nigelswift
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Wanna be amazed?
Jul 24, 2020, 14:51
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https://heritageaction.wordpress.com/2020/07/24/surely-this-is-the-stonehenge-game-changer/?fbclid=IwAR0VXfOtd4XPkWNWRLSfOFf0SapyvpAF7uAYayZPySX93nOyzJyNIkUr5dQ
Massive credit to Simon Banton
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tjj
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Re: Wanna be amazed?
Jul 24, 2020, 18:36
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nigelswift wrote:
I did want to be amazed Nigel but found some of Simon's blog quite complicated - need to go back and allow it to percolate. I was reminded however, of a walk I did a few years back starting at Woodhenge, which as everyone knows is next to Durrington Walls. The walk took me past the Old King Barrows, the New King Barrows, the Avenue and ultimately the Cursus. What struck me most was how amazing Stonehenge looked from afar, how the visitors walking around seemed tiny and almost insignificant. And that Stonehenge was really the centrepiece in a much larger ancient landscape.
The little book I took my walk from was written by someone called Jean Patefield and published in 2009 - which was before the carpark and visitors centre were relocated and still under discussion. She ends her narrative with the words "There is one school of thought that says this a merely another chapter in the long history of Stonehenge and that cleaning up the landscape would be just another form of inauthenticity"
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Vybik Jon
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Re: Wanna be amazed?
Jul 25, 2020, 00:29
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There's a maze as well?
Wow!
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nigelswift
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Edited Jul 25, 2020, 06:42
Re: Wanna be amazed?
Jul 25, 2020, 06:40
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"What struck me most was how amazing Stonehenge looked from afar, how the visitors walking around seemed tiny and almost insignificant. And that Stonehenge was really the centrepiece in a much larger ancient landscape."
And of course, viewsheds work in both directions, so what you saw is the same but opposite of what he is saying (although in his case the focal points are the Durrington Pits).
The implications of what he (and you) are seeing is further confirmation, on an epic scale, of a widespread neolithic talent for what Sandy Gerrard refers to as landscape "tricks and treats" at stone rows and Julian Cope has dubbed The Silbury Game. You can't get more impressive as a civilisation than to mould a whole landscape on such a monumental scale that it still speaks of your intentions 5,000 years later.
It would be great, wouldn't it, if it is Simon, one of the many much-maligned and patronised amateurs like us lot who finally defeats the whole power of the nasty gang including Grant Shapps, David Cameron, Highways England, English Heritage, Historic England and the National Trust who have all presented a vile pig's ear as an enhancement. I hates them I does.
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nigelswift
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Re: Wanna be amazed?
Jul 25, 2020, 06:47
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Indeed. And if you play it backwards it says Smeg. People have so much to learn. Buy my CD.
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Rhiannon
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Re: Wanna be amazed?
Jul 25, 2020, 09:20
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Blimey I didn't notice the decision had been deferred. This is excellent. Hopefully our dear government will decide they have much better things to spend their money on thanks to the virus. Plus they will have lots of aggravation about Brexit arrangements to worry about in November.
Marvellous news, Nigel. Perhaps sense can yet prevail.
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nigelswift
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Re: Wanna be amazed?
Jul 25, 2020, 09:34
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Rhiannon wrote: Perhaps sense can yet prevail.
It might have to. Being skint is a huge factor.
And another little secret they don't want to reveal is that it now looks certain that drilling through the chalk will result in water coming into the tunnel and the cost of permanently managing that or preventing it would be off the scale.
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Rhiannon
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Re: Wanna be amazed?
Jul 25, 2020, 13:39
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What a shame.
(Though it's also a shame someone didn't figure that out before? How many more squillion quid would that have to cost. These projects always cost more than they say they will. When do they ever come out under budget?)
We can keep our fingers crossed anyway. x
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nigelswift
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Re: Wanna be amazed?
Jul 25, 2020, 14:59
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Rhiannon wrote: it's also a shame someone didn't figure that out before?
I think they pretty much did. In 2003 they found the thickest known phosphatic chalk deposits (the difficult stuff) in England together with other difficulties and the project was abandoned. The chalk is still right there where the tunnel is proposed ...
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Amil04
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Edited Jul 25, 2020, 17:39
Re: Wanna be amazed?
Jul 25, 2020, 17:35
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..so they were never actually seriously going to do it anyway? All pie in the sky?
..when politics and archeology meet. I mean this has been going on for years..Thatcher on her knees and probably before. Shuffle shuffle. Do nothing.
I remember the guy doing the A303 on BBC four saying one of the best views is from the lay-by some way away..good programme that was. Morris Minor and all. Parked up there once..agreed.
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