English Heritage on their consolidation project at Silbury

English Heritage has released four films (the first three produced in 2007) on Silbury under its Conservation Projects banner. Some footage, but not all, has previously been shown.*

The first film, entitled Silbury Hill: The Conservation Project Begins, is narrated by Julian Richards and shows the temporary capping, with polystyrene blocks, of the shaft dug by the Duke of Northumberland in 1776. Fachtna McAvoy, who managed the archaeological element of the English Heritage Silbury Conservation Project between 2000 and September 2007, shows core samples from the ground level of the Monument when it was first built some 4,400 years ago. Also shown is the Atkinson/BBC tunnel door being opened for the first time since it was sealed in 1969. Strangely, the spoil that was seen spilling out of the tunnel in an earlier version of the film, is not visible in this version.**

The second film, A Walk through the Tunnel, shows Jim Leary, Fieldwork Director of the project for English Heritage, talking about, “…a few of the discoveries made inside the tunnel.” The film concludes with a, “…walk along the main tunnel from its start at the surface of Silbury three to its end at the central core of Silbury one”. Note how the number of small boulders on the tunnel floor increase towards the central core.

The third film, Collapse and Discoveries, shows engineers led by Mark Kirkbride (Project Manager from Skanska) discussing problems, and some of the archaeology revealed by a collapse inside Silbury, with Amanda Chadburn from English Heritage. Chadburn’s statement with regard to a collapse that, “If we just leave this it will eventually migrate up to the surface we’ll end up with Silbury with a kind of little valley or something [gestures]… which is not good…” is a little understated to say the least.

The fourth film, Filling the Silbury Hill Tunnel, begins with the somewhat premature claim that, “…the Hill has been stabilised and the future of this important monument assured.” Note there is no mention of the sensors still monitoring the interior, nor the possible deleterious effect foreign bodies in the form of iron arches and plastic sacking within the Monument might have on it. In the film English Heritage also glosses over their idea for a time capsule by saying, “During the project English Heritage involved local schools in a number of projects…” One such project was, in fact, for a time capsule containing, among other things, items made by local schoolchildren which would have then been placed within the Monument. The idea was opposed by Lord Avebury (owner of Silbury), by Heritage Action and by others and was eventually abandoned. The film opens with a pagan ceremony followed by Mark Kirkbride and Jim Leary describing the final days of engineering and archeological work at Silbury. The film concludes with an advertisement for Jim Leary and David Field’s forthcoming book (foreword by David Attenborough***) The Story of Silbury Hill.

Putting aside the slow release of the films, together and in this format, the lack of detail contained within them, and what looks like a sleight of hand re: the editing out of the opening of the Atkinson/BBC tunnel door; not to mention the somewhat premature claim that, “…the Hill has been stabilised and the future of this important monument assured.” there is much food for thought contained within all four films and especially the last one where it is revealed that various stages of the construction of Silbury are far more complex than hitherto thought.

After watching the films I am yet again struck by the beauty and sheer complexity of Silbury, both as a structure and as a monument (I wish English Heritage would stop calling it a hill) and deeply saddened by all it has suffered in recent times. Let’s hope that English Heritage’s claim that, “…the Hill has been stabilised…” holds true.


* Films here -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxkXdK2hcs4 (04:40 minutes in). It’s difficult to reconcile that footage with what seems to be a ‘cleaned up’ version of the opening here -
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/about/multimedia-library/conservation-projects/ (Holes in The Hill: The Conservation Project Begins. 03:00 minutes in). Perhaps English Heritage would like to explain the difference?

*** David Attenborough was Controller of BBC2 when the Silbury Dig programme was filmed for the channel in 1968 and 1969. Silbury Dig was one of several programmes in BBC2′s Chronicle series. It seems the young, and perhaps overly enthusiastic, controller invited Richard Atkinson to tunnel into Silbury and ‘reveal its mysteries’ to the nation on television. Let’s hope that David Attenborough uses the forward to this book to state clearly that the Silbury Dig programme should never have been made, that it was a shambles from beginning to end (the tunnel was not even backfilled after Atkinson and the television crews left) and that it went against the accepted conservation (and probably archaeological) standards of the time.

Silbury Films

Silbury Dig: The Heart of the Mound.

BBC 2 Chronicle Series.
First Broadcast 27 July 1968.
Duration 39 minutes 12 seconds.

"Silbury is one of the largest prehistoric earthworks in Europe, possibly dating to 2400BC. In this programme, originally broadcast live, Magnus Magnusson meets the archaeologists who have uncovered a tunnel that leads into the heart of the mound."


Channel 4 News. 24 Oct 2007.
Duration 4 minutes 31 seconds.

http://www.channel4.com/player/v2/player.jsp?showId=9817

The Hill with a Hole (or The Silbury Hill Conservation Project).

English Heritage. 10 June 2010.
Duration 9 minutes 5 seconds.

"A film produced by Chris Corden Productions for English Heritage that includes work taking place within the re-opened 1849/1968/69 tunnels at Silbury Hill."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxkXdK2hcs4

See also -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVxKI0bKdk4

Book reviews. Silbury: Resolving the Enigma by Michael Dames


"This is a colourful, readable and fascinating personal reinterpretation of a unique monument. As a set of hypotheses it is credible, and as a piece of literature it is a joy. Michael Dames knows and loves our land itself at least as well as anybody else alive."

Professor Ronald Hutton, Bristol University.

Published by The History Press Ltd. Paperback:192 pages.
ISBN-10: 0752454501. ISBN-13: 978-0752454504.

Silbury Hill - new find in the archive!

"New information has emerged from letters written in 1776 about excavations at Silbury Hill and published for the first time in the new volume of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine.

"Local historian, Brian Edwards tracked down two letters, written in 1776 by Edward Drax to his friend, Lord Rivers, about excavations at Silbury Hill. Edward Drax from Bath , had hired a team of miners from the Mendips to dig a shaft from the top of Silbury Hill, to the centre of the hill, 125 feet below.

"The letters record that at first, the miners found little but large chalk blocks and deer antler. However, at 95 feet, some 30 feet above they expected the base of the mound to be, the miners discovered what Drax records as a 'perpendicular cavity' that was 6 inches across, and that 'we have already followed it already about 20 feet, we can plumb it about Eleven feet more'. He says that ‘something now perished must have remained in this hole to keep it open’."

Silbury Dig: The Heart of the Mound


BBC2's Chronicle series "...filmed excavations at the Silbury Mound from 1968 to 1970, one of the largest operations mounted by the programme. This 1968 dig was not, however, the first attempt to uncover the secrets of Silbury Hill. The Duke of Northumberland sank a shaft into the mound in 1777. A tunnel was dug in 1849, while in 1922, Sir William Flinders Petrie cut a large trench into the base of the mound. This trench was reopened and re-examined as part of the 'Chronicle' series in 1969."

Silbury in Wintertime. Image credit Bozzer

Silbury and New Beginnings

William Morris once wrote of a visit he took to Avebury one summer afternoon. He was a schoolboy at Marlborough College, and would cycle out on his afternoons off to visit the stones and have a drink at the Red Lion Inn. In a letter written to his sister he describes wading through the water meadows around Silbury before he climbed to the top, and finding a snail shell which he kept. The water meadows have long gone, though maybe they will be returned soon to the fields round this great mound leaving the grass full of the flowers of summer.

Water is such an important part of our lives, it has a somewhat mystical aura as to its magical properties as well in history, its glassy surface reflecting back a mirror image, and there is evidence to suggest that the ditch round Silbury when filled with water could have been a part of the ritual ceremony bronze age people would have taken part in, progressing across a causeway to the sacred mound. The Winterbourne running beneath Waden Hill which turns with such abruptness at the Swallowhead Spring to become the Kennet River reminds us that springs have also been sacred as well. The Roman settlement discovered so recently in the water meadows, may also have come into being because Silbury had carried its sacred powers through time from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, several Roman wells have also been discovered round the base of Silbury.

Suddenly we are leaving the archaeological world behind and stepping into the natural world, where water flows, plants grow and people move about in the landscape busy at their chores. The first phase of Silbury brings us a sharp reminder of what plants existed at the time, the soil and turves heaped on the first mound have preserved the minute details of leaves, seeds and insects, here we find all the plants of a mixed ecology.
So what has this to do with saving heritage? History is most often the recorder of destruction, archaeology even more so, yet when there is something tangible to explore and preserve people take a lot of time and trouble to do just that. Silbury after the calamitous hole that appeared at the top of the mound has now been restored, it is once more whole in its outside appearance, the inner voids and tunnel also being filled. The scars have slowly healed and we can be grateful for that.

Yet we still often see the various monuments round the Avebury landscape as single units, isolated in their layers of history, we forget that Silbury once towered above a busy Roman settlement, the soldiers clattering past on the road that went to Aqua Sulis, or stopping for a rest, or maybe standing quietly beside the spring to contemplate the world of the gods. There is evidence of Saxon and Viking also on the mound, a fortified settlement, or perhaps a ‘Christian footprint’ of disapproval on this pagan relic – who knows… then there are the fairs and festivals of the medieval period when people celebrated the special festive days of the year; bull baiting is recorded in the 18th century, when between 4000 and 5000 people sat at the foot of Silbury and on a facing eminence… where there was also wrestling, bowling and dancing (The Gloucester Journal – 9th November 1736), and bonfires were lit and the poor bulls having met their demise were roasted and imbibed with ale on the following two days!

So let’s celebrate our heritage, that rich tapestry of history from the past, welcome in the New Year with a promise that we will protect this serendipitous cauldron of myth, history and archaeology; welcome the new pagans who once more come to dance at the stones of Avebury; the archaeologists who write, and then write once more, their varied interpretations of prehistory; even the crop circle makers who cleverly decorate the fields of wheat on the Marlborough downs, though I doubt the farmers are in the same mind; and finally in a wider sweep let’s celebrate the people who through extraordinary devotion and energy seek out all those prehistoric stones in the British Isles and abroad to add to our knowledge in the form of a gazetteer on The Modern Antiquarian, The Megalithic Portal and other sites – there is in the end more gain than loss…

Feature by Moss, Heritage Action member. This feature first appeared on the Heritage Action Journal -
http://heritageaction.wordpress.com/2010/01/01/silbury-and-new-beginnings-2/ and is republished here with the author's kind permission.
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