Author: MKW Publishing

Neolithic Adventures – West Kennet Long Barrow

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The ancient trail continued with a visit to West Kennet Long Barrow, we have many strewn about the country and this is one of the better preserved intact ones. Apparently the largest in Britain, measuring approx 100 meters in length – there are two other equally impressive ones not too far away in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire and will feature shortly.

This barrow is high on the hill overlooking Silbury Hill and very close to Avebury stone circle. Not seen from the bottom it is a small hike up the hill but when you reach the brow, the amazing structure comes into view.

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From the front – with myself for a bit of scale.

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Here you can see the length and where, again, over the years it has been looted and excavated, with a number of skeletons being found in the various chambers. There is no evidence to suggest this was built for burials, although it’s obvious people over the millennia have used this as somewhere to place your dead or the remains of.

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There are extremely large internal stones and small chambers (none of which would really fit a full size body by the way), leading into the barrow. This is only a small portion at the front of the structure, most of the rest of it having caved in and has been left covered.

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But what you can see and get to, gives us an idea of how solid they are and need I say it, built to last. We would have trouble today trying to build something like this at the top of this hill, so it really does beg the question as with all the other sites. Why and how?

The mystery continues…

(c) K Wicks word and photography & M Wicks Photography

Neolithic Adventures – The Long Stones

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Just outside the official stone circle of Avebury, there are two random stones that have been left in a field about a mile away on the edge of Beckhampton, called The Long Stones. Apparently once these stones were of a much greater number leading directly to Avebury, but having been used as building materials for years, only a few survive.

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I’m not one to usually see shapes in things – but this definitely looked like a horses head to me. Also an interesting feature, the concentric circle and spiral lichen covering part of the side. Nice.

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It’s hard to imagine these stones in context, with our modern roads either overtaking or ignoring ancient routes, letting them overgrow and disappear. Many stones being incorporated into farmers field borders (saw a few in Cornwall), or used as walls for residential properties. When you walk around these areas and look at the stone used, really look, you can see where it came from. But we need stone and should recycle, so I am slightly torn by this. It’s harsh and logical at the same time. And I wonder, if we didn’t make any money from the tourism on these ancient sites, would we even bother to keep them now…

But given the size of what we have left, it much have been quite impressive back then.

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(c) K Wicks

Neolithic Adventures – Silbury Hill

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Silbury Hill in Wiltshire. It’s not known when this chalk earth mound was ‘built’ or put together, or why. It’s huge and can be compared in size and height to the ancient pyramids. Sat in between Avebury stone circle and West Kennet Long Barrow, it’s right in the middle of the neolithic history but we still don’t know how it fits. Clearly visible as you walk up the hill to the barrow, it really is a sigh to behold. I just don’t know why.

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Apparently dating to around 4,500 years ago, with no burials found inside, it remains another of the landscapes mysteries.

(c) K Wicks

 

 

Neolithic Adventures – Stonehenge…

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This is the most famous stone circle, and we have been lucky enough to visit a couple of times. On our first visit, we walked round the outside of the stones like everyone else. Wowed at the size and arrangement. Surprised at their seemingly remote location in comparison to where we put structures today. It really is difficult to understand why and how. Our building projects today have architects, engineers and builders at a minimum, so it’s reasonable to think they had the same. This took time, effort and planning, as with all the ancient sites. And quite the feat it was.

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Some of these neolithic stones are believe to have come from Wales, the method of how they arrived is still debated, it is even told the stones came from Ireland. Although some are local as well. We also have a legend that the wizard Merlin levitated the stones to where they originally sat, so who can say for sure. All stories start somewhere and often have a basis of truth…

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It was special to see. But it was not enough. My husband really wanted to be closer, to get within the inner stone circle of Stonehenge to be among the megaliths – without having to do it only twice a year when everyone else does on the solstice. So we looked online and found a private tour company called Stonehenge Tours that can give you the experience of getting up close and personal. It’s cost more than the standard entry fee, but it’s worth it.

Over 5000 years of history right in front of us, (if you try and ignore that most of these sites have been reconstructed and excavated a number of times in the last few hundred years), and no-one in the whole world can conclusively say why or how. It’s exciting and maddening all at the same time.

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Walking around within the stone circle was a different and much better experience, even though you are in a group, everyone was in awe of where you were, it was easy to forget anyone else was there at all.  You also get to truly appreciate the scale and size of these megaliths. They are giant.

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It really is hard to understand why there are so many neolithic sites across the country and Europe that follow the same design, maybe not Stonehenge, but certainly a lot of our others. Why did they stop building with stone? It obviously stands the test of time better than any other material. Somewhere along the line something was lost and these structures and sites are all we have left. We can’t get enough of these places and want to keep going back. Stonehenge is even on the list again, but there are so many more sites to investigate and discover that we may be some time…

(c) K Wicks

Neolithic Adventures – Avebury Stone Circle…

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I have visited Avebury before but it takes nothing away from seeing it again.  It is the world’s largest stone circle and is impressive. Odd because it has a village and a road running through it, but impressive none the less. The main stones are surrounded by a vast ditch and bank, but they also spread out over the village and in the adjoining fields. A number of the stones unfortunately have been quarried or are missing, but when you see the size of them, not only is it hard to imagine how they got there, its quite a feat to take one down.

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These sites remain a mystery as to who built them and why. Again the words ceremonial and ritual arise time and again with the current popular theories, but they never really  provide a real explanation. To me these sites are unexplained.

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Not just your average stones…

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(c) K Wicks

Neolithic Adventures – Nympsfield Long Barrow

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So the next stop, literally a ‘stones throw’ away from Hetty Pegler’s Tump, is a more excavated and open site called Nympsfield Long Barrow. Not quite in the covered over state as some the others, but still great to see. Again it’s very hard to see this sites as tombs or graves, especially as some of the other neolithic settlement sites follow a similar design. The Skara Brae complex in Orkney is one of them.

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Situated on an open piece of land at Coaley View Peak, the surrounding views and countryside are stunning, and it’s extremely close to Woodchester Park, site of an incomplete Gothic mansion and nature walks. It’s hard to believe these are the only remnants of the ancient past, maybe there are more waiting to be discovered…

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(c) K Wicks

Neolithic Adventures – Hetty Pegler’s Tump…

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So back in 2015-2016, we decided to start taking in some of the history we talked about and were interested in. The Romans are a little recent for our taste, although there is no small measure of that if it’s your thing. But for us we liked a few thousand years further back. It began. But now find ourselves wanting to go back and revisit. We’ve been abroad since then for a bit and seen some other sites. It raises more questions. So, the next round of neolithic adventures of visiting the ancient sites of Britain starts. After finding out how many sites there really are, it may take a while…

We started local. I hadn’t realised I had settled so closely to so many ancient sites. Even walking my dogs for years just by this gem and not even knowing it was there. Also known as Hetty Peglers Tump (after the landowner Hester Pegler in the 17th Century), Uley Long Barrow has long mystified us as to it’s purpose along with all the others (and there will be more). Burial mounds, tomb and ceremonial are all words that have been attributed to these structures, but having visited a number of them now, the effort doesn’t seem consistent with it’s purpose.

Most of these are collapsed and have been looted and excavated over the years, with many being reconstructed to how we see them today.  As below, we were treated to some great weather and it’s initial view is impressive. The pictures never quite capture the magic at these places or really how pretty the surrounding are. I hope this one goes a small way to convey that.

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It’s tucked at the back of a field literally just off the B4066 between Stroud and Uley, if you ever happen to be passing that way.

Inside what they call the chambered tomb lies some very large stones. The most impressive ceiling stones seem to overshadow the ‘smaller’ huge ones to the sides. These create separated rooms and not the stuff of graveyards in my opinion.

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They may have no conclusive answers at this point, many people have many theories about these sites, but we struggle to know what happened in the dark ages less than two thousand years ago, so to think we have the answers for over 5,500 years ago is quite a stretch. But you never know…

(c) K Wicks

I wanted to buy a puppy

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It sounds like a normal thing, you decide you would like to have a dog. You just have to know where find one. I did not. We had an Alsatian border collie cross growing up over the years and I decided that would be a good breed to go for as I was familiar with them.

I started looking through papers and on the internet. I think I eventually found one on TradeIt. It was in Kettering which was quite a distance from where I was in Gloucestershire, but it was a male puppy, exactly the colouring I wanted. I called and made the arrangement.

Now, my inexperience and desire for a dog completely clouded my judgement. I didn’t really know much about the dog market and hadn’t even heard of puppy farms at this stage. When I arrived, I was given a story about the parent dogs being in kennels as they were going away, so no I didn’t get to see the parents. Just a few bundles of fur, and my quiet looking little puppy in the corner. As she handed me my puppy, she said “Oh by the way, he’s been a little unwell from his worming tablets, but he’ll be fine”. He was quiet and not very puppy like, but adorable and I wanted to look after him. So we left.

It was not a good 24 hours, upon getting home, he wasn’t well at all, being sick and unsteady on his little feet, I had already named him Victor after my childhood dog. But I could tell he wasn’t doing well, I was trying to give him water and keep him warm, but I didn’t understand how fragile puppies are. I took him to the vets within 12 hours, they booked him straight in. And within another 12 hours he was gone. It was an incredibly heartbreaking situation and I was devastated. I called the woman I had brought him off and told her what had happened. She text me back to say they were away – but that she knew someone with some more puppies that would be ready in a couple of weeks when she was back. Still, my brain didn’t flag up anything to say, hang on a minute.

I was very down for a couple of weeks, but trying to focus on feeling positive and trying to look forward to actually being able to have a dog. The next time came. Funnily enough she still didn’t have the previous puppies parent dogs anywhere, but I didn’t think. Instead she had 3 more puppies, who all looked tiny and cuddled up together. And then I did think they all looked a little small, and identical. I hadn’t really ever seen mongrel puppies all looking the same. But she assured me they were crosses and I picked mine. He was covered in fleas and had the tiniest little face, but was adorable. After a few days, he actually got sick too, but with tonsillitis and needed to be put on antibiotics. This was a brief but stressful time as I was convinced he was going to die too. It was a strange beginning for us and one that probably paved the way for what ended up being a very strange dog – but that’s a completely different story.

Also turns out he was a Saluki, a breed I had no experience of, and nothing like the dogs I had ever had before. If you know of them, you will know what I mean. But I believe now on reflection, that he came from a puppy farming environment. When I decided to get a companion for him, that was also through advertising, but such a different environment, family home, all the puppies playing together, parent dog on hand and owners who looked liked they cared for their dogs. It makes all the difference.

One day I will write the story of Kody.

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(c) K Wicks

Growing up…

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Excerpt from The Willing Observer

‘I was still quite disillusioned though, I was a child. I understood the playing field as far as my age group and maybe a couple of years above and below me but I had no concept of the ‘grown up’ world. I believed naively that they had everything planned and knew exactly what was going on and where they were going. This oversight or lack of understanding is only natural for a child or young adult, but when I realised they don’t have all the answers, I took it as a massive failure on my part, to not see the whole world as it was and to have allowed myself a false sense of security. It shook my confidence greatly at the time, and I then spent years trying to make up for it before I understood that everyone else was making it up as they went along too.

I internally punished myself for being either too involved or too separated, not able to assimilate the emotional and the logical to work together as one. I couldn’t quite grasp analysing a situation while going through it, instead electing to be distant and outside what should be a personal experience for the sake of study. I know now that this was due to a combination of me growing up, my thought process beginning to form and of trying to understand myself. It was about the brain developing and learning new experiences, but it felt again like failure at the time when I did not seem to see or feel things as others did. But I did not always take this failure as defeat’.

 

 

 

(c) MKW Publishing

Jurassic Coast…

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I had always wanted to go fossil hunting. A keen interest in geology and archaeology that I never got to do anything with, other than watch time team re-dig up sites they knew were there. Or watch geologists tell me about different type of rocks, which I kind of learnt in science at school back in the day. Watching wasn’t good enough – I needed to see it in action and do it myself.

So my wonderful husband decided my birthday surprise a few years ago was a trip down to the Jurassic Coast, so I could stop talking about it, and do it. And we did. The great British weather did it’s usual April thing and was cold, windy and changeable, especially on the coast – but I didn’t care, I was so excited about what I was doing. Actually going to find fossils in real life, not just watch it on the television! My husband did warn me though that we might not find anything, it was not a given.

But the birthday fossil fairies were looking down on me that day, and a number of finds presented themselves. A completely unexpected and marvelous find was a Geode, a real one, on the beach. I really didn’t ever think I ever see one ‘in the wild’ as it were. It was super heavy and there was no way I could take this with me, so a small piece was taken.

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But that was not all to be found over those two mornings on the coast. There were a number of people, it was not quiet by any stretch, but everyone was there for the same reason and I found it very exciting. Even standing behind other hunters while they were carefully removing or exposing something, finding all the discoveries exciting, not just my own.

I was presented with the best birthday present ever, apart from being taken there in the first place, found by his own hand. A tiny awesome little ammonite, slightly shiny from the pyrite and to me, spectacular. But that was not all.

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It was to be a very successful trip for my collection and for my cleaning kit when I got back home.

And although the Geode and the small ammonite were great on their own, I added to the finds with more ammonites – quite a special one too with exquisite detail and small flecks of pyrite.

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I can’t wait to go out again and discover more…

(c) K L Wicks