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Vote for Silbury!
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nigelswift
8112 posts

Re: Vote for Silbury NOW !!!
Aug 16, 2005, 21:26
I was on Radio Wilts today doing an advocacy thing for Silbury, but more importantly telling people a thing or two about you know who.

here's a transcript, but the important bit is the very last bit, which is why it would be good if Silbury won. So vote NOW!... please!

...............................

Well, why hold a vote? There's NO CONTEST!

Silbury is the biggest, hugest, most fantastic man-made wonder not just in Wiltshire but the whole of Britain.

It's recently been proved it's the LARGEST prehistoric mound IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!

It took VASTLY more man hours to build than Avebury and Stonehenge combined
It covers the same area as five football pitches, its 6 cricket pitches high and the flat top - that looks so small from the ground – has enough room for the whole of Stonehenge.

It's larger and older than some of the Pyramids, and it's BRITISH!
It's an enormous British pyramid.

But it's much BETTER than the Pyramids. They have four sides, Silbury has eight. It's octagonal. And it's built in a really sophisticated way.
It's not just a green hill. The Wiltshire people in those days –
- and we're talking four and a half thousand years ago - were amazingly clever like they are now.

Under that turf there's some beautiful engineering. It's really complex and sophisticated. It's built in layers, maybe spirals, with a system of chalk retaining walls, more like a wedding cake than a hill.
An absolutely enormous gleaming, white, eight sided multi-layered spiral wedding cake!
Imagine it by moonlight!

But that's nothing. Here's the best thing. It's STILL like that, under the outer covering. Immaculate and gleaming and astonishing, just like our 225 times great grandparents designed it.

Wiltshire people are still clever. They let the tourists go and stare at little Stonehenge when all the time they know they've got the amazing biggy tucked away up the road disguised as a hill.

I ask you - how could anyone in Wiltshire NOT vote for Silbury, their very own glistening white pyramid, hidden from strangers, that has no equal throughout the world?

Silbury doesn't just deserve to win, it needs to.

At Heritage Action we've been campaigning to get English Heritage to get a move on fixing the collapses – it's been over 5 years now. Also to publish the full details, which they still haven't.

There are several ways to fix it but the scariest is to drill a huge tunnel in the side to pack the unstable parts with chalk. That means huge disruption, huge extra loss of original material and a huge risk of triggering lots more collapses. They fully admit that. It'll take years and cost a fortune.

But they've just said they WILL be doing that. To us that seems crazy when they themselves have shown there are far less damaging ways.
Maybe they know something we don't but they certainly haven't told anyone.
So we think they really must justify it to the public.

So I'd love Wiltshire to send a message saying Hey this is ours, you're just guardians, no drilling huge holes in our wedding cake without full explanation.

Heritage Action is going to be calling for a public meeting, preferably at Avebury, asking them to come and explain exactly why they have to go for this nuclear option when they've already said there are better ways.

So that's it, if people vote for Silbury they'll be saying Hey this is Our Greatest Wonder, we really care for it, we're the real owners. Please come and explain to us before you make a huge new hole in it.
In reply to:
Vote for Silbury! (Jane)		 Replies:
Re: Vote for Silbury NOW !!! (FourWinds)
Re: Vote for Silbury NOW !!! (mike croley)
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