nigelswift
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Silbury's just fine, honest.
Dec 19, 2007, 16:03
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By the end of tomorrow, with Xmas looming, we'll have had eight weeks during which there have been just a hundred words released about the structural work and another hundred about the archaeology.
That's OK though, what do I expect for the expenditure of a million pounds of public funds?
How dare I moan. There IS no news and there HAS been no further major damage.
Has there?
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Littlestone
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Re: Silbury's just fine, honest.
Dec 19, 2007, 18:19
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That's OK though, what do I expect for the expenditure of a million pounds of public funds?
Well, English Heritage have just re-jigged their Silbury Updates page - that's probably cost a couple of hundred at least, so be grateful ;-) There's no new information from EH on that page of course but I'd sort of given up hoping that there ever would be. Never mind, when the archeos and those with secret and mysterious knowledge of what they think they recently saw in Silbury have recovered from their seasonal excesses I'm sure there'll be a plethora of 'scholarly' papers and wacky books to peruse. I can hear the tills ringing already :-)
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nigelswift
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Well, when I say fine....
Dec 20, 2007, 11:31
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An update has just appeared.
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/upload/pdf/Silbury_Hill_web_update_26.pdf
Very informative, too.
The picture of the sheer scale of the crater on top will of course come as a horrifying shock to everyone. Wonder when that happened?
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jimit
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Re: Well, when I say fine....
Dec 20, 2007, 13:23
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Words fail me! And what are the bags made from? Please tell me they're not plastic and even if they are not they are still alien to the interior of the hill which contradicts the remit.
Poor, poor Silbury, it deserves better.
Jim.
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ocifant
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Re: Well, when I say fine....
Dec 20, 2007, 14:14
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My flabber has never been so ghasted!
So conditions have been found to be so unsafe, that a proper repair and withdrawal as promised has proved to be impossible to deliver?
Maybe, just maybe (BBC skimping and failures aside, which obviously played their part), the best part of 7 years EH spent sat sitting on hands wondering what to do while the voids got bigger and bigger as they migrated may have been a factor in the current dangerous state of the tunnels?
And now they're using grout - a solution which was poo-pooed at the public meeting in Devizes as impractical. Ha! Those bags look to be the plasticised cotton/nylon ones used in the construction industry. Hardly biodegradable, I suspect!
I weep for the Hill.
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Littlestone
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Edited Dec 21, 2007, 22:11
Re: Well, when I say fine....
Dec 20, 2007, 14:20
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And what are the bags made from? Please tell me they're not plastic and even if they are not they are still alien to the interior of the hill which contradicts the remit.
Indeed. Hard to tell from the photos what they're made of, but surely chalk blocks wouldn't have been that difficult to make.
What I find really infuriating is that English Heritage assume people are not concerned and don't want to know about these things. In Update 26 EH say, "This mechanical filling process is a very time consuming and labour intensive process, using many thousands of bags filled with chalk..." Yes, yes we know all that, but how much more difficult is it for EH to say "...using many thousands of conservation-grade bags made of ----- filled with chalk."
So come on English Heritage, stop treating us like schoolchildren - update your latest Update with the relevant information rather than padding it out with your usual PR waffle.
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Littlestone
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Edited Dec 20, 2007, 21:55
Re: Well, when I say fine....
Dec 20, 2007, 21:54
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"This mechanical filling process is a very time consuming and labour intensive process, using many thousands of bags filled with chalk..."
You know, after several readings of this update the more incensed I become at its total ineptness and lack of clarity (not to mention its appalling standard of English). For god's sake English Heritage, if this kind of Mickey Mouse reporting is a reflection of your conservation work at Silbury then heaven help the future of that structure under your guardianship.
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jimit
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Re: Well, when I say fine....
Dec 23, 2007, 17:37
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In the compound there are several pallets loaded with bags of hydrated lime. Can anyone suggest what this may be used for?
Jim.
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nigelswift
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Re: Well, when I say fine....
Dec 23, 2007, 18:28
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In the compound there are several pallets loaded with bags of hydrated lime. Can anyone suggest what this may be used for?
It's principal use is in combination with pure chalk.
This produces a whitewash.
Hope that helps.
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nigelswift
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Re: Well, when I say fine....
Dec 24, 2007, 07:25
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Alternatively.... ;)
The object may be to set the grout by a process of air drying rather than having to add much water - through carbonation.
There are some dos and don'ts it appears...
http://www.ihbc.org.uk/context_archive/53/Limemortar_dir/Limemortar_s.htm
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