INDEED, A SHOCKING SURPRISE! More from Volunteer Alan Crooks

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Museum, volunteer

During the week I caught the tail end of a BBC Radio 4 programme, ‘The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry’, this particular episode being called ‘A Shocking Surprise’, about the causes and effects of static electricity. During the programme it was mentioned that bees use static electricity to help them to identify the most nectar-rich flowers. As a teacher, I used this as an example when teaching static electricity during Physics lessons in order to demonstrate that Physics and Biology are not mutually exclusive subjects.

A bee in flight becomes slightly positively charged, whereas flowers tend to be negatively charged. When a bee lands on a flower the charges are neutralised. Hence a subsequent foraging bee will not be attracted to that flower that has had its electrical charge discharged.

How bees use electric charge to identify the most nectar-rich flowers

This research was published by the University of Bristol in 2013; however Terry Pratchett seemed to have an inkling of this as early as 1975, as shown by a detail from ‘The Dark Side of the Sun’; Terry Pratchett, 1975 which shows a bee plugging itself into electrical receptors on flower stamens.

Detail from The Dark Side of the Sun, Terry Pratchett, 1975

The more time I spend with this exhibition, the more detail I notice, and the more I become aware of how much Terry’s observations and pithy comments chime with my own.

 

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More from Volunteer Alan Crooks, Reflecting on Sir Terry

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Museum, Visitors, volunteer, Volunteering

In my very first teaching post (I came into teaching as a second career) I vividly recall being appalled when a teacher of English came into the staff room one break-time and commented of a pupil, “Poor Jason, he’s so limited. He’s never going to achieve anything, he’s so dyslexic”. Well, this pupil, an eleven year old boy, used to attend my Science Club after school. In the last session before a half term, I showed the BBC2  ‘science strand’ programme ‘Horizon’ about buckminsterfullerene, and intended for somewhat older audiences. Buckminsterfullerene, also known as C₆₀, is a molecule, made solely of carbon atoms, which a British scientist, Professor Sir Harry Kroto had worked out to be spherical and, in fact, made up of hexagons and pentagons – like a football (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Model of Buckminsterfullerene (C₆₀)

In elucidating this structure, Professor Kroto had accurately constructed pentagons and hexagons on thin card, cut them out and sellotaped them together to make a ball. Imagine my delight and pride when Jason, a boy who was “never going to achieve anything”, came in after half term with a fine cardboard model of buckminsterfullerene which he’d made himself. I ensured that this took pride of place in a cabinet in the dining room, where pupils’ finest work was displayed. My thoughts turned to this when I read that Terry Pratchett’s former headmaster, Mr Tame, had told him that he would “never amount to anything”.

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In our exhibition, the legend accompanying Terry Pratchett’s Olivetti Quaderno electronic notebook reads, “Although I have no particular need of it, I can’t bring myself to throw away what is now vintage technology”.

I know this feeling well as my desk drawer is cluttered with, among other things, a British Thornton slide rule, which I haven’t used in at least 30 years, a Sinclair Scientific calculator (1974), whose ‘reverse Polish notation’ taught me how to keep track of the exponent when using the slide rule; and a Nokia 6030 mobile phone (2006), which I believe is now regarded as ‘retro’ (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Alan Crooks’ collection of ‘vintage technology’

Moving on to the Corridor Display, the caption against ‘Death on Binky’ (Paul Kidby, 2000) reads”When I was a kid I was scared rigid of skeletons”. I can empathise with this as because, when I was about 6 or 7 years old, I had to walk home from school across a meadow, within which was a small copse. One day, one of the friends I was with mentioned casually that there was a skeleton under one of the trees in the copse. Well, at the time, I didn’t know what a skeleton was but imagined it to be some sort of crocodilian, like an alligator. I used to give that copse a wide berth thereafter, but wonder to this day what it was that was in this copse.

Whilst on the subject of Death, a visitor came in one day and commented that she wants Death at her funeral. She has written into her Will that , at her funeral, she wants there to be a tall man in a black coat carrying a scythe, and she wants her daughter to tether her white horse at the church gates!

More next week in this fascinating series from Alan.

GETTING TO KNOW A PHOTOGRAPHER by Volunteer Alan Clarke

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Museum, volunteer, Wiltshire

Going Home

After dealing with many many images from various photographers, one gets to know the style of the photographer.  Austin Underwood always tries to get the Cathedral spire in the picture.  Austin was a County Councillor for Amesbury and thus his photographs are often of items that would concern such a role.  For example road signs, accidents, road works, buildings being demolished or built, traffic jams, protest marches, Amesbury social events.  He was also a schoolmaster at BIshop Wordsworth School, so there is an almost complete record of the school activities whilst he was a master there.  This record includes details of all the metalwork that the boys were taught.  All the sporting events, concerts and plays are captured in his negatives including backstage scenes during hectic make-up for large casts.  Another aspect which distinguishes an Austin photograph is his ability to climb adjacent structures in order to obtain an unusual view.  On one occasion this included climbing a helter-skelter that was under construction in the Chipperfield’s funfair yard in the centre of Amesbury.  This resulted in some very unusual aerial images of Amesbury town centre.

Wilfred Chaplin has a great sense of humour which shows in many of his photographs. He also liked wildlife and even made a trip wire to set off the shutter of his camera.  In this way he captured badgers and birds on their nests.  As he used glass plates, he took great care composing the scene before photographing it.  One of his winning masterpieces was entitled “11:55”.  It consisted of an elderly gentleman resting against a bollard by the St Ann Cathedral gate with the Kings Arms Inn in the background.  The implication was that the gentleman was resting against the bollard waiting with five minutes still to go before opening time.

Some photographers always try to include people in the scene.  Others wait and try and take scenes with no-one present.  I have concluded that having people in the scene adds greatly to its interest.

The photographer has entitled the above image “Going Home”.  The windows open imply the end of a hot summer’s day.  No smoke from any of the chimneys.  The TV aerials date the image as early 1960s. The gentleman is wheeling his three speed Sturmy-Archered hubbed bicycle home at the end of a tiring day.  He has his tea urn on the handlebars.  A cloth hat to protect him from the sun.  You can almost feel the heat rising from the road surface.  The houses don’t have many windows and have porches to protect their front doors from the weather, not a problem today.  The road has cats-eyes and looks to me like the A338, just past Idmiston.  But what really surprises me is that the photographer is Austin Underwood.  This is definitely not his usual style.

SOME OBSERVATIONS by Volunteer Alan Crooks

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Museum, volunteer, Volunteering, Volunteers

As we bid farewell to our summer exhibition, some observations on British Art:Ancient Landscapes by Engagement Volunteer, Alan Crooks…

With my scientific background (former Health Service scientist and latterly a Teacher of Chemistry) I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that there are several artists featured in this exhibition of whom I had never previously heard, despite them being well-known – even famous. Among these are Eric Ravilious and Derek Jarman.  Indeed a major joy of having retired and taken on a role as a Museum Volunteer is the opportunity to learn things outside of my previous sphere.

Eric Ravilious

My scientific background gives me a completely different perspective on many of the works, that were not picked up by the curator, Professor Sam Smiles, either in his introductory lecture or in the accompanying book. For example, several visitors have commented to me that they are not keen on Derek Jarman’s ‘Avebury Series IV’ (1973) picture. However, this is one of my favourite pieces in the exhibition because, I think,  it evokes the scientific approach to archaeology. Thus the horizontal and vertical lines are evocative of graph paper, hinting at the need to precisely record the positions in which artifacts are found, whereas the horizontal lines also hint at stratification: the layering of deposits within an archaeological site according to age. The images of the stones exemplify the need to accurately record artifacts by drawing.

To another visitor however, the colours in the picture were reminiscent of Mondrian art.  The Dutch artist and architect, Piet Mondrian (1872-1944)  evolved a non-representational art form called ‘neoplasticism’ which consists of a white ground upon which is painted a grid of horizontal and vertical black lines and the three primary colours. Piet Mondrian was another artist of whom I had never heard until mentioned by this visitor.

Having never previously heard of Derek Jarman, it is interesting how his name has impinged on my consciousness several times since this exhibition started, including two BBC Radio 4 programmes. One of these was ‘The Film Programme’, in June,  when they were discussing Jarman’s 1990 film, ‘The Garden’. Jarman created a garden on a shingle beach in the shadow of Dungeness nuclear power station. He retreated here to live in a “humble fisherman’s cottage” when he was diagnosed as having HIV AIDS, the “gay man’s plague”.  Jarman commented that he “became a hermit in the desert of illness”

While on the topic of stratification, another visitor commented on Barbara Hepworth’s ‘Two Figures (Menhirs) (1964) asking, “How did Barbara Hepworth find such a large block of slate with no cleavage lines?”.  In fact, if one looks at the ‘face-edge’, to use a woodworking term, one can see that there are cleavage planes, but the slate has been so highly polished as to render them almost invisible. Another visitor wondered whether Barbara Hepworth had selected the block because of the “lovely pattern” on its surface. All of a sudden I realised that this pattern was a fossil whereas, hitherto I had wondered whether she had carved it, even though the sculpture is perfectly smooth to the touch. This set my brain to ‘scientist mode’. Slate is a metamorphic rock; that is a very old rock that has (usually) been subjected to enormous heat and pressure, sufficient to change its appearance and behaviour. Slate is derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock. However, compared to most metamorphic rocks, it was formed under relatively low heat and pressure, leading to ‘low grade metamorphism’. For this reason, any fossils formed during the sedimentary stage  can sometimes survive. The description of this fossil given by The Tate is that it “was caused by a small creature swimming through the silt that solidified, preserving the pattern of eddying mud in the stone”.

Eric Ravilious (1903-1942) served as a war artist and died when the aircraft he was in was lost off Iceland, while involved in a search for another aircraft which had failed to return from a patrol. Ravilious’ depiction of barbed wire in his pictures, for example, ‘The Long Man of Wilmington, reflects his wartime experiences. Professor Smiles described Ravilious’ ‘The Valley of the White Horse’ (1939) as having a foreground like the hide of an animal with hairs coming out. However, a visitor to the exhibition commented that this part of the picture was reminiscent of the top surface of the wing of a military aircraft, painted in desert camouflage colours.  When I mentioned this to a different visitor on another day, he commented that this was unlikely as the Desert Air Force (DAF) was not formed until 1941, and Ravilious had been killed in 1942. However, these were interesting conversations.

The Long Man of Wilmington, 1939 Eric Ravilious (Victoria and Albert Museum)

A gentleman came in and stopped sharply in front of Yoshijiro Urishibara’s two colour woodcuts of Stonehenge. Turning to me he commented that he immediately recognised these as being Japanese due to the use of the pigment, Prussian blue. He went on to explain that Japanese painters and woodblock artists didn’t have access to a long-lasting blue pigment until they were able to import Prussian blue from Europe in the 1820s. Prussian blue, (iron (III) hexacyanoferrate (III)) was the first stable and relatively light-fast blue pigment to be widely used following the loss of knowledge of how to prepare Egyptian blue. Hitherto, artists had been using indigo or other dayflower petal dyes. However, the synthetic pigment was more vivid, provided a greater tonal range and was more resistant to fading.

This conversation made a nice link with a Salters ‘A’Level Chemistry unit I used to teach called ‘Colour By Design’ which brought together ideas about why things (including rainbows!) are coloured, and ways of making colour. The Unit explained how from earliest times people used natural substances around them to colour themselves and their possessions, and went on to discuss the use of mineral pigments and synthetic dyes.

Altogether this was a fascinating exhibition which involved me in many interesting conversations in which I have been able to bring my scientific background to bear.

 

 

 

 

THE ALCHEMIST AT ST THOMAS’ CHURCH by Volunteer Alan Crooks

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Salisbury, volunteer

The St Thomas Church alchemist

Colleagues will be aware of the interest I have in the alchemist St Thomas Church. I first became aware of this when, during a Hallowe’en Walk with Fisherton History Society, we stopped outside the Church to be regaled with certain tales. As a former pupil of St Thomas School, for which this was our church, I decided I ought to pay a longer visit having not been since leaving school.

As a retired Chemistry teacher my interest was piqued by a plaque by the North Door which says:

The North Door which once led to a room above the now destroyed North Porch. At one time an alchemist lived there. Outside you can still see the ruined tower from which he dashed to escape the noxious fumes of his experiments.

-The North Door at St Thomas

Who was this alchemist? When did he live? What was the nature of his experiments? There were many questions which sprang immediately to mind.

One immediately available resource was Tim Tatton-Brown’s booklet (available on the St Thomas Church website) entitled ‘The Building of St Thomas’s Church, Salisbury’. Here he says that  “it seems very likely that the nave aisle walls  and the north and south porches were also being built in the years around 1400”. In a footnote, he notes that “The north porch was demolished in 1835…”.

Thus the alchemist must have lived here in the 15^th Century or later – but who was he?

Further research revealed that an antiquarian, Edward Duke (see below), had “lately found (five small crucibles) plastered up in a small niche in a room over the large entrance porch of the Church of St Thomas in Salisbury”.

This was quite likely when the porch was destroyed in 1835.

The report goes on to say that, “The gentleman (Rev. Edward Duke M.A.)… is of the opinion that these carefully concealed crucibles were evidently intended for alchymical purposes. He conceives, however, that they were employed not for the purpose of making gold, but for the higher and more difficult branch of the art, namely making the “Elixir of Life”, which was believed to consist of the “quintessence of gold”.

Thus Duke related the five crucibles to the quintessence.

The question arises, do these crucibles still exist somewhere, perhaps in a museum? Edward Duke lived (and died, in 1852) at Lake House, currently the home of the rock musician, Sting. Edward Duke is known to have kept a small museum at Lake House. Lake House suffered a serious fire at the start of the 20th Century, but it is quite possible that artifacts such as crucibles would have survived. Edward Duke’s collection entered the Pitt-Rivers Collection after his death, and therefore it’s possible that these crucibles could be at Salisbury Museum or in Oxford. Adrian Green (Director) tells me that they’re not at Salisbury.

Edward Duke suggested two possible names for this alchemist, these being Thomas Charnock, a “visionary alchemist, mad man”, who became known to… Sir James Bekinsau, Vicar Choral of the Church of Salisbury, who was born in Broadchalke. To date I have been unable to find any information on Sir James Bekinsau, except that he may have been the brother of John Bekinsau, a theologian, and author of ‘De supremo et absolute Regis imperio’ (London, 1546), dedicated to Henry VIII.

However, I myself believe the alchemist could well have been Dr Simon Forman who the author, Barbara Howard Traister , has described as being “The Notorious Astrological Physician of London”.

Forman was born in Quidhampton in 1552 and, in his Autobiography, states that among other places where he lived in Salisbury, he lived in St Thomas churchyard. During his time in Salisbury he was imprisoned several times for practising medicine without a licence and for possession of  ‘suspicious books’. He was also publicly practising necromancy, foigiomercy and to “calle angels and sprites”. The JP responsible for causing his imprisonment on several of these occasions was Giles Estcourt. However, although Salisbury Library has the transcripts of the Quarter Sessions for 1563 and 1574 to 1592, Simon Forman’s name is not mentioned, although Giles Estcourt can be found for several occasions. It seems that crimes more serious than larceny were tried in the Assizes, and it will be necessary for me to access these at the National Archive in Kew.

During his time in Salisbury, Forman tutored the sons of a Mr. Duke of Ashgrove, Wiltshire. He was from a family of prosperous clothiers, the Dukes, who owned property in the parish of Wilsford near Amesbury. In 1578 they bought the Lake estate there, and subsequently built the beautiful house of chequered flint and grey stone, currently owned by the rock musician, Sting. The aforementioned antiquarian, Rev. Edward Duke, M.A., is of this family and so, unbeknown to himself, had a direct connection to the alchemist of St Thomas Church, if indeed it was Simon Forman.

Forman left Salisbury for good in 1589, moving to London. This was in the aftermath of some sort of scandal. During his time in London he writes that, in 1594, he began to search for the Philosopher’s Stone, thus implying that he wasn’t doing this during his time in Salisbury.

Forman eventually achieved success as an astrological physician, but only after many trials and tribulations with the College of Physicians, including being fined for practicing without a licence. Forman eventually managed to circumvent the College of Physicians by obtaining a licence to practice medicine from Cambridge University.

Despite in his day being considered a quack and a charlatan, Forman’s reputation has undergone something of a transformation in recent years, this being due to his meticulous record keeping of patient consultations. He and his protégé, the astrologer Richard Napier, recorded detailed information about their patients’ medical conditions, then treated them through careful calculations using astrological charts. Unusually for their time, Forman and Napier actually recorded people’s symptoms. This means that their patient consultation records are better than any other records from the period.

A fuller account of this article, with illustrations, can be found on the ‘History and Heritage’ section of the St Thomas Church website:

http://www.stthomassalisbury.co.uk/documents/history-heritage/105-the-alchemist-of-st-thomas-s/file

The Reverend Edward Duke MA (1779-1852) was Lord of the Manor of Lake, and lived in Lake House.

Intriguing Excavation

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Archaeology, Museum, News, South Wiltshire, volunteer, Wessex, Wiltshire

Last week, a team of archaeologists led by Dr David Roberts of Historic England, and which included Members, Volunteers, Staff and friends of Salisbury Museum, were in the Wiltshire countryside on an exciting excavation. It is part of a project initiated by Dr Roberts as long ago as 2008 when he was still a student at the University of York, and digging has continued during most summers since then. The research is primarily into Roman remains in the area but much of the prehistory and early history has been exposed also.

Dr Roberts and colleagues in what may be a Roman sacred grove

The site is particularly intriguing. Extensive masonry walls have been found and buildings which are not domestic. Nevertheless, some detritus of everyday living has been found, including coins, brooches, and, this year, significant amounts of pottery.

One of the trenches, and above, the ridge, which is surrounded by earth and masonry walls

Within the walls which have been discovered, surrounding a high ridge, the remains of ritually killed animals (found in previous seasons’ excavations) suggest a sacred site of some kind, with many of the building remains perhaps being to serve visitors, and only in use for part of the year. Interpretation continues.

Apart from an impressive thunderstorm which caused a rapid evacuation of the site on one afternoon, the weather was kind. The professionals were endlessly patient with the amateurs, and the fresh air, exercise, and the history were wonderful.

 

HARVEST TIME by Volunteer Alan Clarke

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volunteer, Wiltshire

Whilst scanning negatives, there are always surprises.

This image here from the museums’s Austin Underwood collection is one such surprise. For many decades I have cycled many miles throughout the county and never seen Christmas-tree stooks like these.  I did an image search on Google for stooks but I found none looking like these.  On the far side of this field, there are the conventional stooks. These can still (2016) be seen and photographed in at least two places in Wiltshire where materials for thatching are grown.  I do not know where Austin took this photograph.

There is a village beyond this field with its church tower, which is why I think it is a village.  One of the village houses has a television aerial on the chimney stack.  There are many telegraph poles; one with four arms and its array of white insulators for telephone lines as compared to power cables.  I guess that this photograph was taken around 1963 and it shows quite a prosperous village to have so many telephone lines for that year. However the fields are small by today’s local standards and hence labour intensive and not so profitable.  I cannot make out any farm animals in any of the fields, which might be due to the far fields being out of focus.

If you have ever seen stooks like this or can identify the village, I would love to know and would add the information to the Museum’s records for this image.

As most of you will already know, Alan looks after our photographic archive and provides endless gems like this one with thought-provoking commentary.  Thank you as always Alan.

THE LOST CITY OF OLD SARUM reported by Volunteer Ann Howell

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Archaeology, Museum, News, volunteer, Wiltshire

ALEX LANGLANDS AT THE CHALKE VALLEY HISTORY FESTIVAL 2017

Sponsored by Salisbury Museum

A personal impression by Ann Howell

Well, it rained, but this did not dampen the happy atmosphere at the site. The site was  on farmland at the back of Broad Chalke. This was my first visit and I was very impressed how big and well organised the whole festival was, with helpful, welcoming staff.

By 4.55pm the huge tent was packed, the talk being at 5pm.

Adrian gave a short talk on the Museum and then Alex began. He is impressive, not least because he does not try to be so. His delivery was casual with not a single note in sight. His vast knowledge and enthusiasm for his subject was self-evident. Images were projected onto a very large screen at the front of the tent which could be seen clearly by everyone. He began by outlining what most of us already knew about Old Sarum. How William I built a motte and bailey castle on site in 1067 and then in August 1086 called all the Tenants-in-chief and landowners of any account to swear fealty to him against all men. This was a “monumental occasion”, Alex said, and asked the question – did William pick Old Sarum for this purpose on an ordinary hill fort or was it already an important site in Anglo Saxon times?  There is evidence to suggest that it was the latter.  The Romans built five roads leading from Old Sarum.  And in Anglo-Saxon times there was a cross roads leading to Mercia in the north, Wilton in the west, Winchester in the east and to the south the coast.  It was, in fact, an ideal  trading post and perhaps an administration centre?

He presented geophysical survey maps on screen which clearly showed evidence of activity beyond the moat on the Stratford-sub-Castle side.  There was a lot going on, “..but what?” he asked. His team will be attempting to find out in the next three weeks of digging in this area. We all wait with bated breath for the result.

If you have not heard Alex Langlands speak, please make every effort to do so. You will not be disappointed. He will be at Salisbury Museum on 22 July speaking on the same subject!

“…OVER FIFTY YEARS AGO…” by Volunteer Alan Clarke

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Salisbury, volunteer, Wiltshire

When you walk along Silver Street from Barclays Bank to the Poultry Cross, if you look carefully, you will see that the pavement has been widened.  This happened over 50 years ago as evidenced by this photograph.  I doubt if it is an easy task without photographs such as this to determine when this pedestrian enhancement occurred.   The buildings in this 1965 scene look much the same now as they did then but they almost all had different tenants.

It is thanks to the amazing foresight and gymnastic abilities of the photographer, Austin Underwood, that we have this photograph.  Somehow he must have managed to gain access to the upper stories of the Barclay bank building to take this photograph.  Maybe someone could manage a repeat and obtain a “now” photograph from the same vantage point and check my following comments.  The first shop, visible on the left, is Hepworth’s the tailors where I bought my first suit, paid for by working nights at Welworthy’s piston ring factory in Harnham.  The premises is now (2017) occupied by the coffee shop, Nero.

Robinson Rentals, now also Cafe Nero, is next door .   In 1965 many families rented their TV.  Now we rent our mobile phones but choose a different word than ‘rent’.  One can make out Bollom the dry cleaners.  Then there is FHW (Freeman Hardy and Willis) the shoe people who moved round the corner to Minster Steet, and have now left Salisbury all together.  ‘Toni and Guy’ are now here.  On the other side of Silver Street, one can see that Marks and Spencers occupied the building that Boots the Chemist now (2017) have.    Woolworth’s had a large foodmarket on this side as well as their premises in High Street. Robert Stokes remains in name only along New Canal, the other side of their premises here in Silver Street.  Lipton, the self service grocers, eventually moved into Butcher’s Row before disappearing into the annals of history.  Now the premises is occupied by Santander.  Timothy Whites (Chemist) can be made out, squeezed between M&S and Robert Stokes.  They were taken over by Boots shortly after this photograph was taken. Curry’s sign can be seen down Butcher’s Row.  They moved out of town a few years ago to the Southampton Road with many other retailers.

Besides the architecture and the shops, there is much more of Salisbury’s social history in this image.  For example, double decker buses used to have a driver and a conductor.  Look carefully in this photograph to see the driver.   Butcher’s row appears to be pedestrianised.  One can just make out the “No Entry” sign but note the van parked pointing in the wrong direction.  Over eight premises have their blinds stretched out over the pavement.  How many shops now have a working blind?

One can observe lots of shopping bags but no shopping trolleys or mobility vehicles.

Only the men appear to be wearing the trousers back in 1965!

 

WITCHES AND ALCHEMISTS, SNAKES AND SWALLOWS by Volunteer Alan Crooks

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Archaeology, Stonehenge, volunteer, Volunteers, Wessex, Wiltshire

To my shame, this was my first visit to Avebury since 1983, when I attended a Royal Society of Chemistry Mid-Southern Counties Local Section Summer Excursion to Avebury, Silbury Hill, and the West Kennet Long Barrow.  I attended the SALOG visit as part of a self-imposed mission to visit all the sites depicted in the current exhibition, ‘British Art: Ancient Landscapes’. To this end, following a week’s holiday in Seaton last week, I made a detour to visit the Cerne Abbas Giant (and the village of Cerne Abbas itself) on my way home. Then, following the SALOG visit to Avebury, being such a lovely day, and following lunch at the on-site café, I embarked on the two mile walk along a bridleway to visit West Kennet Long Barrow, taking in Silbury Hill en route. At West Kennet Long Barrow, I was entranced to watch a swallow feeding her brood of chicks which were on a ledge in one of the burial chambers.

At Avebury, it was a delight to have the opportunity to chat with fellow volunteers from the other organisations involved. (I had a fruitful conversation about witches and alchemists, concerning some research I’m doing on a matter unrelated to Ancient Landscapes).

I was interested to hear from our Guide about the two types of stone, ‘pillar’ stones and ‘diamond’ stones, which represent male and female, and these face each other in the Avenue as sexual pairs.

The Guide for my party told us that the heaviest stone weighs an estimated 100 tons. On its outfacing side, she pointed out the head and neck of a ‘dragon’ – a result of natural erosion. (One of my fellow Volunteers pointed out that this is the same stone on which, in the exhibition, the artist has shown the face of William Morris, and indicated that this is to the left hand side of the dragon).

To me, the ‘dragon’ looked more like a snake, and this led me to put two and two together to perhaps make five, in wondering whether this is what inspired William Stukeley to depict Avebury as a serpent whose head rested at the Sanctuary on Overton Hill and whose body was formed by West Kennet and Beckhampton.

Avenues:

This was a very interesting, enjoyable and worthwhile visit. Many thanks to all concerned with its conception and organisation.

Alan Crooks (Engagement Volunteer)