Tag: England

Kibworth Villagers Dig Up Their Gardens for BBC Four’s “The English Story”

"The English Story" centres around Kibworth, Leicestershire, and several local residents play a key role in the BBC Four Programme. Image copyright of the BBC/MAYA VISION. A BBCFour series presented by historian Michael Wood will be examining “The English Story”, which will be exploring the history of England not through monarchs and aristocrats, but through ordinary people. The programmes will be centred around the old parish of Kibworth, Leicestershire in the heart of England, which has a history rooted in Roman occupation, and found itself on the frontline between the Saxon and Viking territories.

The series will explore the people of Kibworth’s past through letters, diaries, censuses, medieval tax rolls and the Domesday Book (Find your own past on the Online Domesday Book here), as well as bringing in the current residents to help. Families who have generations of history in the villages were asked to provide a DNA sample so their ancestory could be traced back, and to build a picture of how inhabitants over time came to Kibworth, and how the three villages in the old parish flourished.

The villages – Kibworth Beauchamp, Kibworth Harcourt and Smeeton Westerby have a combined population of approximately 6,000 people who over the past year have been the focus of the new BBC Four series. Notably, the village of Smeeton Westerby is a name of mixed heritage roots – Smeeton, the home of the smiths, is Saxon; Westerby, or western farm, is Viking.

With assistance from the University of Leicester and Cambridge University, residents were invited to dig a small test pit in their gardens to see what was uncovered, with some hope resting on Saxon finds (perhaps the optimists were hoping to uncover a gold horde?). Even the local Coach and Horses pub had the tarmac ripped off it’s car park to excavate the ground underneath!

Finds from the dig, which will be revealed in full when the programmes air this Autumn, included Samian pottery from Roman times, part of an Anglo-Saxon bone comb, 1,200 year old Middle Saxon pottery and prehistoric flint blades. All of the digs were recorded and then analysed in Cambridge.

The programme’s presenter Michael Wood told the BBC, “I’m hoping you’ll get this impression of the fabulous richness of the history at the roots of ordinary people. The farmers, the traders, the railways navis, the canal engineers, the sort of people who made our history not at the level of kings and queens.”

“The English Story” will air this Autumn on BBCFour.

The Truth behind Saint George

Saint George killed a dragon, saved a princess and became the patron saint of England. Tomorrow he’ll be honoured with no small amount of flag-waving, beer-drinking and, you’d think, a fair few A&E visits. But who’s the man behind the myth, the man Shakespeare’s Henry V evoked so brilliantly at Agincourt?

George – good, strong English name, right? Wrong:George was born into Christian nobility in Cappadocia, a lunar landscape in central Turkey best known for its ‘fairy chimneys’, around the middle of the 2nd century AD. In truth George’s early years are about as ephemeral as Emile Heskey’s England career, but as the son of a high-ranking soldier he soon worked his way into the Roman Emperor Diocletian’s personal entourage.

George’s military career is ill-documented, but Diocletian issued an edict in 302 declaring that every Christian soldier be rounded up and made to convert to the Roman pagan faith. George refused to renounce Christ, and was summarily tortured and executed by beheading in Palestine a year later, on April 23. Various sources claim these tortures were particularly nasty, including lasceration on a wheel of swords and being tossed into a burning cauldron, though they’re not the most reliable.

George’s brave refusal led many to honour him as a martyr. A church was consecrated in Lydda, Palestine by Emperor Constantine (ruled 306-337; introduced Christianity officially into the Roman Empire), to ‘a man of the highest distinction’, but his identity has never been revealed. Yet George wasn’t made a saint until 494, and it wasn’t until the 11th century that Crusaders reignited the story of George, adding the famous tale of his slaying a dragon to save a princess. In 1222 the Synod of Oxford declared the day of Saint George’s death a feast in England, a decision that endures to this day.

“Cry, ‘God for England, Harry and Saint George!'” Henry V

Today it’s sad that more isn’t done to celebrate St. George’s Day. Yes, we can complain about the hijacking of the English flag by far-right loons like Nick Griffin, but apathy in the face of globalisation and turgid politics is surely to blame. It’s a shame England doesn’t put the same intensity into its patron saint as the Irish do on St. Patrick’s Day, or the Scots do on Burns Night. Yet a whispered post-modern patriotism is beginning to burble below the surface in Britain, sparked this year by a hotly-contested election and the forthcoming World Cup.

The St. George’s Day website aims to take back the flag from the right, and claims to have over a million voters in its poll to make tomorrow a public holiday. The Turkish town of Urgup, which claims to be the home of George’s dragon-slaying exploits, has invited English villages with ties to the saint to twin with it. “We are very proud of being connected to such a famous and well known character, who has since become the patron saint of England,” says mayor Fahri Yildiz. “It is good to know that the tradition of Saint George, and the legend of Saint George and the Dragon is alive and well there.”

So there’s the history of our patron saint, however swathed in mystery. His day might fall on a Friday night this year, but wherever you’re drinking tomorrow raise a glass to George: the old boy’s had a tough few decades.

Mel Gibson Demands Realistic Pillaging and Old Norse For New Viking Movie

Actor and Director Mel Gibson is working on a Viking-themed film that is going to star Leonardo DiCaprio, who will have to brush up on his Old Norse. The script is in the hands of Oscar-winning screenwriter William Monahan, and will chronicle the Viking raids on England and Scotland in the ninth century.

When asked about the Viking project at a recent press event, Mel Gibson told Collider.com: I think its going to be English – the English that would have been spoken back then – and Old Norse. Whatever the 9th century had to offer. Im going to give you real.

Gibson certainly has some previous experience when it comes to realism in ancient world movie-making: The Passion of the Christ contained Aramaic, Hebrew and Latin, and of course, there is *coughs* Braveheart.

I want to see somebody who I have never seen before speaking low guttural German who scares the living shit out of me coming up to my house.

Will this movie give you the real Viking experience? If it is up to Mel, definitely: I want to see somebody who I have never seen before speaking low guttural German who scares the living shit out of me coming up to my house.

The Vikingsused their famed longships to travel as far east as Constantinople and the Volga River in Russia, and as far west as Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland. This period of Viking expansionforms a major part of the medieval history of-and lead to a seriousexpansion of the gene poolin– Scandinavia, Britain, Ireland and the rest of Europe in general.

Hopefully, shooting for this Viking epic will start this year. I’m definitely looking forward to this one! Regardless if this ‘edutainment‘ will teach me anything beyond Old Norse grunts and Viking fashion sense or not.

Romans Join Fight Against Wind Turbine Plans

Locals in the north of England will use their areas rich Roman heritage to fight a major electricity suppliers plans to build wind turbines near their village.

RWE npower Renewables one of the UK’s leading renewable energy providers wants to build up to six turbines as part of its Stobhill Wind Farm development. The farm would generate enough electricity to power between 4,800 and 7,300 UK households every year.

The company has already conducted preliminary investigations into the site and submitted a scoping report to Durham County Council. A full planning application is expected before the end of 2009.

But residents oppose the plans, saying the turbines would be built within 400 metres of houses in the one-pub village of Bolam, threatening the areas serenity.

Area Needs More Fieldwork, Says Archaeologist

A campaign group, Bolam and Area Action Group (BAAG), which is fighting the proposal, says it hopes the council will grant conservation status to the village, thus protecting it from the development.

Archaeologist Niall Hammond, from the County Durham-based firm Archaeo-Environment, told the Teesdale Mercury that the land earmarked for development is a important historical site because Dere Street a major Roman road from York to Hadrians Wall is located just to the east of the village.

He said more fieldwork was needed to confirm Bolans prehistoric and Roman significance. [The current] absence of evidence is most likely due to medieval and later plough activity, and lack of fieldwork in the area as soils, topography and proximity to Dere Street make both late prehistoric and Roman activity in the area highly likely, he said.

The wider area of the middle Tees valley surrounding Bolam contains significant evidence for both prehistoric and Roman activity. Two cropmark sites are known from aerial photographs to the north-east of the village and which currently have no identification, and these may represent evidence of now-buried occupation sites of later prehistory or Roman periods. A Roman marching camp is known as a cropmark from Sandforth Moor, less than a kilometre to the south.

University Team Finds Prehistoric East Midlands Settlement

A prehistoric settlement, which could date back 11,000 years, has been discovered near in England’s East Midlands region. The site, unearthed by a University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) team, was excavated in advance of building works at Asfordby, near Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire.

The team’s experts believe the site would have been inhabited by hunter-gatherers, who journeyed to Britain over the icy remnants of a giant super-river we reported yesterday (sadly they weren’t quite around at the time of Stone Age GPS). Britain would only become an island thousands of years later, when the final chills of the last ice age subsided.

The dig’s first work found flint blades embedded in Mesolithic soil, buried by much later ploughsoil. Thanks to the intact prehistoric soil, the group were confident they could find a wider range of objects, casting a light over the Midlands’ earliest residents.

Work then began on a 10m patch of land, which produced startling results. A charcoal-rich former hearth was found, alongside postholes and arcs of stone which suggest tent-like structures. Yet it was the worked flint haul which provided the team with their biggest coup. Over 5,000 chunks of the stone were recorded, including those used as tools, blades, flakes, scrapers, piercers and arrowheads.

Further work is scheduled at the site, which promises to delve deeper into the domestic and hunting lives of the Mesolithic residents of Leicestershire.

Bones excavated will be examined, allowing us a unique insight into the diets of our prehistoric British ancestors.

The origins of Europe’s earliest settlers is one of anthropology’s hottest topics. Some reports suggest modern Scandinavians are the descendants of Stone Age immigrants, and recent DNA evidence claims Europe’s first farmers weren’t related to hunter-gatherers or the farmers of the Cradle of Civilization.

As the above map shows, routes and landmasses throughout Europe have changed dramatically over the past few thousand years – Neanderthals have even been discovered at the bottom of the North Sea, widely believed to have been an ancient super-highway through the continent’s northern climes.

Google Maps: Britain’s Henges – There’s more than just Stonehenge and Bluehenge!

Other than Stonehenge and the newly discovered Bluehenge, there are other henges across the lenght and breath of Great Britain, as Ann Morgan explained in her post a couple of months back.

What does it take to be a Henge?Henges are at least 20 metres across in size, and have a single raised bank with one, two or four entrances set in strategic positions. Usually in a flat, circular or oval shape, excavations have revealed pottery and bones, fuelling speculation of ancestor worship (or travel by GPS, but that’s a whole other story). Interesting to note is that Stonehenge is not technically a henge then, as it’s bank is inside a ditch!

The henges shown on this map vary across the country, from the top of Scotland to the south of England, yet they’re unique to the British Isles and up to 1,000 years older than the earliest Pyramids!

The Google Map below shows nine henges from around the British Isles. You can see the exact locations of these sites, and easily plan your (real or fantasy) trip through the UK, seeking out the mysterious wonders of the British past!

Google Map: 9 Henges from Britain

By clicking on the relevant Heritage Key icon, you can find out more information about the different sites as well as being able to zoom in.They’re also listed below for convenience, along with links to the various relevant articles and blog entries on Heritage Key, so you can find out more about them:

The map works through Google’s interactive map service, and is easy to navigate by dragging on the map to pull it around. Additionally, you can control the map by using navigation controls in the top right of the corner. The plus and minus buttons allow you to zoom in/out.

Have a look through our Google Earth Tours too to experience flythrough tours of world heritage sites!

Members Wanted: Manhood Search and Recovery Metal Detector Society

Got a metal detector? Into archaeology? Lost your, ahem, manhood? Then the Manhood Search and Recovery Society is for you a newly-formed body promoting conscientious metal detecting in the West Sussex area of England, as well as the important role it can play in archaeology and, with it, local history. In the long term, the society aims to swell its ranks to the point where it can assistant in major archaeological digs.

Responsible metal detectorists play a big part in our understanding of the region and our place, organisation founder Steve Lawrence told the Midhurst and Petworth Observer. Our first meeting has already attracted interest and members.

Its only 12 a year to join, and anyone signing-up now will have the added honour of knowing that theyre one of the societys founding fellows (the first 50 will receive a natty embroided badge to say as much). Onboard so far are all from a teenager to a chap in his 90s. Nighthawkers those who engage in illegal metal detecting at heritage sites, usually after dark need not apply, since the society has a zero tolerance towards such frowned-upon practices according to its website. And Bulgarian career scavengers are right out of the question.

Nighthawkers those who engage in illegal metal detecting at heritage sites after dark need not apply.

Anyone who has misplaced a metal object of value to them on open land are welcome to get in touch though, because the Manhood Search and Recovery Society offers a free finds recovery service, whereby theyll track down your lost item en gratis, provided youve got a rough idea of where it is. Its all good practice todays set of missing car keys is tomorrows horde of valuable Roman coins.

Digging in the Rain: Dartmoor’s Bronze Age Past Unearthed with Rare Roundhouse Excavation

An excavation of one of the thousands of roundhouses dotted across the landscape of Dartmoor has offered a these-days-rare new insight into prehistoric life on the windswept, rainy plain in the southwest of England. Today its an inhospitable, if undoubtedly striking place. But back in the Bronze Age, when the climate was much milder, it was a hive of activity, cleared by fire of forestry and turned into pasture and farm lands. Its inhabitants left behind the largest concentration of Bronze Age remains found anywhere in Britain.

As many as 5,000 stone houses, and many more wooden examples which have all but rotted away over the centuries have been found on Dartmoor. Most of them were excavated a century ago, when they used to get unearthed at the rate of around one per day. This new investigation, at the Bellever roundhouse, represents only the second dig of its kind in the area in 20 years.

While the team from independent professional consultants AC Archaeology are beaten, battered and drenched daily by the weather, funnily enough its Dartmoors rotten conditions that they have to thank for prompting the excavation. A huge storm blew down a plantation of conifer trees at Bellever two years ago, upsetting the roundhousess granite foundations. Archaeologists reasoned that this was as good an excuse as any to get their macks and wellies on and have a root around, so Dartmoor National Park Authority commissioned AC Archaeology to do a small investigation in October 2008.

It yielded big results a well-preserved paved granite floor, a mysterious nearby cairn, 30 fragments of bronze-age pottery and a piece of worked timber, which may once have been part of the original structure. Evidence, said Andy Crabb, an archaeologist for English Heritage, speaking to The Guardian, of a whole sequence of occupation and abandonment. So the AC Archaeology team, supported by 7,500 of funds from the national park and other bodies, are back for another go on a larger scale.

Its a great project for us. Its a chance to really try to find out what was going on here 3,500 years ago. — Simon Hughes, AC Archaeology

Crabb said that finding any significant remains at all blew us away, since the Dartmoor soil usually isnt so generous. (Its) wet, very acidic, so bone, ceramics, organic material gets eaten away, he added. Up to 69 pieces of pottery some of it robust and advanced for its time have now been discovered. The roundhouse, measuring eight metres in diameter, may have been inhabited for as long a period as 200 years, being continually occupied, re-ordered and then deserted in sequence countless times by each new set of residents.

By around 1000 BC the climate had worsened so badly on upper Dartmoor that it was abandoned altogether by its Bronze Age-residents. The archaeologists can undoubtedly sympathise with them they have to resort to sheltering in project supervisor Simon Hughes car when it starts bucketing down. But theyre in no doubt about the value of the dig. Its a great project for us, said Hughes. Its a chance to really try to find out what was going on here 3,500 years ago.

At Least It’s Not English: The Ancient Origins of the Haggis

A heated cross-border dispute has been rumbling the last few days over the origins of the humble haggis Scotlands national dish, famously memorialised as the great chieftain o the puddin race in Robert Burns 1787 Address To The Haggis. Its been sparked by historian Catherine Brown, who has attributed the delicacys origins to the Scots auld enemy, the English, on the basis of references to the dish shes recently discovered in a book called The English Hus-Wife, which was written in 1615 and thus predates Burns homage to stomach-cooked sheeps organs by 171 years.

Well, the Scots who in questions of cuisine, just as in questions of sport, ought to be able to bear losing so long as the English dont win can breathe easy again, because while we sadly arent able to reassure them that haggis is a Scottish invention after all, we can say with some certainty that neither is it attributable to their much-resented southern neighbours. The dishs origins in fact probably stretch as far back as Greek, Roman or Viking times, and maybe even further still.

The practice of salting a slaughtered animals entrails, packing them into its stomach and then boiling the whole thing for purposes of preservation is known to have been practiced widely by the Romans, who had a particular taste for food-stuffs of the sausage type. They may have exported the technique to southern Scotland and England, where it was picked up on by indigenous peoples and adapted to incorporate regional produce such as local mutton and oats.

In Homers Odyssey theres a reference to a primitive-sounding culinary contrivance that may well be an early ancestor of the haggis.

Theres evidence that the Romans possibly learned the method of haggis-making from their Hellenic-predecessors. In Homers Odyssey, which dates from the late 8th century BC, theres a reference to a primitive-sounding culinary contrivance that may well be an early ancestor of the haggis. Odysseus is at one point unflatteringly likened to a man before a great blazing fire turning swiftly this way and that a stomach full of fat and blood, very eager to have it roasted quickly.

Another theory, championed by English celebrity chef Clarissa Dickson Wright, suggests that the haggis in fact entered Scotland via a different route in a Scandinavian longship, centuries before modern Scotland was even formed. She backs up her case with the findings of 19th century etymologist Walter William Skeat, who pointed out that the hag part of the word may come from the Old Norse word hoggva, or the Old Icelandic word haggw (hggva in modern Icelandic). Both mean to hew in other words to chop up, a possible reference to the diced contents of the dish.

Because preservation of animal organs, which perish quickly, in pre-refrigerator times is the apparent essence of the dish, it seems possible that the haggis may even have been around since pre-history. So the Scots can rest easy. Although why if they really do dislike the English that much they dont just let them have a dish as appetising-sounding on paper as bloody bovid heart, liver and lungs mashed and cooked in the beast’s own belly isn’t entirely clear.

Haggis picture by Zoonabar c/o Wikimedia Commons.