|
moss wrote: Sanctuary wrote: I paid a visit to the Nines Stones circle on East Moor today with a Historic England officer for the area and an AONB Project officer to inspect the condition of the circle. It has been put on the Heritage at Risk register due to its condition. Horses/cattle/sheep visit it daily for water and have done for years and in doing so tear up the surface leaving as you'll see in the following vid clip, like a boating lake when full of water. Obviously for the past three months it has dried up and now nearly devoid of water due to no rain falling (what you see is what we believe to be water from a rising spring which in itself is drying up and the main attraction for the animals). About a hundred yards away is a 'real' drinking hole, now dry as dust.
My volunteer clearance team (TimeSeekers) have offered our services in helping to get the site off the register by assisting HE and the AONB in a project to make all the required repairs to the ground and possibly re-erecting the fallen and severely leaning stones under the supervision of a qualified archaeologist. Today that first step was taken.
https://youtu.be/9LraE9rz4QA
Well done in your tireless work on Bodmin Moor. The animals on the moor cannot be blamed, though I get angry about the horses abandoned there to starve to death.
It all requires management by landowners and farmers, and of course officialdom laying down the requirements and guardianship for prehistoric sites.
Thank you moss, it's not easy at times. And yes of course the stock are not to blame. We had the same at Trethevy Quoit before the land was sold on where the horses were damaging the cairn material to reach the stones with nothing to stop them. The Stripple Stones suffered badly as well. If we don't protect sites this is always going to happen, but there is always objections to even a very simple sheep netting fence being erected a distance away even though access for visitors would always be available. It's a sort of no win situation.
The 'problem' with the Nine Stones is that many believe it sits on a rising spring which is why the ponies/cattle/sheep make a beeline for it even though they have a huge watering hole a short distance away. Dry at the moment of course though! I've sat waiting for the ponies early evening because they gather there then. It's a ritual for them and a wonderful sight to see - other than the damage caused that is!
What was touched on yesterday was the possibility that if the water really is from a spring, then the possibility exists that the water could be redirected via an underground system to a man-made watering hole leaving the circle safe in the future. One step at a time though!
That aside, what a fabulous circle that I'm only a stones throw away from!
Here's a vid of it last year. 'Come in number 9, you're times up'.
https://youtu.be/hHHejontBE8
|
