Of Monumental Mysteries
“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” L P Hartley The Go-Between So what’s the mystery here? No, not that strange woman in a Welsh felted hat doing tai chi....
View ArticleStone-smitten ~ Saxons awestruck by ancient spa
It’s silly, I know, but I tend to think that valuing heritage is a rather modern concept, very British – probably kicking off in the eighteenth century with all those landowners filling their bosky...
View ArticleFar away in black and white in the Shropshire Hills
These photos were taken at the Bronze Age stone circle of Mitchell’s Fold, up in the South Shropshire hills. It seems isolated now, but four thousand years ago there was much human activity in these...
View ArticleThe People of the Birch Bark House
We came upon this reconstructed Iroquois longhouse when visiting the Museum of Ontario Archaeology in London, Ontario. It stands next door to the museum, on the Lawson site, where the remains of a...
View ArticleDES RES ~ Nouveau Roman Anyone?
I think I may have mentioned somewhere on this blog that, a few miles up the road from Wenlock, we have the remains of Wroxeter Roman City aka Viroconium aka Uriconium. In its day it was one of the...
View ArticlePondering on what makes us human: that would be shopping, then?
So what does make us human? What differentiates us from our closest relatives the great apes? These were some of the questions posed to us as students of Prehistory & Archaeology way back in the...
View ArticleThis was a good day: Great Zimbabwe
I’ve posted this photo before, but then it was a very good day all those years ago in Africa. And it’s also good to remember days when I looked a lot younger. (Or maybe not). As you can see, all was...
View ArticleThe Winter Walker
You can step back through time on Wenlock Edge. The trackways across the ridge-top have doubtless been trodden by itinerant traders since Stone Age times. In fact if I didn’t know that the lone figure...
View Article“the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns” ~ Or Is It?
Every other Thursday we’ve taken to popping along Wenlock Edge to Church Stretton. This used to be Graham’s daily commute – eighteen miles of Shropshire hills, old quarries, small villages and neat...
View ArticleDerbyshire’s Arbor Low ~ They Call It The Stonehenge Of The North
Unlike Stonehenge a visit to Arbor Low does not include accompanying hosts of fellow enthusiasts, tacky gifts and bad coffee, nor the parting with large sums of money to go in (adult ticket £16.50). In...
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Who Needs CSI Forensics? Though You may need your Glasses ~ A Welsh Potter’s...
It was an extraordinary find, so tucked away. For a couple of days we’d been reading the signs to Kiln Odyn, but the message had not been sinking in. And then it did. And off we went – a short walk...
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More Ancestral Lines ~ Carreg Coetan Burial Chamber
The remaining stones of this ancient burial chamber sit in their own grassy sanctuary amid a little enclave of holiday bungalows in Newport. The Cadw noticeboard (the official Welsh heritage service...
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Fancy Living Along Iron Age Lines?
And surely a query worth contemplating. For instance, how would we get on without all our high-techery and labour-saving homes? Or fare without the daily multiple-choice comestibles. Or the mass...
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Pipe-Lines
Much to my surprise the field behind our house hasn’t been ploughed yet. This is good news for the birds: lots of wheat gleanings to forage amongst the stubble. And gleanings for the erstwhile...
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Communing With The Ancestors At Dyffryn Ardudwy
Scan an ordnance survey map of Wales, and especially the county of Gwynedd where we were a couple of weeks ago, and you will soon spot a host of prehistoric remains: hut circles, standing stones and...
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