Seahenge Preserved
Late last year, a remarkable discovery was made on the shores of the Holme in North Norfolk. Exposed by coastal erosion, an oval ring of 55 timber posts emerged, encircling a huge oak tree erected upside down with its roots in the air.
The monument lay buried beneath layers of peat and sand for possibly 4000 years. But, no sooner had the shifting sands of East Anglia exposed the circle, the post began to disintegrate from the actions of marine snails, bacteria and pounding waves.
That's when David Miles, the new chief archaeologist from English Heritage, stepped in with a team from Norfolk Archaeology Unit. They are now in the process removing the henge, which will enable them to analyse the wood and preserve the beams for reconstruction on dry land near by.
It hasn't, however, been all plain sailing. A group of local activists, led by the Council of British Druids, accused English Heritage of 'wrecking a site that belongs to everyone'. David Miles had to use all his skill as a negotiator to allay the fears of the group who included eco-warriors, pagans and tree-lovers. Hopefully, at least the new site will give access to all.
Field Walking
Do you have a metal detector? Even if you don't, please try to make it this Sunday (7th) 11am on Gidlow Cemetery car park, near the Boar's Head pub. John Baker has arranged with the farmer for us to walk a certain field he is particularly interested in. It lies to the north of the Wigan-Standish border, just west of the line of the Roman Road. It has an ancient track-way running across it, which leads to the site of Standish Hall.
CBA Conference
Last month I attended the Council of British Archaeology Regional Conference for the Northwest, held at the Woodlands Centre in Chorley.
This year's theme was 'Archaeology and the Air' and included, in the morning, Professor Robert Philpot talking about sites in South Lancashire and Chester discovered from the air. Quite a few sites have turned up this way over the last few years, including 15 in the immediate vicinity of Chester. In South Lancashire however, the ground conditions are generally poor for aerial prospecting, i.e. clay sub-soils.
Despite this, a site was recently found near Latham Hall east of Ormskirk and was excavated this summer by a team from Liverpool Museum. It turned out to be a ring enclosure dating from the Iron Age. In fact most of these sites, when excavated, are found to be late Iron Age or Roman, from pottery evidence and carbon-14 dating.
Manchester Airport 2nd Runway excavation was the subject of the next talk given by Dan Garner of Gifford & Partners. It was the same one he gave us in May 1998, however many more features have since been found. These include a domestic timber structure and hearth from the Neolithic period (3000 BC), a hollow way and domestic ring ditches from the early Bronze Age (1700 BC) and evidence for Iron Age and Roman buildings.
Julian Temple from the Brooklands Aviation Museum gave the session just before lunch. His talk, entitled Military Aviation Sites and Structures, turned out not to be as dry as the title suggests. Over 1000 of these have be recorded, dating mainly from the 1st and 2nd WW. They range from airfields to hangers - control towers to flight simulator facilities.
The whole of the afternoon session was given over to Simon Cane from the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. He described the problems all museums have in trying to balance the needs of conservation with the demands of public display - do you reconstruct or retain purity of form? For example, a classic aeroplane from the 1st WW has been rebuilt using parts from a number of others - is it an original?
Next Meeting
(Wednesday 3rd November at the our new venue the BP Centre in Greenough Street at 7.30 pm as usual.) This month's speaker is Alan Davies of the Salford Mine Museum who will be giving us a talk on archaeological finds from open cast mining.
Hope to see you there - B.A.