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 – 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

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

Strange in the Sky…

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I am not entirely a believer. I read what people have seen, and have watched the programs about abductions and experiments. I take an interest in the idea that there may be something other than ourselves here, I’m just not sure that something is from somewhere else. There are dark, remote and barren regions on this land  and in the sea we have not yet begun to explore or understand.

I have seen a few strange lights in the night sky, that move far quicker than I would expect, or they don’t move for a time. Not alien, just out of place. Noticeable, but not explainable to my own mind. It’s hard to come to a conclusion based on just hearsay and other peoples experiences.

But then something happened, a first hand picture I took myself back in 2011. With not a notice of the actual content at first, I did not see this in the sky at the time. I wanted to take a picture of a colourful hedge in my garden, two tones in fact, green leaves with dark red leaves behind them, with the bright blue sky for contrast. Not a great pic, but not a bad one for its purpose. I took two photos on my phone a few seconds apart.

Photograph 1

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Photograph 2

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It took me about a week to get round to uploading and working out if I could make a nice sky edit from these. But on closer inspection, realised that in pic 1, there is an object that looks metallic but without wings. I have spent much time looking up and have seen glimpses of many planes, they are extremely noticeable in the day time sky, lets be honest. So the unusual thing to me was that I didn’t see this when taking a picture and it has disappeared within a second or two. By pic 2, the object is gone completely and in the top left hand corner there are two crows messing around, highlighting to me how different birds look to this – and the birds were quite a distance away.

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Most ordinary planes I have seen take some amount to time to make their journey across the sky, and technically i didn’t even see it, not with my own eyes anyway. So I have to put this as a UFO, not an alien craft from another world, I couldn’t possibly presume that. But a flying craft of unknown origin to me. In fact there may be many explanations of what it might have been, but I just haven’t settled on one yet…

 

(c) K L Wicks