Category: Prehistoric

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Birthday Of The Sun December 25th

The First Day of Christmas, my true love sent to me a Partridge in a Pear Tree

Nebra Sun disc from Stonehenge Exhibition British Museum
Nebra Sun disc from Stonehenge Exhibition British Museum (photo Kevin Flude) The Disc shows the Sun, the Moon, the Pleides, and illustrates the Summer and Winter Solstice movements of the Sun.

Dies Natalis Solis Invicti

On the 25th December were born Jesus, Mithras, Attis, Saturn, Apollo, and the Invincible Sun.

The Sun Gods have quite a complicated interrelationship. Zeus, and Apollo are both also considered to be Sun Gods. Apollo is particularly interrelated to Helios, the Greek God who drives the Chariot that carries the Sun across the skies every day. The Romans had a God called Sol who some say was a deity who declined to be of minor importance, until the transexual Emperor Elagabalas and then Aurelian in 274 AD revived the cult. Sol Invictus was the focus of Constantine the Great, and has been suggested as a response of the Romans to a trend towards monotheism in the later Roman period. Sol for Constantine was a gateway God to Christianity.

It is also notable that early worship of Jesus is full of solar metaphors, Jesus being, for example, the light of the world. Churches are also virtually all orientated East West, aligned with the rising and setting suns. The Altar is always at the East End, and effigies on tombs face the East.

Did the Celts have a sun-god? Belenos is a contender, but linguists are proposing his name does not come from words meaning bright but from strong. The God Lugh’s name is suggested to mean ‘shining’ but his attributes are more of a warrior than a sun god. Taranis is probably the best candidate, but he is more of a sky or thunder god than specifically a sun god. However, his symbol is a wheel and the wheel is symbolic of the turning of the year.

The Golden Wheel from Haute Marne in France

The Golden Wheel from Haute Marne in France, (Public Domain, Wikipedia)

His 8 spoked wheel is said to be symbolic of the Sun and it represents the division of the year by the 4 quarterly sun festivals (Winter Solstice, Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox) and the 4 cross-quarter festivals, (Samhain or Halloween, Imbolc or Candlemas, Beltane or May Day, Lughnasa or Harvest Festival).

December 25th is a few days after our reckoning of the Solstice but it was the date of the Roman Solstice.

Christmas Cake

Today, you might be tucking into a Christmas Cake (originally eaten on Twelfth Night). Now, I know many Americans have a bizarre belief that fruit cake is the cake of the devil, something you receive as a gift and give away to someone else, as most Americans hate it. More fool them for missing out on one of the delights of the Christmas period, that and cold turkey sandwiches. Christmas Cake is made on stir up Sunday, the last Sunday in November, to let the ingredients develop their flavour. They are then covered with marzipan and decorative icing.

19th Century Christmas Cake, generally now the icing continues down the side of the cake.

In Germany, they also eat a fruit bread called Stollen or Weihnachtsstollen. The tradition is said to have been started in the 15th Century, when the Pope gave dispensation to allow the use of butter in the fasting period of Advent. The Germans had to use oil to replace the banned butter, but they could only make oil from turnips, so eventually the Pope allowed the use of butter, with which they made bread with added dried fruits.

Stollen By Gürgi – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3720379

In Italy, they eat Panettone, a fruit bread/cake. It is a sourdough, and a cross between a brioche and a cake. It often comes in a beautiful decorative tin, and is delicious. The centre of panettone production is Milan and this year is the 200th Anniversary of Milan’s famous Marchesi 1824 which makes artisanal Panettone from ‘fine ingredients such as six-crown sultanas, naturally candied fruit, Bourbon vanilla from Madagascar, Italian honey and eggs from free-range hens, blended in a slow-rising dough with the exclusive use of Marchesi 1824 sourdough starter‘. Thank you, Mara from Milan, for the heads-up.

Screen shot from website – does not click through to sales!

Which is best? The only way to find out is to eat several slices of each. America, you don’t know what you are missing.

For stir up sunday see the second half of this post of mine.

Stir Up Sunday! November 26th

First Published 24th December 2022, Republished 25th December 2023, 2024

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Grecian Winter – Hesiod’s Works & Days December 15th

Abney Park cemetary in winter
Abney Park cemetery in winter photo by Harriet Salsibury

Hesiod is a contemporary of Homer, and therefore one of the first European poets, one of the first commentators on Greek life, thought, religion, mythology, farming and time keeping. ‘Works and Days’ is his Farmers Almanac and therefore long overdue an appearance on my Almanac of the Past.

Hesiod’s poems also introduce the idea of the epoch, past glorious epochs of Gold and Bronze with a further descent to his own epoch which was of the base metal age of Iron. In the 19th Century, European antiquarians, imbued with a humanist belief in Progress, developed the idea of Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages, an almost direct opposite of Hesiod’s, downhill-all-the-way to the present idea.

Hesiod also brings in early references to Prometheus and Pandora, two of the great myths of the flaws of humanity.

This is what he says of Winter. It is from a translation by Christopher Kelk, available to download here (I have added line breaks after full stops, just for ease of reading.)

…. you should make
A detour during winter when the cold
Keeps men from work, for then a busy man
May serve his house. Let hardship not take hold,
Nor helplessness, through cruel winter’s span,
Nor rub your swollen foot with scrawny hand.

An idle man will often, while in vain
He hopes, lacking a living from his land,
Consider crime. A needy man will gain
Nothing from hope while sitting in the street
And gossiping, no livelihood in sight.

Say to your slaves in the midsummer heat:
“There won’t always be summer, shining bright –
Build barns.” Lenaion’s evil days, which gall
The oxen, guard yourself against. Beware
Of hoar-frosts, too, which bring distress to all
When the North Wind blows, which blasts upon the air
In horse-rich Thrace and rouses the broad sea,
Making the earth and woods resound with wails.

He falls on many a lofty-leafed oak-tree
And on thick pines along the mountain-vales
And fecund earth, the vast woods bellowing.
The wild beasts, tails between their legs, all shake.

Although their shaggy hair is covering
Their hides, yet still the cold will always make
Their way straight through the hairiest beast.

Straight through
An ox’s hide the North Wind blows and drills
Through long-haired goats. His strength, though, cannot do
Great harm to sheep who keep away all chills
With ample fleece. He makes old men stoop low
But soft-skinned maids he never will go through –
They stay indoors, who as yet do not know
Gold Aphrodite’s work, a comfort to
Their darling mothers, and their tender skin
They wash and smear with oil in winter’s space
And slumber in a bedroom far within
The house, when in his cold and dreadful place
The Boneless gnaws his foot (the sun won’t show
Him pastures but rotate around the land
Of black men and for all the Greeks is slow
To brighten).

That’s the time the hornèd and
The unhorned beasts of the wood flee to the brush,
Teeth all a-chatter, with one thought in mind –
To find some thick-packed shelter, p’raps a bush
Or hollow rock. Like one with head inclined
Towards the ground, spine shattered, with a stick
To hold him up, they wander as they try
To circumvent the snow.

As I ordain,
Shelter your body, too, when snow is nigh –
A fleecy coat and, reaching to the floor,
A tunic. Both the warp and woof must you
Entwine but of the woof there must be more
Than of the warp. Don this, for, if you do,
Your hair stays still, not shaking everywhere.

Be stoutly shod with ox-hide boots which you
Must line with felt. In winter have a care
To sew two young kids’ hides to the sinew
Of an ox to keep the downpour from your back,
A knit cap for your head to keep your ears
From getting wet.

It’s freezing at the crack
Of dawn, which from the starry sky appears
When Boreas drops down: then is there spread
A fruitful mist upon the land which falls
Upon the blessed fields and which is fed
By endless rivers, raised on high by squalls.

Sometimes it rains at evening, then again,
When the thickly-compressed clouds are animated
By Thracian Boreas, it blows hard. Then
It is the time, having anticipated
All this, to finish and go home lest you
Should be enwrapped by some dark cloud, heaven-sent,
Your flesh all wet, your clothing drenched right through.

This is the harshest month, both violent
And harsh to beast and man – so you have need
To be alert. Give to your men more fare
Than usual but halve your oxen’s feed.
The helpful nights are long, and so take care.

Keep at this till the year’s end when the days
And nights are equal and a diverse crop

Keep at this till the year’s end when the days
And nights are equal and a diverse crop
Springs from our mother earth and winter’s phase
Is two months old and from pure Ocean’s top
Arcturus rises, shining, at twilight.

Hesiod’s Works and Days: Translation Christopher Kelk

Acturus is not seen in winter, and in the Northern Hemisphere its rising (50 days after the winter solstice) and has always been associated with the advent of spring.

Boreas was the winged God of the North wind, which bore down from the cold Mountains of Thrace (north of Macedonia). One of his daughters, Khione, was the Goddess of Snow. Lenaion was associated with January one of the festivals of Dionysus, and a theatrical season in Athens particularly for comedy.

Roman Bust of Hesiod (Wikipedia photo by Yair Hakla) Neues Museum

First published 15th December 2022, republished December 2023, 2024

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Ashmolean Advent Calendar, William Burges & the Singing Pierides December 12th

The Great Bookcase by William Burges Ashmolean Museum (Photo K. Flude)

The Ashmolean posts, every year, an online Advent Calendar with gorgeous items behind each ‘flap’. The choice seems to be, mostly, a random selection. But their collection is so wonderful, they are all interesting. Last year, December 12th’s choice was a netsuke; the year before the Singing Pierides painted by Henry Stacy Marks which you can see on the bottom of the Great Bookcase by William Burges (above).

This year it was a nuragi bronze age stature of a shepherd, a screen shot of which I show below.

The Nuragic culture in Sardinian is not well known. They lived in round towers called nuraghe, which are a little like the Brochs of Scotland, and they created these marvellous bronze statuettes which give a real insight into life in the Bronze Age. They were around during the time of the Mycenaean Culture in Greece. But their origins and indeed their history are argued about. They may be part of the ‘Sea People’ who brought the end to the Bronze Age cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean or they may not.

Here, in Britain, the Bronze Age is dominated by discussions of henges, barrows, metal axes and swords. But with very little sense of what life was like to live in those days. However, go to the Cagliari Museum and look at these wonderful statues, and it becomes possible to picture the people. Particularly with a copy of ‘Il Popolo di bronzo’ by Angela Demontis to hand. It is a catalogue of Nuragi statures with interpretative drawings. It really bring the people to life depicted in the statues. They are mostly warriors, but there are also people who seem to have more normal trades such as shepherd and baker.

Here is my slight adaption of one of the drawings

A sketch drawing of a Nuragi sculpture derived from ‘Il Popolo di bronzo’ by Angela Demontis

What you can see is some detail of the clothes and the knife belt around the torso and under the cloak, and a living person appears before you, not just a lump of bronze. Wikipedia has a long article on the nuragic culture and you can see some of the bronzes here.

On December 12th 2022, the Advent calendar, which you can access here, highlighted the Great Bookcase by William Burgess and in particular the paintings above which are the Singing Pierides painted by Henry Stacy Marks. The Pierides, were a sort of classical Greek Von Trapp singers, 9 daughters who foolishly challenged the Muses to a singing competition. Of course, the Goddesses of the Arts — the Muses won and had the Pierides turned into songbirds as a warning to all those who overrate their own talents! Watch out all you karaoke singers the Goddesses may have you in their sights!

‘Whenever the daughters of Pierus began to sing, all creation went dark and no one would give an ear to their choral performance. But when the Muses sang, heaven, the stars, the sea and rivers stood still, while Mount Helicon, beguiled by the pleasure of it all, swelled skywards tilI, by the will of Poseidon, Pegasus checked it by striking the summit with his hoof.

Since these mortals had taken upon themselves to strive with goddesses, the Muses changed them into nine birds. To this day people refer to them as the grebe, the wryneck, the ortolan, the jay, the greenfinch, the goldfinch, the duck, the woodpecker and the dracontis pigeon.’

Antoninus Liberalis‘ Metamorphoses (wikipedia)

The bookcase by William Burges was originally displayed as the centre point of the ‘Medieval Court’ of the 1862 International Exhibition. The Exhibition was almost as successful as the more famous Great Exhibition of 1851. Both got about 6m visitors. The 1862 Exhibition was just south of the site of the 1851 (on the south side of Hyde Park) and in the Royal Horticultural Society’s gardens (now the Science and Natural History Museum).

Engraving of the International exhibition of 1862, Cromwell Road

Burges is one of the great Gothic Revival architects and a designer in the Arts & Crafts Movement with an affinity for Pre-Raphaelite painters, 14 of whom he asked to paint panels on his bookcase. The decorative scheme was to represent the Pagan and Christian Arts (Museum label).

Originally written for December 12, 2022, revised and republished December 2023, and the Nuragi added in 2024

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Robin Redbreast – the Oak King of the New Sun December 9th

Photo by Donald Healy on Unsplash of a robin on a tree branch with red berries
Photo by Donald Healy on Unsplash

Robins brought water to relieve tormented souls in Hell and. so, got their breasts scorched; their breasts were stained with Jesus’ blood; they fanned, with their wings, the flames of a fire to keep baby Jesus warm and got scorched. All these associations with Jesus make their association with Christmas and Christmas cards perfect sense.

They are the Celtic Oak King of the New Sun. The Robin is the son of the Wren. The Wren is the bird of the Old Sun, and the Robin kills his father, so the New Sun takes over from the Old Sun at the Winter Solstice. With the birth of the new Sun, the blood of the father stains the Robin’s breast. In Celtic Folklore, Robins are said to shelter in Holly trees. Robins appear when loved ones are near. If a Robin comes into your house, a death will follow.

Perhaps this gives a context for Shakespeare’s mention of a robin (ruddock he called it) which he grants the power of censure. in Cymberline. Innogen has been found dead, and amidst the floral tributes mentioned is the following:.:

the ruddock would with charitable bill (Oh bill sore shaming those rich-left-heirs, that let their Father’s lie without a Monument)

(Cymbeline, Act 4 scene 2)

They are one of the few birds to be seen all year round, and they sing all year too, but with different songs for autumn and spring. Robins sing from concealed spaces in trees or bushes. They are the first to sing in the morning, the last to stop at night, and can be triggered by street lights turning on. A Robin can sing all the notes on the scale and can sing for half an hour without repeating a melody.

They eat worms, seeds, fruits, insects and other invertebrates. Robins are aggressively territorial, and are our favourite birds. (RSPB)

On this Day

1554 – the same day at after-noon was a bear bitten on the Bank side, and broke loose and in running away he caught a serving man by the calf of the leg, and bit a great piece away and after by the ‘hokyl-bone’ witihin 3 days after he died.

Henry Machyn’s Diary quoted in ‘A London Year’ complied by Travis Elborough & Nick Rennison (my translation from 16th Century English – I think hokyl-bone might be holbourne, or holborn as we now call it.)

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An Edinburgh Booklist

Queensberry House to the right, with the Scottish Parliament in the background. Royal Mile, Cannongate in the foreground. (Photo: K. Flude)

Finally, this is my select booklist for Edinburgh, one of my favourite towns. I began the production of the list with Ian Rankin’s Rebus books because he is a typographical author of the highest rank. Every story brings Edinburgh, its people and its history to life. And yet set in a very readable crime fiction envelope. The Rebus I chose was ‘Set in Darkness’ because it has the Scottish Parliament at its heart. It begins with a body found in Queensbury House, which is being preserved and incorporated into the new Scottish Parliament buildings. Please read my post on the book.

The Queensberry House Cannibal, Inspector Rebus and the Scottish Referendum September 11th 1997

Recently, published is ‘Edinburgh a New History’ by Alistair Moffat. I have ordered a copy but not yet read it, but I feel confident of my recommendation as I have read his ‘Reivers’ which is a great book about the border raiders, both North English and Scottish who raided the borderlands between Edinburgh and York during the 13th to the 17th Centuries. They inspired the young Walter Scot who collected Reivers ballads before inventing the Historical Novel.

Edinburgh-a-new-history-book-alistair-moffat

The Heart of Midlothian photo K Flude

As to Walter Scot, our Blue Badge Guide for Edinburgh, considers his long descriptive passages unreadable. But I’m not so convinced, having read Ivanhoe and Rob Roy as a boy. But if I were to recommend a Walter Scot, it would be Heart of Midlothian as it is set in Edinburgh and deals with crime, poverty, urban riots and other manifestations of life in Edinburgh in the 18th Century.

Midlothian is the country around Edinburgh, named after the legendary Celtic King Loth. The Heart of Midlothian, is Edinburgh or more precisely, a heart marked out in the cobbles outside of St Giles, on the Royal Mile, where the Tollboth (townhall and prison) and execution site for the City used to be. To this day, Edinburghers (or more correctly, Dunediners) are supposed to spit on the heart for good luck.

Old Print of the Tollbooth with St Giles to the right of the print.

It is hard to exaggerate the importance of Walter Scot. Byron said he had read them 50 times, and never travelled without them. Goethe said ‘he was a genius who does not have an equal.’ and Pushkin said his influence was ‘felt in every province of the literature of his age. Balzac described him as ‘one of the noblest geniuses of modern times’. Jane Austen and Dickens loved his books. The point is he invented the Historical Novel, and for the first time, as Carlyle wrote, he showed that history was made by people ‘with colour in their checks and passion in their stomachs.’ The only other person I can think of who was held in such universal regard was Tolstoy. There is a sense in which Scot invented our idea of Scotland.

A walk through the centre of Edinburgh has so many statues of people who made the modern world it is astonishing. So you should read: ‘The Scottish Enlightenment – the Scots Invention of the modern world‘ by Arthur Herman.

Strangely, I would recommend reading ‘the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde‘ which is a Novella by Robert Louis Stevenson but set in London. It was inspired by the true life story of Deacon Brodie, who was a respectable City official in the daytime and a leader of the underworld during the night.

This inevitably brings us to:

Burke and Hare: The True Story Behind the Infamous Edinburgh Murderers by Owen Dudley-Edwards

The story of Burke and Hare is well known, but it shows how important Edinburgh was as a medical centre in the early 19th Century. Bodies were shipped to Edinburgh from the London docks, such was the demand for bodies for anatomy teaching. Arthur Conan Doyle got his medical training here from a man called Joseph Bell, whose logical mind was the model for Sherlock Holmes.

My last choice is Murial Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie set in a school in Edinburgh where the teacher singles out 6 of her pupils for special education. She wants to give them a cultured outlook in life which includes her own fascistic views. Made into a wonderful film starring Maggie Smith, but also a great book.

Of course, you should read some poetry by Burns, and I would begin with Tam O’Shanter the story of Tam, Maggie his horse and Nannie, the witch with the short skirt (Cutty Sark). The version above (see link) is read over a comic novel of the poem. But if you prefer the words, this is the one I read for my groups where I ruin the Scots dialect, and disgrace myself, but oh how I enjoy it! www.poetryfoundation.org tam-o-shanter

You may like to read:

My post on poetry on the wall of the Scottish Parliament.

Or look at my Oxford Booklist here. Others to follow.

Published on 2nd December 2024

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Winter December 2nd

lullingstone mosaic for winter
Roman Mosaic from Lullingstone Villa, Kent representing winter

This is the second day of Winter.

Winter, meteorologically speaking, is described in the Northern Hemisphere as being December, January, and February, which is, of course, a convention rather than a fact, as there is nothing about December 1st that makes it more ‘wintery’ than November 30th or December 2nd. Astronomically, winter starts with the Winter Solstice when the sun is at its lowest and so stretches from around December 21st to the Equinox around March 21st.

Logically, the solstice, when the Sun is at its weakest, should be a midpoint of winter rather than the beginning of it, with 6 weeks of winter on either side of it. This is roughly what the Celtic year does, winter starts at dusk on 31st October (Halloween/Samhain) and continues to the evening of 31st January (Candlemas/Imbolc). So a Celtic Winter is November, December, and January.

As far as the Sun goes, this is logically correct, but, in fact, because of the presence of the oceans (and to a lesser extent) the earth, the coldest time is not the Solstice when the Sun is at its weakest, but a few weeks later in January. The oceans (and the landmass) retain heat, and so the coldest (and the warmest) periods are offset, so January 13th is probably the coldest day not December 21st.

Medieval Liturgical Calendar for December. Note the image at the top which suggests this is the month for hunting bears.

My personal calendar suggests that winter begins on November 5th because this is the day I generally notice how cold it has suddenly got. My smart meter also identifies the week of November 4th being the day when the heating bill goes through the roof.

A final thought about Winter. Isn’t it strange that a small change in the axis of the planet should create such opposites? Cold and little growth, then hot and an explosion of flowers. This in the vastness of space, with unimaginably cold and unbelievable hot places and spaces which make tiny the little difference between Summer and Winter. And yet to us they are opposites, and in places extremes we find hard to survive in. Some think this is because God made the Universe just for us, but far more wonderfully it is because we, and nature, are completely adapted to this, our very own, blue planet.

Winter is hiems in Latin; Gaeaf in Welsh. Geimhreadh in Old Irish; Wintar in Anglo-Saxon. The Anglo-Saxons counted years by winters, so a child might be said to be 4 winters old.

On this day

1859 – John Brown was hanged, following his violent opposition to the Slave Trade and his raid on Harpers Ferry.

1954 – Joseph McCarthy was formally censured by the Senate for the methods used in his anti-communist campaigns.

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Halloween October 31st

From the Perpetual Almanack of Folklore by Charles Kightly

I began my perpetual Almanac of the Past three years ago on the 31st October 2021. This was the first line:

‘This blog is to celebrate the Year. I will post, hopefully, once a day, so we can follow the seasons, as they happen naturally, and as people in Britain and Ireland have responded to the changes in the year.’

It was inspired by Charles Kightly’s book, which is a pot-pourri of folklore taken mostly from old Almanacs. I haven’t managed, yet to create a post for every day of the year, nearly managed it in the winter but falling badly behind in the Summer when I take Road Scholar groups around the UK. My plan is to fill in the gaps, improve posts and get rid of typos. Another aim is to add more London-specific content.

Cover of Charles Knightly's Perpetual Almanac
Cover of Charles Kightly’s Perpetual Almanac

I started on Halloween because Samhain (pronounced Sow-in) was the beginning of the year for the Celtic world. It may mean Summer’s End. In Wales, it is Calan Gaeaf (first day of winter) and Kala Goafiv (beginning of November in Brittany).

Why did the Celts start their year at such an unlikely time? A clue is that they began the next day at dusk. The Sun dies at dusk so it is the end of the day, and the next day begins with the death of the old day. 

So the New Year begins with the Death of the Old Year. Now that might suggest the Winter Solstice as the best time to start the year as this celebrates the death of the old Sun. But if you think about it, this time of the year is the end of the year. The harvest is in, the fruits in the trees and the nuts are harvested, all the growth of the Summer is over and collected.  Plants are dead or dormant, except some evergreens. It is the end of the growing year. The seeds have fallen from the trees and shrubs and are nestling in the soil, ready to begin their cycle again. All is over and all is ready for the new year. Makes sense?

It also explains eves; Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, May Eve, All Hallow’s Eve.  They are not the night before the day, they are the beginning of the day.  This is when you begin the celebration.

For the Romans, today is the day that Adonis is injured hunting a wild boar. Against his lover’s (Venus)  advice, he descends to the underworld. Nature withers and dies until he returns from the underworld. His blood stains a flower and was transformed into the Crimson Anemone. There is a similar story in Babylon of Ishtar and Tammuz.

By Alexander Marshall, crimson and other anemones
Binyon 1898-1907 / Catalogue of drawings by British artists, and artists of foreign origin working in Great Britain (5(c))

Adonis comes back on May Day when he meets Venus again, so the world flourishes and is bright and warm.

Julius Caesar says the Gauls venerated the God Dis Pater on this day – an aspect of Pluto, the God of the Underworld, ruler of the Dead. There was a Roman Festival on the Kalends of November dedicated to Pomona, the goddess of the fruit of trees. This may influence the use of Apples, which are prominent in Halloween festivities.

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Myths, Legends & Halloween Virtual Tour October 31st 2024

Bran's head taken to Tower Hill
King Bran’s head buried at Tower Hill

Virtual Walk: Thurs 31st October 2024 8.00pm

On Thursday, I am doing my first London Walk Virtual Tour of the winter season.

The walk tells the story of London’s myths and legends and the Celtic origins of Halloween.

The walk will tell the story of London’s Myths and Legends, beginning with the tale of London’s legendary origins in the Bronze Age by an exiled Trojan called Brutus. Stories of Bladud, Belinus, Bran and Arthur will be interspersed with how they fit in with archaeological discoveries.

As we around the City, we also look at the origins of Halloween celebrations and how they may have been celebrated in early London


The virtual route starts at Tower Hill, then down to the River Thames at Billingsgate, to London Bridge and Southwark Cathedral, to the Roman Forum at the top of Cornhill, into the valley of the River Walbrook, passed the Temple of Mithras, along Cheapside to the Roman Amphitheatre, and finishing up in the shadow of St Pauls.

To book:

Register on Eventbrite

REVIEWS (from London Walks website)
“Kevin, I just wanted to drop you a quick email to thank you ever so much for your archaeological tours of London! I am so thrilled to have stumbled upon your tours! I have wanted to be an archaeologist since 1978 at the ripe old age of 8 years,… I was told for years that I could not be an archaeologist [for any number of reasons, which I now realise are completely ridiculous!], so I ended up on a different course of study. And now at the age of 50, it is my one great regret in life. So, I am thoroughly enjoying living vicariously through you, the digs you’ve been on, and the history you bring to life for us! British archaeology would have been my specific area of study had I pursued it. ?? Thank you SO MUCH for these! I look forward to them more than you can imagine, and honestly, I’ll be sad if you get them down to 1.5 hours! They’re the best 2 hours of my week! 🙂 Best, Sue

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Hardy’s Henge Given Protected Status

Through the window of Hardy’s Max Gate house, you can see a Prehistoric Sarsen Stone, originally part of a neolithic stone circle or henge. (bottom right window pane, top left corner). Photo: Kevin Flude

Author of ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ Thomas Hardy was an architect and designed his own house. During the work on Max Gate, the builders came across a large block of sandstone of the type called ‘Sarsen’ at Stonehenge. Hardy, who loved history, had it relocated into his garden and called it his ‘druid stone’. One of the most famous scenes in Tess is when she is sleeping on the Altar Stone at Stonehenge as the Police move in to arrest her for murder. Hardy loved history, and how glad he would have been to know his house was in the middle of an important Henge. The Altar Stone, by the way, has very recently been discovered to be from Scotland. A discovery that confirms that Stonehenge was an immensely important site in the Neolithic and Bronze Age.

Sarsens at Max Gate
Sarsen stone at Max Gate (photo Kevin Flude)
Sarsen stone at Max Gate
Sarsen stone at Max Gate (Photo Kevin Flude

Hardy’s Henge (aka Flagstones) turns out to be older than Stonehenge. In the 1982, a geophysical survey in advance of the Dorchester Bypass, found evidence of a circular enclosure outside Hardy’s house. But there was an excavation in 1987-8 which discovered a large circular bank, 100m in diameter, from the Neolithic period. The other half of Flagstones, is largely preserved beneath Max Gate, and has now been official listed and therefore protected. The excavations suggested a date of construction of 3,000 BC, about the time of Stonehenge’s first construction. It has just been redated to 3,200BC making older than Stonehenge.

Max Gate, Hardy’s House on the outskirts of Dorchester, Dorset. Photo Kevin Flude

In 2022, targeted excavation designed to explore the other half of the circle revealed further dating evidence that proposes it was built 500 years before Stonehenge, earlier than 3,500BC, making it one of the earliest in the South West. It was giving listed protection on the August 19th, 2024. (redated to 3650BC)

The enclosure consists of a single ring of unevenly spaced pits, forming an interrupted ditch system roughly circular, but the dating evidence does not prove that this circuit was built before 3,500 BC, but shows there was a neolithic presence on the site at an early date. Burials were found in the bottom of the pits forming the enclosure and in four of the pits were found markings on the lower pit walls cut by flint forming pictograms of varying forms from curvilinear, to linear. There was little activity in the Late Neolithic and the site seems to have been reused for funerary and ‘other practices’ during the Bronze, Iron Ages and Roman period. These recent finds make Hardy’s Henge an important precursor to Stonehenge.

Flagstones sketchup sketch from original by Jennie Anderson (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cge12yeqv43o)

The site is built on a ridge parallel with the River Frome. Dorchester is another ‘ritual landscape’ like Stonehenge, where there are a cluster of important Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments. In the centre of the Town, a couple of miles from Max Gate, was found evidence of a massive wooden circle. The postholes are found marked on the floor of the town centre car-park as shown below. The Great Henge is 360m in diameter, covering much of the much later Town Centre and built in around 2100 BC.

Neolithic Circle in Dorcester (photo Kevin Flude)

Just outside of Dorchester is a Roman Amphitheatre which began life as another Neolithic circular enclosure with an external bank, and an inner Ditch in which were dug 44 tapering pits, up to 10m in depth. Antler picks, chalk objects, including chalk phalluses, were found.

Maumbury Rings – Neolithic Enclosure, Roman Amphitheatre, place of execution, Civil War defense, and fictional meeting place of the Mayor of Casterbridge and his estranged wife, Susan Newson (or Henchard!)

A few miles away, at the Iron Age Hill Fort of Maiden Castle, is a Neolithic Causewayed Enclosure.

Maiden Castle. Iron Age Hillfort. the East End was originally a Neolithic Causewayed Enclosure

Together, with evidence from Stonehenge, Avebury, Heathrow and elsewhere shows a clustering of ritual places in important landscapes, which suggests, possible evidence of regional organisation. Stonehenge, however, continues to lead the way for evidence of an importance that drew people, or objects from not only England, Scotland and Wales, but also from the continent.

For further details of the Flagstones listing and excavation, here is the official listing document:

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1489792?section=official-list-entry

Revised 9th March 2025

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Partial Eclipse September 18th 2024

Loughcrew Neolithic carvings.

September 17th/18th sees a partial lunar eclipse. In London, the peak of the eclipse will be visible around 3:45 a.m. BST on September 18, while it was on the 17th September in the USA.. And it’s also a supermoon when the moon is at its closest to the Earth.. Sorry, you are unlikely to get this on time!

Could ancient people’s predict eclipses? Well, lunar eclipses are relatively easy to predict, while solar eclipses are difficult. But it is likely that Babylonian and Assyrians astronomers could. Have a look at https://www.queensu.ca/gazette/stories/eclipses-were-once-associated-death-kings-attempting-predict-played-key-role-birth for more details,

There are plenty of people who believe that eclipses can be predicted by Stonehenge. And it certainly can be used that way, but this doesn’t mean it was. A series of stones, and posts in concentric circles with sight lines to innumerable features on the horizon offers many ways of making calculations which combined with observations over a long period COULD predict, predictable celestial phenomena. Doesn’t mean they were. So it is very difficult to say what they were capable of, and only the most obvious alignments can be certainly confirmed.

This Washington Post article below suggests the Loughcrew Cairns near Dublin were built about the time of a total eclipse, and that one of the stones with complicated carvings on may show a lunar eclipse. If you look at the sketch of the stone above, you will see the biggest circle, near the middle, may represent the moon, and it obscures the circle behind it which may represent the sun. Read this for the details: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/08/18/this-5000-year-old-stone-carving-may-be-the-worlds-first-drawing-of-an-eclipse/

What is striking is how can they say it was built around the time of a total eclipse and make that seem significant because there is no way archaeological dating is accurate enough to give any idea whether it was built for a particular day. Also, there are many more circles and objects on the large stone, and to pick two out to prove what you want it to prove, is not proof. We are left with the intriguing possibility, but it is no more than that.