Heritage Action - The Heritage Journal

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

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.

Artefact erosion counter