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Littlestone 5386 posts |
Edited Aug 08, 2009, 21:31
Aug 08, 2009, 14:19
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Geoffrey Grigson's 1960s guide to touring the countryside (The Shell Country Alphabet) has been republished (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/aug/08/shell-country-alphabet-geoffrey-grigson for a review). And here - http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/8627/st_peters_church_clyffe_pypard.html for a little more about Nikolaus Pevsner, Geoffrey Grigson, Paul Nash and John Piper.
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Littlestone 5386 posts |
Aug 26, 2009, 23:28
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"For anyone interested in regional folklore and hidden history this book is very welcome. The author has thoroughly investigated the hidden side of Dorset’s Isle of Portland. Using long out of print and unpublished works by Clara King Warry, who wrote much about the folklore, mythology and archaeology of Portland during the first half of the 20th century, Gary has managed to piece together a forgotten history of the Isle. This paints a very different picture that most people may have of suburban Portland, which is justly famous for its fine quarried limestone and the proud maritime history of two world wars." Review by Alex Langstone and more details here - http://heritageaction.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/the-spirit-of-portland/
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goffik 3926 posts |
Aug 28, 2009, 14:17
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I've only just seen this - this looks excellent! I have friends that live there - it's an odd place. I like to visit but have never really found much to hold my interest there. I'll be purchasing this one, I reckon! G x
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chris s 211 posts |
Aug 30, 2009, 23:04
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A really interesting book by a sometime-Lamorna based painter, Dadaist and Crowley/Golden Dawn associate. Seems to begin disappointingly as a standard 'arty type donwshifts' work, but gets into its stride with a personal search for (at the time) forgotten wells and water sources; animism, and theories of stone and stone circles. Meandering and personal, but one of the odder fringe books to touch upon megalithic culture. Very out of print, but worth a pop. Chris :)
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Littlestone 5386 posts |
Aug 30, 2009, 23:14
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Good to see you back again Chris, and thanks for the link. Also, remember this? "Scarre reminds us of the inconceivable labour involved in the structures that continue to amaze after four or more millennia. The construction of the enclosures around Avebury required the quarrying of 200,000 tonnes of chalk, but this was dwarfed by the labour demands of Silbury Hill. Containing a third of a million cubic metres of chalk, the great mound is now thought to have originally been a straight-sided polyhedron with up to nine walls. Scarre also reveals new theories concerning Stonehenge, where the surface shaping of some of the stones may have replicated the bark of oak and beech. The great ring could have been a monument for the dead that imitated the wooden dwellings of the living."* * http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/paperbacks-the-megalithic-monuments-of-britain-and-irelandbrfatal-puritybrthe-big-oysterbrthe-judgement-of-parisbrthe-last-mughalbrthe-emperors-childrenbrmy-fathers-notebook-445381.html
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Littlestone 5386 posts |
Sep 14, 2009, 19:55
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Not actually a book but a DVD (and CD) in which Tom Brooks suggests, in his Prehistoric Geometry in Britain, that, "...prehistoric man navigated his way across England using a crude version of 'sat nav' based on stone circle markers; they (prehistoric man) were able to travel between settlements with pinpoint accuracy thanks to a complex network of hilltop monuments. New research suggests that they were built on a connecting grid of isosceles triangles that 'point' to the next site. Many are 100 miles or more away, but GPS co-ordinates show all are accurate to within 100 metres. This provided a simple way for ancient Britons to navigate successfully from A to B without the need for maps."* Brooks' research, "...based upon the true position of each unit relative to all others according to the Ordnance Survey National Grid, reveals that all are related geometrically by isosceles triangles (having two sides equal) and projected alignments of remarkable accuracy over great distances. Further, such isosceles triangulation was directed from and focused upon a single, central feature more than 5,000 years old - Silbury Hill on the Marlborough Downs in Wiltshire."** * http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1213400/Ancient-man-used-stone-sat-nav-navigate-country.html#ixzz0R6gQT2Tr ** http://www.prehistoric-geometry.co.uk/index.html
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tiompan 5758 posts |
Sep 14, 2009, 20:31
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Littlestone wrote: Not actually a book but a DVD (and CD) in which Tom Brooks suggests, in his Prehistoric Geometry in Britain, that, "...prehistoric man navigated his way across England using a crude version of 'sat nav' based on stone circle markers; they (prehistoric man) were able to travel between settlements with pinpoint accuracy thanks to a complex network of hilltop monuments. New research suggests that they were built on a connecting grid of isosceles triangles that 'point' to the next site. Many are 100 miles or more away, but GPS co-ordinates show all are accurate to within 100 metres. This provided a simple way for ancient Britons to navigate successfully from A to B without the need for maps."* Brooks' research, "...based upon the true position of each unit relative to all others according to the Ordnance Survey National Grid, reveals that all are related geometrically by isosceles triangles (having two sides equal) and projected alignments of remarkable accuracy over great distances. Further, such isosceles triangulation was directed from and focused upon a single, central feature more than 5,000 years old - Silbury Hill on the Marlborough Downs in Wiltshire."** * http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1213400/Ancient-man-used-stone-sat-nav-navigate-country.html#ixzz0R6gQT2Tr ** http://www.prehistoric-geometry.co.uk/index.html Dunno where to start . Does anybody actually accept any of this ?
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moss 2897 posts |
Edited Sep 14, 2009, 21:46
Sep 14, 2009, 21:42
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'Dunno where to start . Does anybody actually accept any of this ?' Well you could work outwards from Silbury Hill, making isocles triangles up as you go - sadly I never got the hang of geometry...there's Marlborough mound and the other one, almost really a bit like pyramid building, which are'nt isocles shaped because they have four sides... I like Silbury as a gnomon best, a large post on top telling the time of day...
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tiompan 5758 posts |
Sep 14, 2009, 22:14
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moss wrote: 'Dunno where to start . Does anybody actually accept any of this ?' Well you could work outwards from Silbury Hill, making isocles triangles up as you go - sadly I never got the hang of geometry...there's Marlborough mound and the other one, almost really a bit like pyramid building, which are'nt isocles shaped because they have four sides... I like Silbury as a gnomon best, a large post on top telling the time of day... Basically it's finding sites equidistant from another site .In one case Silbury was the primary site . It is very easy to find two sites that are equidistant from Silbury particularly when you have a 100 metres to play with and the target could be 445 m x 170. There is litle more than doing this a couple of times using different primary sites . You would expect to these results easily by chance and he has missed more than he has recorded . Most of the sites are not intervisble which doesn't seem to be a problem. Rather go on i think it's easier to say that the same book could be written a hundredfold without repeating any of these examples and it would still be nonsense .
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StoneGloves 1149 posts |
Sep 14, 2009, 22:18
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Yes - lots of people do. The book about standing stones on Anglesey that I bought from here was based on a similar viewpoint. It is in no dispute that standing stones have been hypothesised as waymarkers, as one of their functions. This man's theory just goes further. Then imagine our road network stopped being used - petrol ran out say - and what kind of remainders would there be left in four thousand years ? (Personally I just think there was a network of paths communicated by oral knowledge, but there you go).
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