way across a pristine landscape? I doubt it, suddenly the cold wind of depression is blowing down their necks, and the high cost of such an act begins to be questioned from outside the sphere of national government.

There has been bitter campaigning by groups of people opposed to the rape of the landscape round Tara and too many it has seemed that rules have been broken given Ireland's place in the international laws that pertain to environmental, historical and archaeological areas.

That they contravened UNESCO's rules is highlighted by a Petition bought forward by TaraWatch in June 2008 when it was stated that "Ireland had been in breach of the Convention* since 1991, by failing to nominate the Hill of Tara to be a World Heritage Site, until after the M3 motorway was approved."

In the petition TaraWatch called for a 'greater area' of land to be declared as a national and cultural protection zone, this was to include not only the entire Hill of Tara but with the Tara/Skyrne valley to also include the defensive forts of Rath Lugh (now undermined by the road) Rath Miles and Ringlestown Rath. Part of the great henge of Lismullin lies under the M3, though active resistance to stop the road being built were to be found at both Rath Lugh and Lismullin.

Recent news in the Irish Times highlights once again the arrogance of the Irish government's attitude in pushing forward destructive environmentally sensitive actions that have severe repercussions for the historical heritage of Ireland.

"IN a judgment which could have far-reaching implications, the EU has ruled that Ireland had wrongly interpreted the requirements for Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) for certain planning projects."
The report further goes on to state that: "the European Commission said the directive required other factors to be taken into account, such as location, the sensitivity of the geographical area and the potential impact on landscapes of historical and archaeological significance."

Though this cannot stop the destruction that has already taken place in building this road across the landscape, it may in its wake bring a halt to the 'development' that threatened at one time to follow the roads progress. Short term decisions often bring long term destruction and The Hill of Tara suffered in consequence of an ill fated decision.

"The Convention has as its goal the identification and protection of cultural and national heritage of "outstanding universal value"
- UNESCO adopted the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage ("The Convention") in 1972. Ireland ratified the Convention in 1991.

Her Majesty has just told the House of Commons that the Heritage Protection Bill is to be dropped.

Her body language suggested that she wasn't amused by plans to tip the balance of heritage protection significantly in favour of speed and the interests of developers or by the idea that local councillors should be given more power to make the decisions.

"Comrades, heritage belongs to all my subjects" (she is thought to have muttered). "No way am I going to let it be carved up for the benefit of just a few".

Congratulations to our archaeologist correspondent who wrote here just a couple of weeks ago -

The town of Penzance lies at the far south-western edge of Cornwall, overlooking the beautiful and unique Mount's Bay, where the last vestiges of the English Channel melds with the wild Atlantic Ocean. The town's name means holy headland or sacred head, and is traced from the Cornish language Pen Sans. One of the oldest parts of Penzance lies at the sandy beach adjacent to Battery Rocks. It was along this shore on the holy headland where Dark Age Celtic hermits and settlers arrived from Brittany and Ireland. St Buriana, St Gulval, St Paul Aurelian and St Madern are all localised Celtic saints, and it is easy to imagine them landing at this beach in the 5th and 6th centuries.

Gradually a fishing community was established and the site of an 11th century chapel was discovered where St Anthony's gardens lie, just a few yards from the beach. It was here that the remains of a Celtic cross of late antiquity was discovered. This can now be seen in nearby St Mary's churchyard, at the top of the ancient low-lying cliffs of this holy headland. St Mary's is an 1830's Victorian rebuild, built on the site of a medieval Church. From St Mary's church, the oldest street in the town leads away from the headland towards the modern shopping centre. Chapel Street takes its name from the ancient Celtic chapel by the beach, neither from the Victorian St Mary's nor the neo-classical Wesleyan Chapel, both of which now sit along this old road of beginnings.

It is difficult to understand then, why this ancient sacred heart of the town is about to be completely destroyed. The Isles of Scilly Steamship Company in association with Halcrow Group Limited and Cornwall County Council are developing a project to build over the beach and battery rocks, completely destroying what remains of the ancient sacred headland where Penzance was born. This is one of the towns last pieces of wild shoreline, most of which has been destroyed over the last couple of hundred years of "development". Dolphins and Seals are regularly seen here, and the rock-pools are full of life, with anemones, fish and crabs. The view from this small beach is unsurpassable! St Michael's Mount with the Lizard peninsular stretching out behind is a wildlife paradise. It is difficult to believe that this project is even being considered, as back in the 1950s over half of the existing harbour was filled in to make a car park. This car park remains as a constant reminder of idiotic planning!

The plan now is to build a combined passenger and freight ferry terminal to service the Isles of Scilly, along with another car park and numerous buildings and warehouses. The present Lighthouse pier will be extended, and the beach and rocky headland will be obliterated in the name of so-called "modern progress". So in the 1950s one side of the historic port was ruined, and now in 2008, the proposal is to completely obliterate the other side of the historic harbour and docks at Penzance.

The road leading to and from this historic area to the immediate west of the present docks is totally inadequate for any increase in traffic, and this project will bring increased freight traffic, which in turn will cause many problems on the narrow roads in the Barbican and harbour areas of the town. The existing Isles of Scilly freight and ferry service is more than adequate, and given the lack of space available to add any kind of development at this historic and much loved Cornish port, I believe the plans should be scrapped.

The Route Partnership Proposal Isles of Scilly Link has come up with the worst possible option for Penzance in spite of hundreds of thousands of pounds being given to Hyder Consulting (UK) and others. The council tax paying residents of Penzance and Cornwall are expected to pay millions of pounds to guarantee the funding from the Department for Transport for this project. It does not remove traffic congestion from Penzance, in fact it will only increase it! They propose a development that is detrimental to Penzance sea front and will destroy the valuable and irreplaceable beach and Battery Rocks. It will ruin the setting of many listed buildings - the Lighthouse Pier, Jubilee Pool, and the Promenade. The war memorial, which sits between the beach and the art deco splendour of Jubilee Pool, will be lost amongst the new buildings, not very respectful to those who lost their lives during two world wars!

So what about the archaeology of the site? As mentioned the remains of a dark age cross was found at this site. If this project goes ahead, any remaining archaeological discoveries will be lost forever. Penzance thrives on the tourist industry, and the people who visit, do so because they are interested in the unique history of the place. If we allow part of the towns history to be destroyed, what will that tell future visitors about us? It is also worth remembering that this beach falls on the so-called St Michael/Beltane Line, a loose alignment of ancient sacred sites spanning the entire length of Southern Britain.

There is now an online petition courtesy of the Save the Holy Headland group. The petition is to the Secretary of State for the Environment and is requesting the rejection of a proposal put forward by the Route Partnership to build a passenger terminal and warehouses over Sandy Cove! The whole beach and rock pools would be buried under metres of concrete and obliterated forever. This proposal was rejected in 2004 by local people but since then plans have been going through without the townsfolk direct involvement. I know that this project will not affect people outside of Penzance but it is a stand against private companies who believe that their money can buy anything! We cannot simply stand by and do nothing to protect our ancient shoreline. A shoreline littered with the ghosts of dark-age Celtic hermits and the founding souls of this ancient settlement; a place where the sacred landscape and diverse wildlife of the sea meet and merge!

If you feel you could support this cause then please click on the link below and sign the petition.

Andrew George MP, Trewella, 18 Mennaye Rd, Penzance TR18 4NG. Tel: 01736 360020 Fax: 01736 332866 www.andrewgeorge.org.uk

Secretary of State for the Environment. The Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP, Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London SW1P 3JR

If you are local, visit the beach, take photos of the wildlife and protest, tell people and keep in touch.

STOP PRESS
It was reported in last weeks Cornishman newspaper (20/11/08 ) that due to massive public opposition, the plans have been put on hold whilst further consultation is held with the public!

Let's keep up the pressure by continuing to protest and lets hope for a sensible outcome.

Comments by the parliamentary Culture Media and Sport committee on the draft Heritage Protection Bill were posted on line at the end of July 2008. They are basically adverse, a lot of issues in the bill concern them. When they looked at the bill, it was not complete, this was just one of their concerns. It is probably because no-one has yet worked out how to combine listed buildings, scheduled monuments, conservation areas, veteran trees and other historic features into a unified system - the aim of the bill.

The committee took evidence from about 50 archaeological establishment bodies. Their concerns were, fairly predictably, a lack of money to implement the changes. The DCMS have calculated that the cost of implementing the bill will be £1.72m. Can they be serious? Do they know what they have taken on? This paltry sum is to be divided between 350 local authorities and, furthermore, not ring fenced. The Country Land and Business Association put the cost at £100m a year, a more realistic sum and yet it wont be there, so what will happen.

One of the many committee concerns was the 37,000 listed buildings that are currently on the 'at risk' register. At the moment the onus is on the Local Authority to step in order the buildings are repaired, which they rarely do. The committee felt the onus should be reversed to fall on the owner, but this would have political implications that the government might not want to take on. They had a host of other concerns, running from lack of opportunity for voluntary bodies to comment, through to abolition of Archaeological Areas of Importance to (critically), statutory designations e.g. 'national importance', special archaeological importance'.

My main concern with the bill however is acknowledged only in passing by the Committee. It is that heritage protection will be handed over almost exclusively to Local Authorities. At the moment Scheduled Ancient Monuments are administered by English Heritage on behalf of the government. The legislation has protected these most important monuments well for over one hundred years. Once this 'gold standard' is removed, and their curation is given to Local Authorities, vested interests and local politics are bound to have an effect, and whittle away these monuments. It would be better to further distance Local Authorities from heritage protection, not bring them in closer. L.A.s are always strapped for cash, they are always balancing development against conservation, and will listen to the loudest voice or the most politically expedient voice, rather than protect these precious monuments that have lasted literally thousands of years.

With every year that passes ancient monuments are more vulnerable due to growing pressure on our landscape, combined with advanced machinery and locating devices. Because of the pressure on the landscape monuments will be more important than ever to future generations. Local Authorities strapped for cash, keen to develop their patch, wanting to respond to the business community, will not see it this way. Some might, even most might, but not all of them and not all of the time. Having the protection one step away, under the auspices of government, has protected monuments well up to now (with some exceptions). Why change it.

I don't think anyone knows how this bill will work in practice. While it might seem logical to merge listed buildings with conservation areas, with scheduled ancient monuments, actually these distinctions are there for good reasons. They have developed over the years and mostly work well. The one reservation is that English Heritage have almost stopped scheduling new monuments, I am not sure why.

Let's hope the credit crunch puts paid to this bill, it is a can of worms, best leave things as they are.

While we welcome contributions on heritage-related subjects to the Heritage Action Journal, the opinions expressed therein and the accuracy of the reporting lie solely with the originators of the report.

"For a mile before we came to Keswick, on an eminence in the middle of a great concavity of those rude hills, and not far from the banks of the river Greata, I observed another Celtic work, very intire: it is 100 foot in diameter, and consists of forty stones, some very large. At the east end of it is a grave, made of such other stones, in number about ten: this is placed in the very east point of the circle, and within it: there is not a stone wanting, though some are removed a little out of their first station: they call it the Carsles, and, corruptly I suppose, Castle-rig." William Stukeley

The above quotation is the earliest written record of the beautiful Castlerigg stone circle in Cumbria, which was also to become one of the first monuments to be scheduled under the Ancient Monuments Act in 1882, submitted to Parliament by Lord Lubbock in that year, this act was to become the corner stone of what we today see as the protection of Scheduled Monuments. Over subsequent years it has been redrafted several times, and from its early small beginnings of 26 monuments in England, 22 in Scotland, 18 in Ireland and 3 in Wales, it has grown to the massive size we see today under the guardianship of English Heritage. Perhaps the most important major redrafting was in 1979 when the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act of 1979 was implemented.

But the original act of 1882 only covered prehistoric structures such as dolmens, stone circles, barrows and standing stones, nineteen century antiquarianism had fostered a love of these old 'druidical stones' and we should be grateful to them for recognizing the value of our prehistoric past.

But what of today's protection for such stones, we may have come a long way from when Stukeley lamented the burning and destruction of the stones of Avebury but the remit of English Heritage has grown large, and include a diverse group of buildings, monuments and archaeological sites. Our most important sites such as Stonehenge and Avebury are under increasing pressure from roads and tourists alike, and there is always the constant battle to protect them. This battle is often taken on by a diverse group of non-governmental bodies and action groups.

There is also another tranche/layer of protection that has developed over the last two decades and this is UNESCO's protection of World Heritage Sites, Stonehenge and Avebury coming under this umbrella, as does the Georgian city of Bath, Does this help or hinder our national monuments?

In the case of Bath a delegation is visiting the city to see whether or not World Heritage Site status should be removed; it is interesting to see in this article in the Independent, the argument as to whether the city becomes 'pickled in aspic' by the 'heritage police,' a phrase used by the developers, or developed, thereby spoiling the rather perfect Georgian ambience that is so much part of Bath's fame.

To return to Castlerigg and its rather jewel like setting amongst high peaks, it has suffered little damage due to its remoteness but this cannot be said of Stonehenge or Avebury. Action has to be taken to at least give back to Stonehenge and its landscape some dignity by the removal of the visitors centre and the closure of the A344. It has already suffered from a public exercise costing many millions on whether a tunnel should be built, a waste of public expenditure. Avebury presents its own problems, heavy footfall of tourists, and a busy road which winds through the circle causing great concern to pedestrians crossing at gated entrances.

From its early inception the Ancient Monuments Act has come a long way, and today's problems are very different to those experienced in the 19th century, but what does stand out is that guardianship, both by Government bodies and local groups are still as important and vital if we are to preserve our heritage.

Readers may know that our campaigns and Heritage Journal articles are generally about threats to prehistoric sites in the hope they can be avoided or minimized. Not this one. It's a pure moan.

You may recall how we strongly supported those who fought so hard against Hereford Council's unstoppable agenda to drive a highway over a world-unique structure known as the Rotherwas Ribbon, in the face of the government saying the road wasn't needed.

They were aided - nay, entirely enabled - by English Heritage's refusal to save the Ribbon by refusing to protect it by scheduling it straight away and saying instead that any decision to do so would take them a long time (long enough to enable the road to be built over it, as indeed it now has been! )

We did suggest that the evidence indicated that the Ribbon might be part of a much wider complex and therefore part of something extremely significant (the County Archaeologist suggested at an early stage it had an importance that made it comparable to Stonehenge) and we argued that at least the building of the road should be delayed until investigations were carried out so that everyone would know what was going to be lost. Sadly however, Hereford Council opted instead for indecent haste, the road was built and someone got very rich as a consequence.

That's all. Another case of money winning, the rest of us losing and our taxpayer-funded heritage guardians letting it happen despite having full powers to prevent it. End of story.

Except for this:
Last Friday, 11 November, an Archaeology Symposium was held in Hereford at which the results of the investigations so far were presented. And in the words of an attendee -

"Trial trenching ahead of further work in the area has revealed site after site from the Neolithic and early Bronze Age. The River Lugg a tributary of the Wye within which this site sits has also recently started yielding Neolithic and early Bronze Age sites. These include Henges, barrows, pit alignments, burnt hollows and more fire cracked stone surfaces to name but a few. The sheer number of sites coming up is tremendous..."

In other words, the Ribbon wasn't all that they damaged. As suspected, it looks as if it was a central feature of an incredibly rich, extensive and unique prehistoric ritual landscape.

Vandals have burnt down an Iron Age reconstruction roundhouse at Barbury Castle earlier this week. Senseless acts of bravado and in this case destruction are quite common, but perhaps what is not understood is the hard work and joint effort by many people to create a marvellous example of our past history.

The roundhouse was designed and constructed by Acorn Education who with the help of local people built it. Local materials were also used, and artwork depicting the prehistory of the Iron Age hillfort was beautifully illustrated in the hut, as were the wood carvings on the beams and posts. This is what is so sad, the lost artwork, the roundhouse in all its glory, a teaching example to adults and children alike of what life would have been like in the past.

Barbury Castle replica Iron Age roundhouse before the vandals got to it. Photo credit: Littlestone

The damage has been attributed to boy bikers, who in the evening use the Barbury Castle car park to joyride in. If there are gates to the car park, these should be shut in the evening thereby restricting access to the site, whether this is feasible though is another problem. What should be clear, is that such acts of mindless vandalism must be stopped, and that perhaps sometime in the future a new roundhouse can be built. All we have left now are photos of the building and artwork.

It should be noted that the Roundhouse lies within the Barbury Castle Country Park, managed by the Swindon Services Ranger Team, part of Swindon Borough Council, therefore responsibility for shutting gates or installing CCTV to protect the site must rest with them. It is also worth mentioning that as £28,000 has been spent on building the roundhouse, no thought was given by the council to adding doors to protect the wall paintings from bad weather; the paintings, subsequently have suffered serious degradation since the roundhouse was first built. There is a charge of negligence to be brought here, or at least carelessness in not protecting a unique and very valuable site.

It seems that Mr John Browning is unlucky enough to own land that was once a Roman settlement, a fact that has come to the knowledge of thieves. "Nighthawk" metal detectorists have raided it three times in the past five days, the latest in a long list of incidents - "At least 50 people have been caught and penalised over the years and Mr Browning believes more than 100 incidents have gone unpunished."

Fifty caught and one hundred incidents unpunished, 150 in total. That's 1.5% of the official estimate of the number of metal detectorists in Britain. On just one farm! How can this be reconciled with the claim by metal detectorists that nighthawks make up only a tiny minority of their numbers? An isolated statistical blip, not part of a wider phenomenon (we hear it claimed, or will soon! ) Unfortunately though, loads of neighbouring farms have been targeted and in the published words of a detectorist local to the farm: "Trouble is, it is not just Mr. Brownings farm there that has the problem. Neighbouring land, land all around that area is regularly targeted, it is not far from West Stow, Mildenhall, etc. Hawkers go all over there. It is just that Mr. Browning is on a mission with them, and is constantly trying to catch them with all sorts of equipment etc. Good on him, but that is why you hear about more convictions with him and his land."

In other words, when it comes to estimating how many nighthawks are out there, the more you look the more you find! We hope the authors of the imminent Nighthawking Survey bear this simple algorithm in mind. They're hard to see on account of the lack of light! Getting people's vague impressions of what goes on in the dark is one thing. Seeing it, for sure, is another. Perhaps there should be a second survey, "A Nighthawking Survey not based upon vague impressions but on Nightvision Surveillance"! Would the figures be higher? Ask Mr Browning who has seen it happen on his land 150 times, a figure no doubt comparable to the national total of confirmed sightings by people not using night vision equipment.

Mr Browning has certainly tried very hard:
"Earlier this year three men were fined for visiting the site equipped to steal. They were spotted on the site by Mr Browning who was using a special nightscope. Ricky McCabe, 34, David Miller, 38, and Alan Chapman, 37, all from Chadwell St Mary, each admitted going to a field equipped to steal. All three were ordered to pay £250 in costs, McCabe and Miller fined £250 and Chapman fined £500 when they appeared before a judge at Ipswich Crown Court in March."

Were the fines high enough? Hardly, in a week in which someone has been jailed for a year for stealing a few medals from his local museum. (When will Britain start treating crooks with finds pouches as harshly as crooks with swag bags? ) And not in comparison with the oodles the bronze heads and statuettes they were after would have fetched on Ebay once "laundered by description" (I dug 'em up in me back garden, honest mate, so it's legal innit? ). And we know some importers over the Atlantic that would gobble the goods up for their Collector clients. (All together guys: "We're ethical, we are, and our respectable Limey suppliers whose confidence we must respect told us the goods were legit, honest Bud, so it's legal ain't it?"

And so it goes. Assorted lootings from the four corners of the world end up academically labelled in polished walnut (or sometimes rosewood) cabinets in Ohio and everyone's blameless. And in the case of Britain the route leads from the criminal chapter and the much larger unethical and conservation-blind chapters of a hobby for heroes straight to American collecting zeroes, day after week after year after decade. A plague on them all. Look left if you want to see what erosion of the British artefactual resource partly fuelled by this process means. Look again in a few minutes, it will have worsened and someone in Ohio will be a little bit more proud.

Detectorists, predictably, are expressing outrage even though very many of them say there are known nighthawks in their local clubs (30% was estimated in one case.) Would you stay part of a part-criminal club dear reader? And say nothing? And then publicly rage about how awful criminals are? One detectorist has just posted this telling remark: "They'll be back out tonight on another site to get the goods to pay the fine."

Mr Browning said he often carries out night patrols but doesn't know what more he could do to protect the site as he couldn't do it every night. A metal detectorist has just offered him a solution: "Give permission for detectorists to go on during the day, maybe a club, they can record finds and treasure split 50/50 with farmer, will make it not worth hawking if done properly" Spiffing idea! Got a burglary problem? Invite a load of strangers with no testimonials but a known predeliction for valuables such as yours, some of them with Ebay accounts, to come into your house, clear half of them out permanently to their houses or auction them and maybe get a huge financial reward as well! And what's that sign on their bulging finds pouches? "Only in it for love of history, definitely not money"? So what does 50/50 refer to? In the circumstances we'd hope they'd also offer to tarmac the drive while they were there.

No, we think Mr Browning deserves no such kind offers of visits, just huge thanks from the rest of us for unselfishly making such an effort to save artefacts for the community rather than spending endless hours beep-beeping after them purely to claim them for himself as every single metal detectorist does, whether nighthawk or not. In fact maybe he could get public funding for what he does (paid direct from the Portable Antiquities Scheme budget perhaps), or a reward. A million pounds would be about right since that is the level of reward some metal detectorists have received under the Treasure Act.

And while we're at it, how about a government minister publicly announcing that Mr John Browning is an unsung heritage hero, like the previous Minister of Culture said about metal detectorists? Seems fair.

The Office of the Prime Minister, Number10.gov.uk hosts online petitions from members of the public. Recently Heritage Action member Cursuswalker submitted a petition which has proved to be of interest to many who are concerned with the welfare of ancient sites.

It was a response to the apparently endless succession of cases of "brandalism" (putting giant messages alongside or even on important sites such as hill figures to promote commercial or political messages) or using them in a less than careful or appropriate fashion for television programmes. Pro-hunting organisations, car sales companies, Channel Four's Big Brother and ITV's Trinny & Susannah (currently marketing "Magic Knickers - iron out those bumps and lumps with the Bum Lifter") are some of the recent culprits (sometimes in conjunction with official guardians that allowed them to do so in exchange for payment).

Part of the petition says "In addition to actual damage, such desecration causes insult and distress to many people of diverse belief paths" - to which we could add "or none". It is not just those who have spiritual beliefs that feel offended by these stunts, in fact anyone who isn't primarily interested in furthering the interests of fox hunters, Big Brother and Trinny & Susannah is likely to feel these places deserve to be treated with respect. Yet the government response has been both dismissive and mealy-mouthed.

To be sure it uses the magic word "respect" - "scheduled ancient monuments should be treated with respect and are protected by law because of their significance." But this is political trickyspeak supreme. The government says it considers the sites should be "treated with respect" and the government "protects them by law". The truth is though, the law protects them from damage but so far as we are aware contains no provisions for protecting them from disrespect - something which we have long felt is wrong and, in our own words, "We urgently call for this vitally important concept to be incorporated into the planning and protection systems."

In addition, the trickiness in the government's response extends to this: "When English Heritage receives reports of damage it considers all the available evidence and takes appropriate action on a case-by-case basis." Yes, but what isn't made clear is that, (apart from the fact they can't act against disrespect, only damage) if the damage is not actually on the scheduled site but merely adjacent to it, English Heritage has no power to do anything about it. The lack of statutory protection for the surroundings of scheduled sites is the one factor that has enabled Tarmac to legally gobble up much of the landscape of the Thornborough Henges and for metal detectorists to repeatedly stage mass grabfests of hundreds of artefacts on that important landscape and others while the authorities stood by, furious but powerless.

This lack of protection against either disrespect or damage to the surroundings of scheduled sites is contrary to the recommendations of UNESCO and various international conventions yet the British situation actually seems set to be made even more dire with the English Heritage Board recently opining "if the policy for the core area was strong enough, there would be no need for a buffer zone." See our recent Journal article "Settings to be thrown to the wolves?" http://www.heritageaction.org/?page=theheritagejournal&id=204

So there we have it. Thanks to the clever words of a Number 10 civil servant or those of whoever the drafting of the response was delegated to, the legitimate concerns of those who care for these sites have been totally ignored and the government has given the impression it gives a damn.

We learn with concern that the National Trust is running a local consultation about whether a solstice campsite should be provided at Avebury and one of the options is a site near to the West Kennet Avenue.

We feel that option is most unsuitable and should not have been offered. A small tented village next to the Avenue stones can hardly be considered appropriate on any level, whether spiritual, aesthetic or practical. Many people travel from far and wide to see the monuments and it is hardly fair that they should be confronted by such an intrusive arrangement, even for one day.

The question of where and whether a temporary campsite is provided is clearly a matter to be settled between the National Trust, pagan groups and the villagers. But please, be sensible, the monuments are for everyone not just those three stakeholders so not next to the West Kennet Avenue thanks!

"Persimmon Homes and Redrow Homes have submitted a revised planning application to Swindon Borough Council for 1,800 houses, 14 hectares of employment land, a university campus etc etc.

It is virtually the same as the one submitted in August 2007. The house-builders still haven't found a university partner"

Coate Water is an expanse of land and water, one might even call it an oasis on the fringe of Swindon. It is in grave danger of being developed by Persimmon and Redrow to build a large number of houses, but also within the specifications laid down by the Swindon Council planning officers there were to be facilities for a new university campus and a 'business' development.

Coate Water - Image Credit: Thelma Wilcox

My interest in Coate Water began 3 years ago when Bath University were interested in expanding to this new development. Luckily this did not happen, the university went on to expand on to a green field site next to their present buildings, and presently the West of England University seems to have opted into opening a centre in Swindon itself. Coate Water has the remnants of at least one old stone circle but is probably more famous for the little museum dedicated to Richard Jefferies, who in the 19th century wrote incredible prose to the beautiful landscape surrounding Coate Water at that time. Views To Liddington Hill, Barbury Castle, an escape to the rolling downs, so much a part of the Wiltshire countryside this is what Coate offers today.

Hemmed in by motorway and the straight ring road, we may question why bother saving another landscape, or at least that ethereal dreamy landscape that Jefferies envisioned, a prehistoric landscape still partly preserved with the great Ridgeway track, Iron age forts, Wayland's Smithy longbarrow and the great Celtic White Horse at Uffington striding timelessly across the land.

Visual beauty is of course the answer, people love their own landscapes, they are precious and need to be preserved; suburban encroachment is dull and uninspiring, the need for new homes can be answered in the small scale or on brownfield sites.

Coate Water is an oasis, a place where people go to relax, children to rush round yelling, dogs also to have their fun; the placid waters of Coate surrounded by its verdant greenery and its memories of a more peaceful time need to be preserved for everyone's peace of mind....

"Sweetly the summer air came up to the tumulus, the grass sighed softly, the butterflies went by, sometimes alighting on the green dome. Two thousand years! Summer after summer the blue butterflies had visited the mound, the thyme had flowered, the wind sighed in the grass. The azure morning had spread its arms over the low tomb; and full glowing noon burned on it;"
Richard Jefferies - The Story of My Heart.

Links:
http://jefferiesland.blogspot.com/
http://savecoate.pbwiki.com/FrontPage
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.wheaver/savecoate/news.html

While we welcome reports on heritage-related subjects to the Heritage Action Journal, the opinions expressed therein and the accuracy of the reporting lie solely with the originators of the report.

The London Stone is today a little-regarded limestone boulder, a blackened and damaged fragment of the original, set behind an iron grille low in the wall of a building awaiting redevelopment at 111 Cannon Street. Yet, dating back a thousand years or perhaps two thousand or even far longer, it has some claim to being considered a geographical, historical and ceremonial heart of London and was for centuries the traditional place to conduct various ceremonies including the swearing of oaths.

For these reasons we should like to propose that it should be temporarily placed in the Olympic Stadium as a potent symbol of London upon which the Olympic oath could be sworn.

The origins of the stone are lost in antiquity. Some authorities suggest it was part of a prehistoric stone circle that stood on the site of St Paul's, others that it may be the altar piece from a temple built by Brutus of Troy around 1075 BC. A more commonly offered speculation is that it is of Roman origin, a theory supported by the existence of known Roman buildings in its vicinity. A persistent speculation is that the stone may have been a Milliarium Aureum or Golden Milestone, a symbolic centre point of the city from which every distance in Roman Britain was measured. This belief was already in circulation in the 16th Century (although Sir Christopher Wren suggested that it was too big to be of Roman origin).

Whatever its origins, there is no doubt it has occupied an important place in the history of London for very many centuries. The first written reference to it is in an early 10th century gospel book where some lands are described as being 'near unto London stone' and by 1198 it appeared on maps as Lonenstane or Londenstane. In the twelfth century the city of London's first mayor lived close to it and was named Henry Fitz-Ailwin de Londonestone.

In 1450 further "mayoral" connections with the stone were established when it was the scene of "Jack Cade's Rebellion" (later recounted by Shakespeare in Henry VI, part II) in which Cade struck it with his sword and declared himself "Lord of London". Over the years the stone became a ceremonial centre for a number of civil and legal purposes with various sources citing it as being used for the making of proclamations, passing laws, reclaiming debts and swearing oaths. Petitions were struck against the stone to formally register them with the authorities.

Although moved several times within Cannon Street and now being only a small part of the original, it was originally an impressive feature, standing in the centre of the roadway. It was described as "very tall" by John Stow in 1598 and "a great stone called London Stone, fixed in the ground very deep, fastened with bars of iron, and otherwise so stronglie set that if cartes do runne against it through negligence, the wheeles be broken, and the stone itself unshaken. The cause why this stone was there set, the verie time when or other memorie thereof, there is none". Although reduced to a much smaller piece the Stone has somehow survived, not least because of the sense of it's importance, albeit undefined or mystical, demonstrated by previous generations, perhaps to the shame of this one.

Indeed, its very survival is a potent symbol of London itself, both of them having endured despite civil strife, plague, fire and even the blitz - during which the stone remained unscathed despite the bombing of St Swithin's church to which it had long been attached. The church, which was at the current site of the stone was subsequently demolished and only the stone survives from that time. Soon, the new building to which it is attached is to be demolished and it is planned to re-house the stone once again in the planned replacement building. The London Stone, like London, is a survivor.

We hope that our proposal might meet with your approval. We feel that the intended temporary removal of the stone to the Museum of London in 2010 during the redevelopment works provides a very felicitous opportunity for it to be used during the Olympic ceremonies in 2012, and one that we hope will not be missed. Auspicious, ceremonial and mystical stones are of course deep in the British psyche and represent an aspect of Britishness that is recognised worldwide. We feel that the London Stone has an unrivalled claim to be a chosen symbol of the long and enduring nature of London and it's history before the eyes of the world.

As we approach the fifth anniversary of Heritage Action's first registration we have just had a stunning reminder of exactly why we care so passionately about our prehistoric sites and try so hard to highlight threats to them and their settings. This image of the incomparable Castlerigg Stone Circle by Paul Atlas-Saunders is a wonderful example of the extraordinary visual impact of many of these places, while Alex Langstone's poem which accompanies it illustrates just some of the reasons why they are appreciated by such large numbers of people.

I cannot believe
That in this fateful hour
The infinite beauty
That shall caress mine eyes
Behold!
I cannot believe, that the
Glorious fanfare of strange
Stark contrasts that my gaze
Is upon, so lifts me that
I become overwhelmed by passions
That I have never known.
I cannot believe that
The form of beauty
That the scene foretells
Can (alone) create such an impression
Upon my mind
That primeval memories stir
From depths uncharted territory.
So I am fired up by the glory of
The Holy Spirit
In Her pantheistic ways
Upon these eternal hills of mine.
I cannot believe that
Such variety of colour
And texture can engulf the
Ageless pattern strewn formations
Of fell side and mystic ring
And I cannot believe that Deity
Has not a hand in all of this and more
For surely all life's creation
Emanates from She who is
Sacred Earth's
Goddess Divine.

You can visit Alex's admirable blog here and also find hundreds of megalithic poems and images on our own Littlestone's blog here

After nine long years the ambience and surroundings of the incomparable Stanton Moor Stone Circle are now safe.

It is only fair to record that this may well not have come about through the workings of the statutory protection system alone (including the efforts of the adequately paid statutory guardians of the site and the handsomely rewarded legal profession). It is a victory that has very much been down to an extra factor - the astonishing persistence over the years against all odds and in all weathers of large numbers of protestors (working with very many local people and the National Parks Authority) many of whom have been widely dismissed as "scruffy long-haired layabouts". It is also right to remember the three people who sadly lost their lives at the site during this time.

Anyone who has visited the site in the past few years could not fail to have been struck by two things: first, the magical nature of the stone circle and it's surroundings - surely one of the most precious cultural and aesthetic assets in the whole of Europe; and second the amazing living conditions of the protestors (prompted by the threat of eviction by bailiffs) - precipitous tree houses at terrifying heights, a network of connecting rope walkways extending for two kilometres and a maze of tunnels and emergency bunkers.

It is now possible that this extraordinary place will now remain unsullied for another thousand years. If so, posterity will have cause to be grateful to ordinary people, some of whom have been labelled as "hippies who should go out and get a real job". Without them, people in suits with real jobs - those promoting the quarrying ambitions of Stancliffe Stone - might well have secured a different outcome.

Ian Pearson, estates manager of Stancliffe Stone, recently said "We've been working closely with the national park authority, local community and other interested parties to reach an agreement... We would like to thank all of the stakeholders involved in finalising this agreement, which will help protect the Nine Ladies Stone Circle, wildlife and surrounding landscape." However, we trust posterity will appreciate that the struggle was to prevent quarrying not about "working together" and who precisely it was that wanted, for nine long years, to do the quarrying. It certainly wasn't "hippies"!

Read more about this victory here and here. See also our original Alert which thankfully (and rather unusually) is no longer needed!

The settings of our ancient monuments are integral to their understanding and appreciation and vital parts of our common inheritance. Although they have no agreed definition or specific statutory protection their value has long been universally acknowledged so that, for instance, building a gas works close to a monument would be seen as unacceptable. Similarly, the existence of a run down visitor centre near to one is deemed "a national disgrace" (as was said in parliament about Stonehenge).

The importance of settings is laid out in a host of national and international documents such as the Burra Charter and UNESCO recommendations and conventions like The Recommendation concerning the Safeguarding of Beauty and Character of Landscapes and Sites (1962), The Recommendation concerning the Preservation of Cultural Property Endangered by Public or Private Works (1968 ), The Recommendation concerning the Safeguarding and Contemporary Role of Historic Areas (1976), The Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003), and more specifically The World Heritage Convention (1972) and its Operational Guidelines, where "setting" is listed as an attribute of authenticity and as needing protection through the establishment of buffer zones.

This was recently laid out even more plainly by the General Assembly of ICOMOS, the International Council on Monuments and Sites in its Xi'an Declaration (2005) - "Legislation, regulation and guidelines for the protection, conservation and management of heritage structures, sites and areas should provide for the establishment of a protection or buffer zone around them that reflects and conserves the significance and distinctive character of their setting."

It is against this background that some recent British attitudes cause, or should cause, considerable disquiet for all who value our heritage.

In particular there is this from the May 2008 minutes of the English Heritage Advisory Committee: "The Committee also discussed the problems surrounding buffer zones and settings and agreed that solutions were dependent upon local authorities giving them sufficient consideration. The Committee was informed that a cross Group EH Project Board was looking at the issue of settings. The Board felt that if the policy for the core area was strong enough, there would be no need for a buffer zone."

We disagree. And we wonder how English Heritage can square this with international opinion and Conventions?

Further, we wonder who benefits from such a policy? Not the Heritage-owning public, for certain. Clearly, the only beneficiaries are those who have a financial or selfish interest in exploiting or destroying settings. Tarmac plc has spent many years progressively removing vast tracts of the surroundings of the Thornborough monuments under the very simple banner "The Henges themselves are perfectly safe". At the same time, metal detectorists have held several mass rallies close to the henges, removing both artefacts and knowledge in the face of the powerless disapproval of the authorities. Of course, the henges ARE safe. But on that basis of justification the setting of the most important prehistoric monument between Stonehenge and the Orkneys is now more than half destroyed physically and more is in hand and planned. English Heritage's recent words cannot have been greeted with other than enormous satisfaction in the head offices of the likes of Tarmac and by the organisers of metal detecting rallies.

At he same time we note that a new Stonehenge Management Plan has been published and this contains a very significant change. No longer is it necessary for a new Visitor Centre to be located outside the World Heritage Area. Now it can be built within it (providing it doesn't cause damage). We have to wonder WHY this change was made - why is that which has long been regarded as unacceptable now deemed acceptable and indeed how it is now deemed possible to build something on Stonehenge's world-acknowledged setting without damaging it? UNESCO's Recommendation concerning the Preservation of Cultural Property Endangered by Public or Private Works (1968 ) seems to give all the warning that is required when it says "Due account should be taken of the relative significance of the cultural property concerned when determining measures required for the preservation of an entire site, structure, or other forms of immovable cultural property from the effects of private or public works". By any measure Stonehenge and it's entire site are of rather high "relative significance". Why then should a new Management Plan suddenly target it for new public works when the rest of Wiltshire is available? We know not.

Further, we are reminded of these comments about the recently published Power of Place document and the omission of adequate provision for the protection of archaeological landscapes - ".....there can be no doubt that in the future those who profit from the destruction of other, and specifically archaeological, assets will seize on these omissions for their own rapacious ends...." http://www.assemblage.group.shef.ac.uk/issue6/Cumberpatch_Power_web.html

Is there a pattern showing? It would seem so. We can only hope that in the final outcome the Stonehenge setting will NOT be damaged, that the omissions in Power of Place will be rectified and that when the EH Project Board finally reports upon the issue of settings it will not repeat its Advisory Committee's assertion that "if the policy for the core area was strong enough, there would be no need for a buffer zone."

We can only reiterate, the World Heritage Convention Operational Guidelines list "setting" as an attribute of authenticity and as needing protection through the establishment of buffer zones. This clearly implies that the setting should be protected in it's own right and cannot be considered protected merely by virtue of the "core area" being 100% safe. That's pure Tarmacese and is a license not to protect the setting but to ignore it. We recommend the EH Commissioners take a coach trip up to Thornborough to see what havoc has been wreaked on their watch.

It's not too often that we hear great stories of restoration of ancient monuments, but this weekend saw the official opening of one of the most impressive examples seen for centuries.

The monument was in a pretty poor state prior to World War II, but during that time, the remaining three stones and bank were flattened, and the ditch filled to make way for an airfield. In the early 1970's, the airfield had been long since abandoned, and during excavations, evidence was uncovered for a complete plan of the circle and earthworks.

Engineering company Wardell Armstrong were called in to advise in the restoration, and as a result, 8 of the original stones were re-erected earlier this year. The remaining 21 stones, which were sourced from a nearby quarry in Ducklington - and are of exactly the same type of ironstone conglomerate as the originals - were erected in the most likely locations of the missing stones.

Also, impressively, the ditch and bank surrounding the stones has also been reconstructed as faithfully as possible.

The Devil's Quoits, Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire. Photo credit: Graham Orriss

"I visited the circle with my family on the official opening day - Sunday 13th September. As we walked around the site, I couldn't help but feel a sense of enormous gratitude to all that were involved in this project, from Oxford Archaeology, Waste Recycling Group (WRG), and Wardell Armstrong, to the individuals whose vision and efforts saw this through to the end.

The new stones shone in the bright sun, in contrast to the weathered original stones, which had been exposed to the elements, prior to their burial, for thousands of years."

Local artist Jane Tomlinson blogged about the reconstruction earlier this year. You can read her excellent first-hand report here:

One of them, Ted Fletcher (author of numerous books on how to locate finds "worth real money") says he's going to set up a website to expose the "true facts". Not about metal detecting but about "the heritage industry" (archaeologists, museums, universities, governments - and us! ) - people that have tried to "either outlaw or control the hobby".

This website will be called "Heritage Fiction" and amazingly he has appealed to detectorists to send him money to help him with "the costs of research, which involves travel to and from archives, as well as laborious searches of archaeological records and journals over many, many years."

We can only wish him luck as he'll find it hard to find evidence that we want to ban metal detecting (since we've never ever said such a thing) or that we're wrong to say MOST detectorists don't report their finds to the Portable Antiquities Scheme (since that is precisely what the Portable Antiquities Scheme says! )

We don't want to ban metal detecting but we DO want ALL detectorists compelled to behave responsibly since a decade of the "voluntary approach" hasn't worked. We look forward to this "truth about the heritage industry" being widely exposed to the public.

We don't know how much money Mr Fletcher has collected towards his great enterprise so far but there's no sign of Heritage Fiction yet. On the other hand, last September's running total of ten million artefacts removed from the fields by detectorists mostly without reporting them has now grown to ten million plus two hundred and eighty five thousand!

Some incorrect impressions seem to have got into the press lately (from whence we know not). In particular, it is alleged that UNESCO is "angry" that Britain has recently cancelled the tunnel scheme.

The original scheme consisted of a LONG tunnel running under the whole of the World Heritage Site and hence causing no damage whatsoever to it. But UNESCO never approved the subsequent "short" version of the tunnel that English Heritage and the government pushed for, the one that would have caused vast damage to the surroundings of the stones.

Indeed, they couldn't have approved of that since it clearly breached the World Heritage Convention - which specifically forbids any State Party from causing major damage that is demonstrably unnecessary.

The town of Ingatestone (Ging ad Petram - the 'parcel of land by the stone') in Essex takes its name from a Saxon settlement of 430 acres which originally supported a dozen or so inhabitants belonging to the Gigingas - the 'Giga's people'. The Saxon name for the settlement was Ing-atte-Stone (Ing at the Stone). It is likely that a Saxon church predated the small Norman one built there sometime between 1080-1100. The Saxon church may in turn have occupied the site of a former stone circle as a sarsen (a hard silicified sandstone of a type also used at Avebury and Stonehenge) was found in the north wall of the church during building work for the organ chamber there in 1905. This stone has since been relocated to the south side of the church.

One of the eight Ingatestone stones now on the south side of Ingatestone church. Photo credit: Littlestone

There is evidence that some Christianised sites in Britain and Ireland have been in continuous use as sacred meeting places from before the Roman occupation. Such sites may have started with people meeting in groves, or close to springs, ponds and other water courses. The remains of a stone circle, either near or actually beneath the church itself, are sometimes found at such sites. Often an Anglo-Saxon, and then a Norman church, were built on the older pre-Christian site: Alphamstone and Broomfield churches in Essex and Alton Priors and Pewsey churches in Wiltshire appear to be examples of this continuity. The north wall (the oldest part of the Church of St Edmund and St Mary at Ingatestone) is constructed largely of broken puddingstones, although there are also several quite large dressed stones in the buttress between the north wall and the tower. The puddingstones in the north wall of Ingatestone church are interspersed in places with layers of Roman tiles.

The astonishing puddingstone wall (Norman) on the north side of Ingatestone Church. Did the puddingstones once form part of the circle here? Photo credit: Littlestone

In the south wall of Broomfield church there is a similar pattern of flint nodules interspersed with Roman tiles, as well as a few small broken puddingstones and one single, very impressive, puddingstone which protrudes from the base of the south wall. It has been suggested that the sarsen now on the south side of Ingatestone church, and the two sarsens on either side of Fryerning Lane in Ingatestone High Street, once belonged to a single standing stone.

One of two sarsens at the entrance to Fryerning Lane. Photo credit: Littlestone

Whether or not the 'stone' in the name Ingatestone derives from a single stone, or several stones, is unclear. To complicate matters further the Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names gives the origin of the name Ingatestone as, "One of a group of places so called, this one distinguished by reference to a Roman milestone." Were the first Saxon settlers at Ingatestone referring to one (or more) pre-Roman standing stones on the knoll now occupied by the church or to a single Roman milestone? A cursory examination of the sarsen in the churchyard, and the two sarsens at the entrance to Fryerning Lane, suggests they may actually be three discrete stones. The Freyering Lane stones seem to have been at their present location from at least the early 1930s - ie some twenty years after the stone embedded in the north wall of the church was discovered in 1905. If it can be shown that the Fryerning Lane stones have been at their present location since before 1905 however this would indicate that the sarsens are indeed three separate stones. This may be important; there are five other much smaller stones on Ingatestone High Street (making a total of eight so far accounted for) and these might have once formed part of an Ingatestone stone circle. Together with the broken puddingstones in the north wall of the church this could indicate that a stone circle of considerable size and variety once stood on the knoll now occupied by the church.

While the smaller stones, some painted white and now scattered along Ingatestone High Street, might not yet be considered important enough to return to the Ingatestone churchyard there are good reasons, on grounds of conservation and heritage, for returning the two large Fryerning Lane stones to their likely place of origin on the church knoll. A campaign is underway to achieve this aim and emails of support should be sent to Ingatestone and Fryerning Parish Council at office@ingatestone-fryerningpc.gov.uk or to Heritage Action at info@heritageaction.org

Heritage Action's chairman has proposed (on the British Archaeology discussion list) that the leading archaeological bodies should follow up their Code for Responsible Detecting with a Code for Responsible Collecting.

Most looting, whether in Britain or abroad, happens because there are thousands of collectors and dealers mostly in rich Western countries (particularly the USA) willing to buy objects without doing all they can to ensure they are licit. This sad reality has long demanded a clear official statement indicating precisely how collectors should act in order to avoid buying stolen goods.

Encouragingly, Dr Mike Heyworth, Director of the Council for British Archaeology, described the suggestion as "valuable" and suggested that Britarch members might put a draft together. Unfortunately the response has been limited. To be sure, a discussion draft was produced by Dr Raimund Karl of Bangor University which (although we would take issue with parts of it) was an honest and constructive attempt. The same could hardly be said of the contributions that have come from the collecting lobby (all from North America, bizarrely).

We are asked to accept that collectors aren't the problem! It is entirely down to unco-operative archaeologists and repressive antiquities laws that work against honest and worthy collectors. In addition, since collectors are blameless they must be compensated for any enforced reduction in the flow of looted items onto the antiquities market: British museums must sell to the trade millions of "redundant" items from their store rooms and selected collectors should be allowed to help British archaeologists dig up British archaeological sites in exchange for keeping the objects found!

Fortunately, such altruistic suggestions (proposed by a leading American coin dealer! ) are unlikely to ever be adopted but nevertheless we have reached a position where the Director of the Council for British Archaeology has acknowledged a code would be useful. So we feel justified in calling upon his organisation together with English Heritage, the Portable Antiquities Scheme and other signatories of the closely related Detecting code to draft and publish a Code for Responsible Collecting.

There will be little dispute (other than from certain collectors, dealers and suppliers) about what such a Code should say. This was recognised many years ago when the intention to deal with the illicit trade was first voiced and Lord Renfrew coined the phrase "collectors are the real looters". Why nothing happened then (or why the requisite provisions on Collecting weren't included in the recent Detecting Code) is a mystery, but in any event action remains urgently needed.

The draftees could do worse than follow the suggestions of Paul McSweeny, a responsible Irish coin collector who recently urged an ethical approach to his colleagues on an American coin collectors list. His proposals comprised commonsensical things like only buying items that could plausibly have come from existing collections, avoiding those which are very clearly recently dug up and not buying from dealers in source countries without sensible antiquities laws.

He was met with deafening silence over there. He need not be over here. Unlike those American collectors, Britain has committed itself under Article 10 of the UNESCO convention to conduct educational outreach to the public on the damage done by the illicit trade. So publishing a Code for Responsible Collecting for the illumination of the public is not too much to ask. It is the least that should be expected.

I recently received correspondence from local author Ian Cooke about a scheme proposed by Natural England's HEATH project to fence off parts of the Penwith Moors in West Cornwall in readiness to graze cattle. In imminent danger is Nine Maidens Common. I visited the site today and here is my humble opinion on the sorry saga.

The Nine Maidens of Boskednan. Photo credit: Alex Langstone

Nine Maidens Common and other areas of significant archaeological importance are under threat from the Natural England HEATH project. The project has plans to manage the wild moorland of Penwith in West Cornwall. Whilst I have absolutely no objection to the management of the moors (they do need managing, otherwise they will become bracken and gorse thickets! ) I am concerned that by putting up fencing and allowing cattle to graze areas such as the Nine Maidens common will be detrimental to the sensitive nature of the landscape. Cattle cannot eat much bracken, and as bracken is the main problem on the moors, I do not really understand why we need any more grazing than we already have? Land management by bracken clearing is one of the things that the HEATH project are already successfully implementing through education and the need to clear with traditional methods using machinery, hand tools and people.

The Land's End peninsula is world famous for its archaeology and beauty; and whilst it is, and should remain, a working landscape, we need to strike a balance between the needs to the land, the needs of farmers and the needs of tourism. The HEATH project is a well-meant project, and in some areas cattle grazing is a good idea. But, cattle around ancient sites of significant cultural importance can create muddy quagmires on open moorland. Damage to the stones and the fabric of these ancient monuments can be substantial when cattle are allowed to graze amongst them. Erecting fences with points of access through gates will create damage and erosion to the landscape by funnelling people into small areas of entry. Cattle also congregate at these entry points, which can only make the problem worse. Nine maidens common does not need any grazing. I visited the site today, and it is well managed enough already. It is one of the most popular areas of open moorland in Penwith, with access to such famous sites as the Men an Tol, Nine Maidens stone circle, Men Scryfa and Carn Galva. Plus loads of other Bronze Age barrows and standing stones, not well known, but equally important. Other areas such as Mulfra Common and Lanyon are also being considered for grazing. It is important to note that the Nine Maidens Common is a registered common, and as such, needs the permission of the Secretary of State for Environment before any changes can occur.

Most importantly, Nine Maidens Common contains some of the finest and most interesting prehistoric sites in Southern Britain. Boskednan stone circle (marked on OS map as Nine Maidens, pictured above) is partly ruinous, but retains enough to be a dominating presence on the moor. When first viewed from the footpath, it stands out prominently almost on the top of the highest ridge. Eleven stones remain of the original twenty-two, one of which is remarkably tall for the stone circles of the region, standing at 2 metres. Other stones range from 1 to 1.3 metres in height. A slightly later round barrow touches the south side and can be clearly seen. About 40 metres north- north-west of the circle can be seen the remaining stump of an outlying menhir, and further to the north are the remains of three round barrows, one of which still has its large retaining stones, (pictured below) though the earthen mound has long since departed the scene! All in all this is a superb Bronze Age archaeological landscape, which needs to be protected and preserved.

In conclusion land management is vital to the conservation of our moors and heaths, but not by cattle grazing at the more sensitive archaeological sites please!

A dedicated website has been set up by local author Ian Cooke, please visit and sign the petition, write to local MP, Andrew George, write to the Secretary of State for Environment, The Rt. Hon. Hilary Benn MP, and above all, tell people about this. It is vital we all have our viewpoint put forward before it is too late.

www.savepenwithmoors.com

You can also contact the HEATH project and visit their website www.theheathproject.org.uk
Point of contact: Joe Oliver, partnership manager. Email: joe.oliver@naturalengland.org.uk

Or write to: The HEATH Project, Natural England, Pydar House, Pydar Street, Truro, TR1 1XU, tel 01872 245045

Andrew George MP, Trewella, 18 Mayne Rd, Penzance TR18 4NG.

Secretary of State for the Environment. The Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP, Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London SW1P 3JR

The above report by Alex Langstone first appeared on his website, Spirit of Albion on 12 August 2008: it is reprinted here with his kind permission. While we welcome contributions on heritage-related subjects to the Heritage Action Journal, the opinions expressed therein and the accuracy of the reporting lie solely with the originators of the report.

Avebury is a unique, 5000 year old Neolithic (New Stone Age) 'henge' or ritual circle in North Wiltshire, Southwest Britain. The henge encompasses an unrelated village, which crept inside the circle millennia later. The monument is a colossal arrangement of tall megaliths ['mega'- big; 'lithos'- stone], some weighing over 100 tonnes. Avebury is rightly a wonder of the world, and attracts thousands of visitors each year.

Avebury

However, until the pioneering archaeologist Alexander Keiller began excavation and restoration work, in the 1930s, there was very little to see, apart from quaint houses - built from demolished standing stones, and forlorn megaliths ringed round with fences and shrubbery. Even the circle's impressive banked-ditch (originally 9m deep) was hidden beneath village rubbish, being used as the local refuse tip! Keiller cleared the ditch and re-erected half of the Stone Age site, before his health gave way, and his considerable yet finite funds were exhausted. World War 2 saw the end of Keiller's vision, to restore the whole monument, and he died in 1955. He left his unfinished restoration to the National Trust for posterity.

Historically, Alexander Keiller wasn't the only fan of Avebury. John Aubrey 'discovered' the monument, when he chanced upon its "vast stones" in 1649. A little less than a century later, the antiquarian William Stukeley made a detailed study of the megalithic complex, work which in many ways blazed the trail for the partial restoration 300 years later. Stukeley witnessed the direct results of sustained violence upon Avebury's stones, and importantly recorded megaliths which have since tragically vanished.

In modern times, folks visit and indeed use Avebury as a place of worship. But this awe-inspiring, open air temple remains, as Keiller had to leave it, semi-restored, semi-ruinous. The whole area is now designated a World Heritage Site, which designation frowns upon raising up, fallen and buried standing stones: mute testimony to the ravages of an unsympathetic past.

Avebury

Can we not, enthusiasts and specialists alike, complete the work of restoring Avebury, as a mark of respect to the inspired exertions of Alexander Keiller, and the Avebury People who built an incredible monument 5000 years ago, which we would struggle to equal today with modern technology?

Avebury

The author - a pagan polytheist - seeks to form a loose, informal forum, for the exchange of ideas and experiences, towards once again restoring Avebury. He can be contacted at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Avebury_uk_/ and looks forward to hearing from like-minded stone-lovers, with a view to our megalithic heritage and future.

"IN the past I have criticised the building of Rotherwas Access Road, not least because it destroyed the Rotherwas Ribbon, a unique national treasure.

Now I have actually travelled along it I have changed my mind. It is wonderful.

I thought it was only fair to test it, so I drove along the road at rush hour on the first Friday it was open, expecting to be squeezed between juggernauts and home-going commuters.

Instead I was the only one travelling westerly and only met two motor-bikes and two cars coming the other way. We waved at each other in the sheer joy of driving; it was just like the golden age of motoring.

A Heritage Action member has also driven along the road for several miles and met NO-ONE. It seems that when the government warned - twice - that the road wasn't needed and refused to finance it they were right....

But someone wanted this virtually "private" road for their own "private" reasons it seems - and Hereford Council moved heaven and earth and Truth to oblige them.

A Heritage Action site inspector visited Castlerigg on Monday to investigate the condition of the ground where turfs were lifted in order to build a fire for part of some ad-hoc "ceremony" a couple of weeks back.

He says: "It was obvious that the ground had been disturbed, as the relatively freshly laid turfs were discoloured - probably dying as the ground beneath them had been scorched by the fire.

The area in the centre of Castlerigg stone circle where the turfs were removed in order to start a fire. Photo credit: Heritage Action

That said, I would imagine that the ground will heal in time, and that no permanent visible damage would have occurred.

Obviously this doesn't excuse any wilful damage caused to an ancient site. It is illegal to damage a protected site. Common sense should tell people that it is WRONG to start a fire in the middle of a monument such as Castlerigg! Who knows what damage could be caused to any unexcavated archaeology?"

Another view of the damaged area of turf in Castlerigg stone circle. Photo credit: Heritage Action

Heritage Action encourage people to adhere to the ASLaN Charter - 'Don't change the site, let the site change you.'

It's really very simple, but a surprising amount of people choose to ignore the guidelines.

Artefact erosion counter