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Durrington Walls, Wiltshire: Walk of the week

Posted in History, Stonehenge on March 13, 2010| Leave a Comment »

The first of our new series of weekly walks, provided by the National Trust, is a ramble around mysterious Durrington Walls in Wiltshire, with views towards Stonehenge.

View Durrington Walls: Walk of the week in a larger map

THE EXPERT’S VIEW

Mike Dando, Head Warden: “The walk starts at the largest henge monument in the country and takes you past ancient monuments such as Round Barrows and the ‘Cuckoo Stone’ where it is easy to imagine the landscape as it was some 4,000 years ago. The walk takes in beautiful grazed grassland, strips of mature Beech trees and offers fantastic views across the Stonehenge Landscape.

Download an OS map of this walk  
© Reproduced by permission of Ordnance Survey. All rights reserved. OS licence no. AL 100018591

“My favourite part of this walk would have to be walking past the New King Barrows, the large Bronze Age burial mounds. A stop here on a warm summers’ day, listening to the skylarks and the beech leaves rustling, is hard to beat, especially on top of the view over to Stonehenge itself.

“Unique to this walk is the sense of being in an ancient and sacred place; the combination of the natural and historic sights is simply spectacular. My top tip for first time walkers would be to bring binoculars to take in the wildlife and views.”

ESSENTIALS

Start: Woodhenge car park

Grid ref: SU151434

Map: OS Landranger 184

Getting there

  • Bus: Wilts & Dorset 5 or 6, between Salisbury, Pewsey, Marlborough and Swindon. Service 16 from Amesbury, request stop at Woodhenge
  • Rail: Salisbury station, 9 miles from Woodhenge car park
  • Road: Woodhenge car park is 1¾ miles north of Amesbury, follow signs from A345

Distance, terrain and accessibility

4 mile (6.4km) across open access land, including Rights of Way, with gates, at several points. The ground is uneven in places, with a few short, steep slopes. Sheep graze the fields and there are ground-nesting birds, so please keep dogs under control.

Local facilities

  • Picnic area (not NT) and information panel at Woodhenge car park
  • WCs
  • Outdoor café
  • Picnic area (not NT) at Stonehenge car park, 0.75 miles from this walking route.

THINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR

Durrington Walls: The largest complete henge in Britain is 500m in diameter and encloses a natural valley. It once contained timber circles and what appear to have been shrines. The area outside the ditch and bank was once a settlement, perhaps containing hundreds of houses, making Durrington Walls potentially the largest village in north-west Europe at the time. People travelled for miles to feast and take part in ceremonies, probably at the midwinter solstice. Woodhenge stood nearby as an impressive timber circle surrounded by a bank and ditch.

The Cuckoo Stone: This standing stone now lies on its side, but over millennia it has been a focus for Bronze Age urn burials, an Iron Age boundary line and Roman remains. It is made of sarsen, a kind of sandstone, the same as the largest stones in the Stonehenge stone circle. The reason for its name remains a mystery.

The Stonehenge Avenue: A two mile long ceremonial way linking Stonehenge with the River Avon and crossing King Barrow Ridge. Interestingly, Durrington Walls is also connected to the river, leading experts to believe the Avon symbolically linked the two monuments, forming part of a ritual journey; maybe leading to the afterlife.

DIRECTIONS

Download an OS map of this walk
© Reproduced by permission of Ordnance Survey. All rights reserved. OS licence no. AL 100018591

1. At Woodhenge car park, go through the gate nearest to you and into a field. Walk downhill into Durrington Walls (taking care of rabbit holes).

2. At the centre of Durrington Walls, looking around you, you can appreciate the nature of the henge as an enclosed valley. Standing here 4,500 years ago, you would have been viewing several “shrines” around the slopes. Next, turn left and walk to the corner of this field. Pass through gates either side of the road, heading towards a low rock.

3. The Cuckoo Stone is one of very few stones in the area that is made from sarsen – most local rock is chalk or flint. From here, continue forwards to the next gate.

4. You are now on the route of the old military railway between Amesbury and Larkhill; turn right and follow the path.

5. When you reach a crossroads and National Trust sign to King Barrow Ridge, turn left and follow the shaded bridleway.

6. At the junction, turn right through a gate to continue along the ridge, crossing the Stonehenge Avenue on your way to a line of 200-year-old beech trees and a fine view of Stonehenge. At winter solstice, Neolithic people may have marked the occasion of the midwinter sunset at Stonehenge, before travelling to Durrington Walls to celebrate the new sunrise.

7. Continue forward to New King Barrows, a fine row of Early Bronze Age burial mounds, originally capped in white chalk so they would have been visible from a far distance. Return to point 6, turn right and follow the stony track to point 8.

8. Take a left turn through a gap in the hedge, to join the old military railway once more. This leads back to the gate in the corner of the Cuckoo Stone field.

9. Head across the grassland to Woodhenge and back to Woodhenge car park.

Pat – Stonehenge Tour Guide
HISTOURIES UK  –  The Best Tours in History

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Beatles News – Abbey Road Studios

Posted in History, UK Tourism updates on March 10, 2010| 1 Comment »

Abbey Road Studios Celebrated With Grade II Listing For ‘Outstanding Cultural Significance’

Iconic Studios Listed on Advice of English Heritage

English Heritage is delighted that the Abbey Road Studios have today (23 February 2010) been recognised by grade ll listing.  In 2003, English Heritage advised ministers that the building possessed huge cultural importance and a remarkable and inspiring association with music making and should be listed in recognition of this unique special interest. The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has now endorsed that advice and listed the building.

Simon Thurley, Chief Executive of English Heritage said:  “Some of the most defining sounds of the 20th century were created within the walls of the Abbey Road Studios.  English Heritage has long recognised the cultural importance of Abbey Road – it contains, quite simply, the most famous recording studios in the world which act as a modern day monument to the history of recorded sound and music.  The listing of the building is a welcome acknowledgement of the contribution the studios have made to our musical heritage, and we hope that in some form, they can continue to play a role in inspiring the musicians of the future”.

Listing is a way of saying that a building is special and that every care should be afforded to decisions affecting its future.  English Heritage warmly welcome EMI’s appreciation for the cultural value embodied in the building and their understanding that listing is an appropriate way to recognise that value.

Nicholas – Tour Guide
HISTOURIES UK

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Overview: From Neolithic to Bronze Age, 8000 – 800 BC

Posted in History, Stonehenge on March 10, 2010| Leave a Comment »

The British Isles have been populated by human beings for hundreds of thousands of years, but it was the introduction of farming around 7,000 years ago that began a process of radical change.

The dawn of farming

Human beings have been living in the part of northern Europe that is today called Britain for about 750,000 years. For most of that time, they subsisted by gathering food like nuts, berries, leaves and fruit from wild sources, and by hunting.

Over the millennia there were phases of extreme cold, when large areas of Britain were covered in ice, followed by warmer times. Around 10,000 years ago, the latest ice age came to an end. Sea levels rose as the ice sheets melted, and Britain became separated from the European mainland shortly before 6000 BC.

The introduction of farming was one of the biggest changes in human history.

The people living on the new islands of Britain were descendants of the first modern humans, or Homo sapiens, who arrived in northern Europe around 30,000 – 40,000 years ago. Like their early ancestors they lived by hunting and gathering.

The introduction of farming, when people learned how to produce rather than acquire their food, is widely regarded as one of the biggest changes in human history.

This change happened at various times in several different places around the world. The concept of farming that reached Britain between about 5000 BC and 4500 BC had spread across Europe from origins in Syria and Iraq between about 11000 BC and 9000 BC.

Neolithic revolution?

The change from a hunter-gatherer to a farming way of life is what defines the start of the Neolithic or New Stone Age. In Britain the preceding period of the last, post-glacial hunter-gatherer societies is known as the Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age.

It used to be believed that the introduction of farming into Britain was the result of a huge migration or folk-movement from across the Channel. Today, studies of DNA suggest that the influx of new people was probably quite small – somewhere around 20% of the total population were newcomers.

Farming took 2,000 years to spread across the British Isles.

So the majority of early farmers were probably Mesolithic people who adopted the new way of life and took it with them to other parts of Britain. This was not a rapid change – farming took about 2,000 years to spread across all parts of the British Isles.

Traditionally the arrival of farming is seen as a major and rapid change sometimes called the ‘Neolithic revolution’. Today, largely thanks to radiocarbon dates, we can appreciate that the transition from hunter-gatherer to farmer was relatively gradual.

We know, for example, that hunters in the Mesolithic ‘managed’ or tended their quarry. They would make clearings in woodland around sources of drinking water, and probably made efforts to see that the herds of deer and other animals they hunted were not over-exploited.

The switch from managed hunting to pastoral farming was not a big change. The first farmers brought the ancestors of cattle, sheep and goats with them from the continent. Domestic pigs were bred from wild boar, which lived in the woods of Britain.

Neolithic farmers also kept domesticated dogs, which were bred from wolves. It is probable that the earliest domesticated livestock were allowed to wander, maybe tended by a few herders.

Sheep, goats and cattle are fond of leaves and bark, and pigs snuffle around roots. These domestic animals may have played a major role in clearing away the huge areas of dense forest that covered most of lowland Britain.

Burial and belief

Stonehenge stone circle, near Amesbury, Wiltshire Stonehenge stone circle, near Amesbury, Wiltshire  ©

Neolithic farmers also brought with them the first seed grains of wheat and barley, which had been bred many millennia earlier from wild grasses that grew in region of modern-day Iraq.

Initially, cereals were probably grown in garden plots near people’s houses. Once harvested, the grain needed to be stored and protected from natural pests and from raiding parties.

This tended to encourage a more settled way of life than that of the Mesolithic communities, who would move around the country on a seasonal pattern, following the animals, birds and fish they hunted.

The ‘henge’ monuments, like Stonehenge, incorporate lunar and solar alignments.

In many cases the earliest Neolithic sites (approx 4000 – 5000 BC) occur alongside late Mesolithic settlements, or in areas that we know were important in post-glacial times.

From the start of the fourth millennium BC (about 3800 BC), we see a move into new areas that had not been settled or exploited previously.

This period, sometimes referred to as the Middle Neolithic, also witnesses the appearance of the first large communal tombs, known as long barrows, or mounds, and the earliest ceremonial monuments, known as ’causewayed’ enclosures.

Here people from communities in a particular region would gather together, probably at regular intervals, to socialise, to meet new partners, to acquire fresh livestock and to exchange ceremonial gifts.

During these ceremonies, rituals took place which often involved the burial of significant items, such as finely-polished stone axeheads, complete pottery vessels, or human skulls.

Some of the great ceremonial monuments of the Middle Neolithic, such as the so-called ‘passage’ graves, were aligned according to the position of the sun during the winter or summer solstice.

The long passage of a passage grave could be carefully positioned to allow the sun on the shortest few days of the year to shine directly into the central burial chamber. Passage graves were also constructed to provide good acoustics, and it seems most probable that they were the scenes of ritual or religious theatrical performances.

The so-called ‘henge’ monuments, like the famous Stonehenge, seem to have developed out of the causewayed enclosures from around 3000 BC.

They also incorporate lunar and solar alignments which are seen as a means of uniting the physical and social structures of human societies with the powers of the natural world.

The Bronze Age

Neolithic houses were usually rectangular thatched buildings made from timber with walls of wattle (woven hazel rods) smeared with a plaster-like ‘daub’ (made from clay, straw and cow dung).

Some of the larger buildings were the size and shape of a Saxon hall and may well have been communal. Most others were smaller and would have been adequate for a family of six to ten people.

The appearance of metal marks an important technological development, especially in the control of fire.

Neolithic houses are far more commonly found in Scotland and Ireland than in England or Wales, where communities may have retained a more mobile pattern of life, involving fewer permanent buildings.

The first bronzes appear in Britain in the centuries just before 2500 BC, which is the usually accepted start date for the Bronze Age.

On the European mainland the arrival of bronze was preceded by copper tools of the Chalcolithic or Copper Age, but in Britain tin and copper appear at about the same time as bronze.

Although the appearance of metal marks an important technological development, especially in the control of fire, it does not seem to bring a big change in the way that people lived their lives in the Early Bronze Age.

Henges, for example, continue in use, but the larger communal tombs, such as long barrows and passage graves, are replaced by smaller round barrows.

Many of these contain an initial or ‘primary’ burial, often of an important man or woman, who may be buried with distinctive and highly decorated pottery known as ‘Beakers’, together with bronze or tin metalwork such as daggers or axes. Sometimes fine goldwork rings, bracelets and earrings adorned the bodies.

In many instances the round barrows of the Early Bronze Age (2500-1500 BC) continue in use, as smaller or ‘satellite’ burials and cremations are dug into the main primary mound.

These places were clearly important gathering places for people and they were often carefully placed in the landscape either to be seen over a large area, or to mark the beginning or end or a community’s land-holding or territory.

Houses in the Early Bronze Age were usually round with a conical roof and a single entrance.

Accelerated change

The Ringlemere gold cup, found in Ringlemere, Kent The Ringlemere gold cup, found in Ringlemere, Kent  ©

The Middle Bronze Age (1500 – 1250 BC) marks an important period of change, growth and probably of population expansion too. There was a fundamental shift in burial practice away from barrow burial, towards cremation in large open cemeteries where ashes were placed in specially-prepared pottery urns.

Settlements consisted of round houses which were often grouped together, possibly for defence, but possibly too because people preferred to live near one another.

During this period we find an increasing number of metalwork hoards, where dozens, sometimes hundreds of spearheads, axes and daggers were placed in the ground – often in a wet or boggy place, a practice that would continue right through the Iron Age.

The Late Bronze Age saw the start of the so-called ‘Celtic’ way of life.

Certain hoards found in south western Britain contained large numbers of fancy bronze ornaments, such as elaborate dress-fasteners, rings, pins, brooches and bracelets.

The Middle Bronze Age also sees the first field systems in Britain, indicating growing pressure on the land as the numbers of people and animals increased.

The Late Bronze Age (1250-800 BC) is marked by the arrival of new styles of metalwork and pottery, but otherwise life continued much as before. Horse-riding became more popular and Late Bronze Age swords were designed as slashing weapons – resembling the cavalry cutlass.

Houses were still round, a pattern that would continue into the Iron Age, but a number of large hall-like rectangular houses are also known.

The field systems of the Middle Bronze Age continued in use and were enlarged. In the uplands of Britain the Late Bronze Age saw the first construction of a few hillforts and the start of the so-called ‘Celtic’ way of life.

Pat – Salisbury Tours
HISTOURIES – The Best Tours in British History

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Stonehenge team wins project of the year

Posted in History, Stonehenge on March 9, 2010| Leave a Comment »

The team which discovered the site of a second stone circle, 500 years older than the nearby Stonehenge has won a prestigious archaeology award.

professor Thomas (right) with the co-Directors of the Stonehenge project <!–

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The sensational discovery of a 5000 year-old “Blue Stonehenge” was made by a team led by archaeologists from Manchester, Sheffield and Bristol Universities on the West bank of the River Avon last year.

The Stonehenge Riverside Project – as they are known – won the Research Project of the Year award at the Current Archaeology awards held at the British Museum.

The Stonehenge Riverside Project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Royal Archaeological Institute.

The award was given following an online vote by readers of Britain’s biggest archaeology magazine.

The new circle was 10m in diameter and was surrounded by a henge – a ditch with an external bank.

However, the stones were at some point removed, leaving behind nine uncovered holes. The team believe they were probably part of a circle of 25 standing stones.

The outer henge around the stones was built around 2,400 BC, but distinctive chisel-shaped arrowheads found in the stone circle indicate that the stones were put up as much as 500 years earlier.

When the newly discovered circle’s stones were removed by Neolithic tribes, they may, according to the team, have been dragged to Stonehenge, to be incorporated within its major rebuilding around 2500 BC.

Archaeologists know that after this date, Stonehenge consisted of about 80 Welsh stones and 83 local, sarsen stones. Some of the bluestones that once stood at the riverside probably now stand within the centre of Stonehenge.

Professor Julian Thomas, from The University of Manchester and a co-director of the Stonehenge Riverside Project, said: “We are delighted to win this award  – and it’s a tribute to the team who have done such a great job.

“We are still coming to terms with this truly sensational discovery: it’s amazing the circle of bluestones were dragged from the Welsh Preseli mountains, 150 miles away around 5,000 years ago.

“It adds weight to the theory that the River Avon linked a ‘domain of the living’ – marked by timber circles and houses upstream at the Neolithic village of ‘Durrington Walls’ – with a ‘domain of the dead’ marked by Stonehenge and this new stone circle.

“The Stonehenge Riverside Project also discovered a Late Neolithic settlement outside the enormous henge at Durrington Walls, upriver from Stonehenge, and a series of contemporary timber buildings and other structures in and around Durrington which may have been ceremonial in character.”
 

Notes for editors

The Stonehenge Riverside Project is run by a consortium of university teams.  It is directed by Prof. Mike Parker Pearson of Sheffield University, with co-directors Dr Josh Pollard (Bristol University), Prof. Julian Thomas (The University of Manchester), Dr Kate Welham (Bournemouth University) and Dr Colin Richards (The University of Manchester).  The 2009 excavation was funded by the National Geographic Society, Google, the Society of Antiquaries of London, and the Society of Northern Antiquaries.

Most of the circle remains preserved for future research and the 2009 excavation has been filled back in.

Nicholas – Stonehenge Tour Guide
HISTOURIES – The Best Tours in British History

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Syria’s Stonehenge: Neolithic stone circles, alignments and possible tombs discovered

Posted in History, Stonehenge on March 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Just read this in my morning newspaper – wow. I will do some more reserach and update you all.
For Dr. Robert Mason, an archaeologist with the Royal Ontario Museum, it all began with a walk last summer. Mason conducts work at the Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi monastery, out in the Syrian Desert. Finds from the monastery, which is still in use today by monks, date mainly to the medieval period and include some beautiful frescoes.

Photo courtesy Dr. Robert Mason. One of the corbelled stone structures found in the Syrian desert. Archaeologists suspect that its an ancient stone tomb. In the front of it are the remains of a stone circle.

Dr. Mason explains that he “went for a walk” into the eastern perimeter of the site – an area that hasn’t been explored by archaeologists. What he discovered is an ancient landscape of stone circles, stone alignments and what appear to be corbelled roof tombs. From stone tools found at the site, it’s likely that the features date to some point in the Middle East’s Neolithic Period – a broad stretch of time between roughly 8500 BC – 4300 BC.

It is thought that in Western Europe megalithic construction involving the use of stone only dates back as far as ca. 4500 BC. This means that the Syrian site could well be older than anything seen in Europe.

At a recent colloquium in Toronto, Canada, Mason described his shock at discovering the apparent tombs, stone circles and stone alignments: “I was standing up there thinking, oh dear me, I’ve wandered onto Salisbury Plain,”

At the southern end of the landscape there are three apparent tombs. They are about eight metres in diameter and each of them “actually has a chamber in the middle”. The roof is corbelled which suggests that beneath them is “something you would want to seal in.” Each of these corbelled structures had a stone circle beside it, which is about two meters in diameter.

Dr. Mason cautioned that the team did not have the chance to do more than survey the area, so it’s still possible that these corbelled structures could have a purpose other than burial. More work also needs to be done to get a precise date of construction.

Dr. Mason set out to look for more stone circles and chambered structures. This time he brought a monk with him, from the monastery:

“Lurking around in the hills above a Syrian military base with a digital camera in one hand and a GPS unit in the other is the sort of thing that makes you want to have a monk in your presence,” he explained.

The two of them went to a rock outcrop – a place that would have been a good source of flint in ancient times – where he found the remains of several corbelled structures. In the valley below they found another corbelled structure with a stone circle right beside it.

The monk who travelled with him sensed that this high outcrop would have been of great importance to the people who lived here. “This is a high place” he told Mason.

As Mason gazed at the landscape, from the height of the outcrop, he saw stone lines, also known as alignments, going off in different directions. Dr. Mason has a strong background in geology, and knew immediately that these could not be natural features.

“I know what rocks look like, where they belong – these rocks don’t belong in that.”

One of stone lines was “very bizarre,” snaking its way up a hill. Mason followed the line and found that it led to the “biggest complex of tombs of all.”

This particular stone structure has three chambers and was probably the burial place for “the most important person.” In the front of the tomb are the remains of a stone circle. Dr. Mason can’t confirm for sure that this was used as a tomb, until further archaeological work takes place.

The lithics the team found in the landscape are also quite unusual – they don’t seem to be made from local material. Mason explained that local flint is white or dark red, but the material they found is “very good quality brown chert.”

The Neolithic period is a time period when people in the Middle East were beginning to grow crops and adopt farming. They didn’t live in settlements larger than a village. There were no cities in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world.

Professor Edward Banning is a University of Toronto anthropology professor and Neolithic period expert, and has done extensive fieldwork in the Middle East, including Jordan. He said that we need to be careful about drawing conclusions before more fieldwork is done.

“Virtually all the burials that archaeologists have ever discovered from Neolithic sites in that part of the world come from inside settlements – in fact even below floors and houses,” he said. If the corbelled structures are confirmed as burial structures, then this site will represent something new.

“It’s possible that this landscape that Dr. Mason has identified could be an example of off-site burial practices in the Neolithic which would be very interesting.”

This would help settle a mystery that archaeologists have long faced. Banning said that while burials have been found in Neolithic settlements, “Those burials are not high enough in number to account for the number of people who must have died in those settlements. So a number of us for many years have assumed that there must have been off-site mortuary practices of some kind.”

Dr. Mason goes a step further. He says that this site “sounds like Western Europe” and he wonders if this could be an early example of the stone landscapes seen at places like Stonehenge.

Dr. Julian Siggers of the Royal Ontario Museum, another Neolithic specialist, pointed out that it has been argued that agriculture spread from the Near East to Europe. This find creates a question – could these stone landscapes have travelled with them?

“It’s such an important hypothesis if it’s right that it’s worth telling people about now,” said Mason. “We’ve found something that’s never been found in the Middle East before.”

Professor Banning is sceptical about this idea. He said that stone structures are found throughout the world, pointing to the dolmens found in East Asia. He claims that people in Western Europe could have developed the techniques independently of the people who built the landscape near the Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi monastery.

Prof. Banning also said that Mason’s site may not be entirely unique in the Near and Middle East. He said that archaeologists have detected, via satellite photos, what appear to be cairns and stone circles in other areas, including the deserts of Jordan and Israel. However, he admits that most of these things have not received a lot of archaeological investigation.

That situation is about to change. Dr. Mason plans to return to the Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi site this summer with a team of Neolithic experts. The results of their investigations may well put Britain’s Stonehenge in the shade.

Top 10 Ancient Sites in Syria

Bluestonehenge and other recent results from The Stonehenge Riverside Project

Neolithic Europe

Nicholas – Tour Guide
HISTOURIES UK – Stonehenge Tours

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Happy St.Davids Day

Posted in History, UK Tourism updates on March 1, 2010| Leave a Comment »

What we know about the life of Saint David, the patron saint of Wales and one of the early saints who helped to spread Christianity among the pagan Celtic tribes of Western Britain.

Introduction

Saint David

St David's Cross monument Saint David’s Cross, St Davids, Pembrokeshire, WalesSaint David, or Dewi Sant as he’s called in the Welsh language, is the patron saint of Wales. His day is 1st March. 

His influence is shown in the number of churches dedicated to him in Wales and the celebrations each Saint David’s Day. Saint David factfile

There aren’t many facts about St David; but here are the only undisputed ones. 

  • He really existed
  • He was at the heart of the Welsh church in the 6th century
  • He came from an aristocratic family in West Wales
  • His mother was a saint, Saint Non
  • His teacher was also a saint, St Paulinus
  • He founded a large monastery in West Wales
  • He was one of the early saints who helped to spread Christianity among the pagan Celtic tribes of Western Britain
  • He became Archbishop of Wales, but remained in his community at Menevia (now called St Davids)
  • He was active in supressing the Pelagian heresy
  • His shrine became a great place of pilgrimage; four visits to the shrine at St David’s were considered the equivalent of two to Rome, and one to Jerusalem!

The most famous story about Saint David tells how he was preaching to a huge crowd and the ground is said to have risen up, so that he was standing on a hill and everyone had a better chance of hearing him. St David’s day celebrations

Celebrations

Girl in national costume of Wales, with a tall black hat over a lace bonnet and bright red flannel overcoat Girl in national costume of Wales ©St David’s Day has been a national festival in Wales since the 18th century, and is still marked with gusto. Many people will wear either a daffodil or a leek, which are both symbols of Wales.

 The other Welsh symbol, Y Ddraig Goch (the Red Dragon, Wales’s national flag), will be flown on many more buildings than usual.

Concerts are held to mark the occasion, particularly male voice choirs.

Primary schools

Saint David’s Day begins in many Welsh primary schools with a religious service.
Children dress in the traditional Welsh costumes. 

Boys and girls in traditional outfits dancing in rows inside the ruins of a cathedral Folk dancing in the ruins at Saint David’s ©Girls wear a petticoat and overcoat, made of Welsh flannel, and a tall hat, worn over a frilled bonnet. Boys wear a white shirt, a Welsh flannel waistcoat, black trousers, long wool socks and black shoes. 

Chilldren enjoy traditional Welsh dances, sing Welsh folk songs and recite Welsh poems. 

Secondary schools

Some secondary schools in Wales celebrate the Saint’s day with an Eisteddfod, a festival of singing, dancing, and reciting. The climax of the Eisteddfod is often a choir competition. 

David’s life

Saint David and the spin doctor

Most information about the Saint comes from a biography written by Rhygyfarch in the eleventh century. But because it was written so long after the Saint’s death, it isn’t likely to be very reliable.Anyway, Rhygyfarch was a bit of a spin-doctor, and slanted his book to make the case for the Welsh church being independent of Canterbury. One writer describes Rhygyfarch’s book as “chiefly a tissue of inventions”.
So most of what we know about Saint David is really legend; and none the less inspiring for it.

Before his birth

The first legend is set 30 years before David was born when an angel foretold his birth to Saint Patrick.The legend of his birth

Saint David’s father was a prince called Sant, son of the King of Cardigan.
His mother, Non, was the daughter of a local chieftan (and possibly the niece of King Arthur). But David wasn’t the child of a love-filled marriage. He was born after his father either seduced or raped Non, who went on to become a nun.
Non left her family and gave birth by the sea. So intense was the birth that her fingers left marks where she grasped the rocks. As David was born a bolt of lightning from heaven struck the rock and split it in two. 

The legend of his baptism

St David was baptised by Saint Elvis of Munster, and it is said that a blind man was cured by the water used for the baptism. 

David’s early life, and another legend

David was schooled at the local monastery, Hen Fynyw, which is south of present day Aberaeron, and was taught by Paulinus, a blind monk. David cured Paulinus of his blindness by making the sign of the cross. Realising that David was a special and holy person, Paulinus sent him off as a missionary to convert the pagan people of Britain. 

Cathedral in verdant Welsh countryside Saint David’s Cathedral, near his original community ©

David the monk

In the course of his travels, David is said to have founded twelve monasteries. 

David escapes poison

At one of his monasteries David became so unpopular with his monks for the life of austerity he made them live, that they tried to poison him. David was warned about this by St Scuthyn, who travelled from Ireland on the back of a sea-monster for the purpose. David blessed the poisoned bread and ate it; and came to no harm.

Life and teachings

The message of Saint David

Statue of Saint David with some of his writings Saint David the preacher ©David was a great church leader, but not in the sense of a present day bishop or archbishop. 

He was a prophet and a teacher, a man of prayer and a miracle worker. He was the heart of the monastic community he founded in what is now St Davids, and through his direct teaching, and the work of the monks he influenced, he shaped the spirituality of his time and place.

 A monk’s life

David believed that monks should live simply, and he prescribed a harsh life for his followers. As well as praying and celebrating mass, the brothers had to work hard. They rose at dawn for prayer, and then worked in the monastery and the fields around it. David would not allow them to make animals work for them, but made them pull the plough themselves, saying, “every man his own ox.” And while they worked, they continued to pray. They had a spare diet, too, eating only vegetables and bread, and having only milk and water to drink.
St David himself drank only water, and is sometimes known in Welsh as ‘Dewi Ddyfrwr’ (David the water drinker).
St David’s monks were expected to remain silent, except for prayer or in emergency. But though it was a hard life, David’s holiness and personal charisma were enough to hold the community together in the service of God. The example of his life, and the modernity of his most famous saying – that we should concentrate on “doing the little things in God’s presence with conscientiousness and devotion,” make St David a figure with a contemporary appeal.

David’s last message

Statue of Saint David showing a dove, representing the Holy Spirit, on his shoulder Saint David is represented with a dove ©St David is often shown with a dove on his shoulder. The bird symbolises the Holy Spirit which gave David the gift of eloquence as he preached the Good News of Christianity. 

But although he was a great preacher, the message by which St David is most remembered is not a flowery piece of preaching but a simple statement about simplicity. It comes from his last sermon… 

In his last sermon David told his monks to “do the little things, the small things you’ve seen me doing”. 

Archbishop Rowan Williams thinks that phrase resonates with modern people because… 

…it reminds us that the primary things for us are the relationships around us, the need to work at what’s under our hands, what’s within our reach. 

We can transform our domestic, our family relationships, our national life to some extent, if we do that with focus and concentration in the presence of God.

 David UK- Tour Guide
HISTOURIES UK – Stonehenge Tours

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HisTOURic February – Historical Events in British History

Posted in History on February 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »

HISTORIC FEBRUARY

The following historic events happened in February

1 Feb. 1901 The royal yacht Alberta brings the body of Queen Victoria into Portsmouth harbour en route to her funeral in London tomorrow. The Queen, aged 82, died on January 22, at Osborne on the Isle of Wight.
2 Feb. 1665 British forces capture New Amsterdam, the centre of the Dutch colony in North America. The trading settlement on the island of Manhattan is to be renamed New York in honour of the Duke of York, its new governor.
3 Feb. 1730 The London Daily Advertiser newspaper publishes the first stock exchange quotations. 
4 Feb. 1926 Malcolm Campbell sets a new world land speed record of 174 mph (278 kmph) in Wales.
5 Feb. 1958 Parking meters first appear on the streets of London’s exclusive Mayfair district. The meters were first used in America in 1935. Mary Queen of Scots
6 Feb. 1783 Death of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown the greatest English landscape gardener. His work lives on today throughout the great estates of England. 
7 Feb. 1301 The son of King Edward I of England becomes the first English Prince of Wales.
8 Feb.  1587 Mary Queen of Scots is beheaded on the orders of her cousin England’s Queen Elizabeth I.
9 Feb. 1964 73 million Americans tune in to the Ed Sullivan Show to watch four lads from Liverpool appear for the first time – The Beatles.
10 Feb. 1354 Students at Oxford University fight a street battle with local townspeople resulting in several deaths and many people injured.
11 Feb. 1975 Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher, becomes the first woman leader of the British Conservative Party.
12 Feb. 1554 At the tender age of 16, the “nine days queen”, Lady Jane Grey is beheaded at the tower of London. William of Orange
13 Feb. 1688 A “Glorious Revolution” brings the Protestant William of Orange and his wife Mary (daughter of James II) to the throne of England after the Catholic King James II flees to France.
14 Feb. 1933 Students at Oxford University, obviously bored fighting the local townspeople, declare that they would not fight for “King and Country”.
15 Feb. 1971 Pennies, bobs and half-crowns all disappear as Britain goes decimal.
16 Feb. 1659 A cheque is used for the first time in Britain as Mr Nicholas Vanacker settles a debt.
17 Feb. 1461 Lancastrian forces defeated the Yorkists at the Battle of St. Albans.
18 Feb. 1478 George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence died in the Tower of London said to have been drowned in a butt of his favourite malmsey wine.
19 Feb. 1897 The Women’s Institute is founded in Ontario, Canada, by Mrs Adelaide Hoodless.
20 Feb. 1938 Anthony Eden resigned as British foreign secretary after the prime minister Neville Chamberlain decided to negotiate with Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini.
21 Feb. 1804 British engineer Richard Trevithick demonstrated the first steam engine to run on rails.
22 Feb. 1790 Over 1,000 French troops attempted to invade Britain, landing on the Welsh coast. The brave ladies of Fishguard saved the day! The Fishguard Tapestry
23 Feb. 1863 Lake Victoria, in Africa, was declared to be the source of the River Nile by British explorers John Speke and J A Grant.
24 Feb. 1917 President Woodrow Wilson informs the US nation of the contents of an intercepted message from the German foreign minister offering Mexico an alliance against the US.
25 Feb. 1570 England’s Queen Elizabeth I is excommunicated by Pope Pius V.
26 Feb. 1791 The Bank of England issues the first ever one pound note, in part a result of the panic in London caused by the French invasion of Fishguard.
27 Feb. 1782 The British Parliament votes to abandon the American War of Independence. Perhaps they were more concerned about the potential threat to Fishguard!
28 Feb. 1900 The  four-month siege of the British garrison at Ladysmith in Natal, South Africa, ended as a relief force broke through the Boers at Spion Kop.

 

I will contine to add an  ‘Historical Events’ for each and every month

Simon – Tour Guide
Histouries UK – Stonehenge Tours

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Was Jesus taught by the Druids ?

Posted in History, Stonehenge on February 28, 2010| 1 Comment »

Druid Ceremony at Stonehenge

As a book of record the New Testament doesn’t do too well on the early life of Jesus Christ.

The large holes may explain why so many outlandish theories have been able to build up about what the Son of God got up to as a boy.

But among those myths most perpetuated is that he visited Britain

Now a film has sought to add flesh to the fable by claiming it’s perfectly plausible the Messiah made an educational trip to Glastonbury.

And Did Those Feet explores the idea that Jesus accompanied his supposed uncle, Joseph of Arimathaea, on a business trip to the tin mines of the South-West.

Whilst there, it is claimed he took the opportunity to further his maths by studying under druids.

Unsurprisingly, the documentary stops short of concluding the visit did take place, noting ‘Jesus’s shoe has not turned up’. However, the makers insist that while the visit is unproven, it is possible.

The theory is that he arrived by sea, following established trading routes, before visiting several places in the West Country.

In the film, Dr Gordon Strachan, a Church of Scotland minister, says it is plausible Jesus came to further his education. The country is thought to have been at the forefront of learning 2,000 years ago, with mathematics particularly strong.

Ted Harrison, the film’s director, said: ‘If somebody was wanting to learn about the spirituality and thinking not just of the Jews but also the classical and Greek world he would have to come to Britain, which was the centre of learning at the time.

‘Jesus was a young man curious to find out about all sorts of things.

‘We know there is a huge gap in the life of Jesus between when he was born and when his ministry started.

‘He would have come to learn what was being taught about astronomy and geometry which was being taught at “universities” run by druids at the time.’

Mr Harrison, a former BBC religious affairs correspondent, says Jesus may just have been a boy when he left the Middle East for England

Your thoughts ?

Peter – Tour Guide
Histouries UK – Stonehenge Tours.

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Funny Stonehenge History Video – Early Monty Python Sketch

Posted in Funny, History, Stonehenge on February 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »

A classic! Originally broadcast on 12 January 1969 this pre-Monty Python series was written by and starred Michael Palin and Terry Jones. This clip is part 1 of the first episode (unfortunately some of  is missing)

Peter – Tour Guide
Histouries UK – Stonehenge Tours

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