Out And About.

[Sheilbh]

Thought there is amphitheater around here that the Romans converted a henge monument to make one.

Bastard Romans, moving shit about like that

[mongers]

Thought there is amphitheater around here that the Romans converted a henge monument to make one.

Bastard Romans, moving shit about like that

You must have seen it ?  It's about 3-4 miles from your summer residence.

You do know what that the royalists did to it? 

[mongers]

Went out for an evening ride, as it'd been so sunny and hot in the day.

Left just before 6pm got home before dark at gone 9.30pm, did about 37 miles, one third of which was off road, though some of those conditions where quite challenging, never realised cycling through handlebar tall grass would be so difficult and wet. 

Ankle held up reasonably well, only saw two other cyclists in all those miles. 

Headed out and did a triangular route, so I was never more than 15 miles from home; when out WNW into Dorset, stopped at an odd large henge monument with a ruined 13th century norman church in it's midst.

Then went up onto Cranborne Chase, before picking up the roman road, cycled on top of the agger for a few miles NE, before having to briefly detour onto a main road, as there was so much grass/growth blocking some of the bridleways.

Then off-road, around the edges of fields of wheat and barley, not a sole about, save for surprised deer. Couldn't see any trace of the Dorset cursus in the fields, ended up at Bockerley Dyke, an impressive defensive ditch probably re-purposed by the Romano-British to stop the Saxons penetrating further into the West country. Cycled along side that for a couple of miles before finding a village build on a old drove. Picked that up and headed SE till breaking into the river valley I live in, and then it was an easy 6-7 miles home along the river. 

I have some photos, but nothing especially nice as I forgot to take a camera, only having a activity video thing.

[KRonn]

Good times Mongers.      Thirty-seven miles is a good long stretch. You have some interesting stuff around your area too!

[mongers]

Had to do a few things in one of the local cities, so whilst there I popped up to see the inside of Old Sarum 'Castle', usually I just visit the grounds.

There's a lot of historical use evident there, ignoring the stone age stuff, the hill was converted into a large flat top iron age hill fort, with double embankments/ditches. Before the romans used it because of it's strategic location, you can still see and follow the line of at least three roman roads here.

There's apparently an entirely untouched Saxon town on it's lower slopes, the Normans going on to make greater use of it, building a new motte and bailey castle with an additional deep ditch around it.
They also build a cathedral in one corner of the site. I seem to recall William I convened an important council there and some of the doomsday book was written/presented there.

This is what it might have looked like around that time.

[Maladict]

 
Old Sarum is a great place to visit. Lots of interesting prehistoric sites in the area as well.

[KRonn]

Interesting bit of ancient history there, with that Old Sarum Castle. I like the picture of what it likely looked like.

[Valmy]

Is that William dressed like a Roman Emperor?  Nice 

[Valmy]

Old Sarum is a great place to visit. Lots of interesting prehistoric sites in the area as well.

Visiting Old Sarum makes you wish you and your seven buddies got two members of Parliament to represent just you.

[mongers]

Old Sarum is a great place to visit. Lots of interesting prehistoric sites in the area as well.

Yeah, I'm off up to Wiltshire tomorrow to do some tramping about on the byways; I might make it up to Avebury, depending on how far the walk is.

[mongers]

Is that William dressed like a Roman Emperor?  Nice 

I looked it up, turns out it was a much more significant event than I remember reading:

William the Conqueror and the Oath of Sarum
1086
How William I used an ancient centre of power, Old Sarum in Wiltshire, to establish a radical new framework of loyalty, which may also have been linked to the great Domesday survey.

LAND LORD
In 1086, William I summoned all the powerful men of the realm to Old Sarum, the royal castle he had built within the massive Iron Age hillfort there.

It was to be the stage for a grand ceremony which underlined his position as the source of tenure of all land across England – a striking assertion of royal power.

CHURCH AND STATE
William seems to have decided soon after the Conquest to build a castle in the middle of the earthworks at Old Sarum. This was to transform the site, effectively dividing the hillfort in two: an inner set of fortifications which became his castle, and a huge outer enclosure, within which a cathedral was also built.

It was the ideal ceremonial meeting place. The outer enclosure of the hilltop site could accommodate large numbers. Old Sarum also lay at a junction of six Roman roads, and the castle was second only to Winchester as a centre of royal government.

PAYOFF OR PRISON
Just four years after the Conquest, in 1070, William had gathered his troops at Old Sarum to pay them off after a relentless campaign to subdue northern England, known as the Harrying of the North.

He lavished rewards on the soldiers, praising those who had shown particular prowess, before discharging them. Those who had complained about the hardships suffered during the campaign were detained for 40 days after their more stoical comrades left, as a punishment. The success of this demonstration of authority may well have encouraged William to choose Old Sarum for the ceremony held here 16 years later.

ALL THE LANDHOLDING MEN
So, on 1 August 1086, William hosted a great gathering at Old Sarum. According to the royal chronicler:

"his council came to him there, and all the landholding men of any account throughout England, whosesoever men they were. And they all bowed to him and became his men, and swore oaths of fealty to him, that they would remain faithful to him against all other men.
"
All the landholders 'of any account' would have included not only the king's 170 tenants-in-chief, but at least some of their subtenants. Not only was this an act of homage on a scale unseen before either in William's native Normandy or in England, but it also established a direct – and strikingly novel – bond between the king and these subtenants.

1086 was a period of crisis, when the Conqueror was facing revolt and invasion. William's oath insisted that from then on, if one of the powerful men of the realm were to rebel against the Crown, the primary loyalty of his subtenants would be to the king rather than to their immediate master.
DOMESDAY SURVEY

There is another reason why William may have chosen this ancient site for his ceremony. It seems unlikely to be pure coincidence that Old Sarum was where the returns from the Domesday survey were collated – the great administrative exercise which, 20 years after the Conquest, recorded who held land, be they French settlers or native Englishmen, across the vast majority of the kingdom.

By the summer of 1086 this process would have been completed and its results available to the king. This may have been deliberately timed to coincide with the ceremony on 1 August, to emphasise the fact that all land tenure depended ultimately on the king.

A dramatic demonstration of William's right to the loyalty of his subjects, the oath set a seal on the Norman Conquest of England.

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/discover/explore/medieval-part-1/oath-of-sarum/

[mongers]

Didn't make it to either Avebury or Stonehenge on Saturday as both were closed to allow for the clear up following the solstice 'celebrations'. 

So I popped up to Stonehenge on Sunday to check out the 'redesigned' site and new facilities:

It's more clear than ever that it's branded as 'Stonehenge - World Heritage Site' ^tm, if you're happy with that sort of managed experience and just want to tick it off the list of those places you have to see, then you'll be fine.

Overall, I think for someone like me it's now a curate's egg; the new information/museum is good, though the multimedia presentations are somewhat hit and miss, nice small collection of artifacts, half of which seem to be on-loan from 'my museum'. Good number of maps and models.

I guess the modern toilets in the centre are to be welcomed, though the large cafe is a bit overpowering. Yes I know places like this need to have a gift shop, but does it need to be that large and have the new arrivals from the stones forced to walk through it to get to other facilities. 

To get to the stones you have to book a timed ticket, primarily to control parking levels in the visitor centre car-park.
Then you can either walk a 1.25 miles along the former main road or take one of the shuttle buses or 'land trains' to arrive at the stones. 

The presentation of the stones hasn't changed, you can walk around them to within about 10 yard, but not amongst them. And that's it, you then have to walk 50 yards to the new tarmac space to queue for the return trip to the visitor centre over the hill.

Myself, I arrived along an old by-way, almost directly at the stones, and whilst being a member of English Heritage, this mode of arrival doesn't appear to be catered for by their system. The expectation is you arrive by coach or car, in time for a narrow alloted time slot.

Piss-poor cycle facilites (ie none) and they've now changed the bus service to a specific Stonehenge branded one, so that's another $20 on top of the $24-25 entrance fee.

[Maladict]

I'm glad I got the 'old' treatment. 

the multimedia presentations

Why do they insist on having these things? If you are interested, you will read the texts, if you're not interested you probably won't learn anything no matter what they throw at you.

The presentation of the stones hasn't changed, you can walk around them to within about 10 yard, but not amongst them. And that's it, you then have to walk 50 yards to the new tarmac space to queue for the return trip to the visitor centre over the hill.

I don't mind this at all. Especially when you regularly visit the same archaeological site over a long period, it's just devastating to see the result of human 'interaction'.

[crazy canuck]

I was out but not about.  I spent a great deal of time over the weekend in my hammock re-reading Through the Eye of a Needle.  http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9807.html

[mongers]

This evening's holiday:

I went down to the coast and took the ferry over to the Isle of Purbeck, had a walk along a beach and wandered amongst the dunes, before catching an open top bus home.

Quite hot at the beach at even at 7pm, still got back before sunset.