Up to no good, I'll be bound ...

It was, I think John Boden who used to say to me "What are you up to, Jules? Up to no good, I'll be bound ..." which leads me neatly to this, from the Chronicler's 1985 series, debauch in a caravan. Left to right, ?, Bob Hopegood, Nick Snashall, Ros Cleal, Julian Thomas, an outsize teddy bear and Julie Lancley. It looks remarkably cosy. Was this the famed 'Naughty Nicky's' - I cannot tell, I was not there: I await enlightenment ...

OK, what are they up to?

Jane Dineen sends this odd 1982 offering. As she says, it looks as though the team are trying to find out how many buckets of rocks it takes to fill a site hut. On display Steve Vaughan, Arwel Barrett and John Parry, amongst others.

Does the clue lie in the padlock and the roof being folded back on itself? I think whoever had the padlock keys must have gone AWOL so the troops, ever keen to dig, took the roof off the toolshed and got their kit out through the resulting aperture. The fact that people are wearing pullovers and jackets indicates it's probably early in the day which is another circumstantial detail in favour of my theory. Anyone remember this episode?

Last view of the bunker

Readers will probably be relieved to learn that this is the last of the Cold War project series photographs of the Ullenwood bunker: I have now posted all of Michael Hesketh Roberts's pictures in all their glory, both in colour and in black-and-white. Thank you to the English Heritage National Monuments Record for the permission to reproduce the photographs.

Section through the 1982 rampart cutting AXVII

These two photos from Jane Dineen, when spliced together, give a superb view of the 1982 rampart cutting AXVII, viewed from cutting FA3(?ish). For a full account see pp144 to 149 of 'Crickley Hill, The Hillfort Defences' (Dixon 1994). P144 has two photographs which show the left and right hand parts of this photo. The left side, to quote PWD, is "the front face of the Period 2 rampart, built quite roughly on a deep turf and chipple bed, and left untouched and partially ruined during the later rebuilding of the defences during Period 3a and 3b". The right side is "the front face of the Period 3b rampart, after removing the tumble and soil, showing the corner of the rebuilt defences, with a short gang length. A gang break is visible ... the collapse of the end of the bank has led to the spreading of the second gang-length southwards."

I think I can see Iain Ferris, Mike Taylor, Terry Courtney, Jim Irvine, Steve Vaughan, Big Les and Bernie Dawson but do my eyes deceive me? Update: yes they do: Mr Boden said "You can't see Iain Ferris 'cos he wasn't there that year." Dr Ferris said "That's not me and I'm deeply hurt that you could think I would ever tuck my trouser-bottoms into my socks." Sorry.

Why were all the desks outside?

And here is an altogether mystifying tableau from Dr Phillpotts's album for 1983. The troops all seemed quite cheerful, left to right, ?, ?, Jane Fitt, Julie Fissenden, Ros Cleal, Dave Southwood and Nick Snashall. I'm inclined to think that this photograph was taken on a Thursday morning, based on the fact that nobody is wearing their digging clothes and considering the angle of the shadows. But I cannot account for the multitude of desks sitting outside behind them. Can anyone remember? I assume that the little bags attached to the line with clothes pegs contain Frank Green's soil samples.

A 1985 medley

From the 1985 season, clockwise from the top left, Clive Anderson, Bob Hopegood, Katie Gold with David Griffiths behind her to the left, Ken Collier, Ken again and Bob again and finally Julian Thomas on his cutting that year dubbed 'Slot City'.

I know quite a number of readers like to download the photos which I publish: there are a handful of photos which have only been posted as part of a collage. If you would like a copy of any of the original component photos, please let me know by e-mail (link on the left approx 6th item down) and I'll send them to you.

A festive air at the tea break in 1982

Presumably the feet in the foreground, festooned in a pair of Dunlop Green Flash plimsolls belong to Dr Phillpotts. Left to right, Nicky, Duncan and Angie: surnames not known. Perhaps it was grockle day.

What was at the bottom of the hole?

Back to Dr Phillpotts's pictures for this shot, presumably from the top of the photographic tower, of one of the 1985 Crickley cuttings. There's a big hole, top right, and all the grockles are looking into it. Beyond me to interpret what was really going on. Help, please, anyone?

Savage 1988: 10 Herdsman and Quarryman

Time for the 10th section of Richard Savage's 1988 booklet: to him and the Crickley Hill Trust thanks for the permission to reproduce.

"10 Herdsman and Quarryman

After the burning of the final dark age settlement the hill reverted to pasture. In the Middle Ages the northern slopes may have served as grazing for Brockworth Parish, whose boundary runs along the crest overlooking Gloucester. A small rectangle of stone-walled building, perhaps a shepherd's shieling, lay just inside the boundary. At about this time the hamlets below the site is first mentioned by name, as Creke in 1237 and Crekelege in c. 1240. The name is understood to mean "clearing (leah) by the hill (*crouc)”. The latter is a British word, and although the eminence became known eventually as Crickley Hill, "the hill of Crickley", it is interesting to note that it seems in our earliest sources simply to have been known by a Celtic name, "the hill". During the 17th century pits for lime burning were opened, destroying about an acre of the prehistoric settlements.

In the next century quarrying began on the slopes, and had produced steep cliffs by the early 19th century. The Iron Age ramparts had already been noticed, and appears as "Roman intrenchment" on the Tithe Map of 1838. The bulk of the site to lay by now in the ownership of Hallingwood (Ullenwood) Farm nearly a mile away. Maps of the holding in 1807 and 1863 revealed the reason of the survival of the archaeological deposits, the arable land of Ullenwood stretched west of the farm as far as Crippets long barrow, and east and south towards Coberley. Crickley was protected by two belts of woodland (Short-wood and Hallingwood) and was used as a rough pasture too far from the farmhouse to be worth ploughing. So it remained, threatened by the quarry on its north flank, in separate annual tenancy from the lords of Badgeworth Manor, but not devastated by agriculture. Quarry workings slackened in the 1930s, and ended in the 1960s, shortly before the beginning of excavations.

[Photo: a 17th century pit for lime burning]"

Timing is everything ...

Jane Dineen says she cracks up every time she looks at this photograph. I can't imagine why. Southwood remains aloof from it all doing the crossword as Terry Courtney and Bob Alvey concentrate on Arwel's zoom. Noakesy doesn't look quite so enthralled. But at least the proceedings are screened from innocent eyes.

The Neolithic Bank near the Circle 1983

Wonderful definition in the photograph: a team of three in 1983 doing the most extraordinarily careful cleaning of the Neolithic bank near the Circle. They really made it look good for the photographs: can anybody recognize the heads bowed in labour? This comes from PWD's collection.

Wendy Fleischer and her Killaspray

Back to 1975 for this Boden Pentax portrait of Wendy Fleischer, her attention diverted to something away to her right as she holds a Killaspray. These invaluable items were used to spray water on the cuttings to make colours and contrasts show up better for planning and photography purposes.

An unusual view of the approach to the hill

This postcard with Crickley in the far distance and Barrow Wake/Birdlip in the middle distance must have been taken by the side of of the road that is now the A417 looking north west. One suspects that this may be a fairly old card as well looking at the nature of the road surface.

Update: I'd forgotten - sorry, Kate, - when I posted this, that this card was one which Kate Dumycz sent me: she reminds me that, when she sent it to me some months ago, she kindly transcribed the message: "Dearest Nellie, I am just cycling over a very high hill, 11:15am and it is hot, I am compelled to sit down, wouldn't it be glorious at Aberystwyth. I expect you wish you had your holiday now it is a glorious change from {illegible}: I think of going to Chepstow and Tintern Abbey tomorrow & Symonds Yat Thurs. love Harry". Kate says: "After climbing Crickley Hill more times than I can recall, I can appreciate Harry's sentiments in being compelled to have a sit down!"

Don't panic! Beware the Deadly Nightshade

One year, bizarrely, the Cotswold wardens, presumably wishing to provoke mass poisonings, put cages round the Deadly Nightshade with a wee notice bearing the legend: "This is Deadly Nightshade which is very poisonous. Take a careful look, remember and beware!" Corky Gregory sends this 1978 picture of Sue Lee-Jeffs, Kate Gilbert and Lucy Loveridge using their forged tang trowels to defend themselves against this horrible danger.

Sleep was obviously at a premium in 1979

On the left, Dr Cleal shows that she has mastered the knack of sleeping standing up in the sunshine outside the mess hall at Ullenwood. On the right she shows her ability to sleep through Sunday lunch, this time in the more conventional and less impressive "lying on her back" position. While she snoozes, Iain Ferris reads the Observer.

Whatever happened to the 1978 season?

A fair point this, from Amy Cay:

"Dear Crickley Hill Man,

Was 1978 the year that Crickley Hill was closed for a thorough vacuuming and dusting? That's the only explanation I can think of for why there are no pictures and hardly any mention of that season. Any other explanation or, better yet, reminiscence of that year would be enlightening and greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

An American who may have hallucinated being there"

The paucity of 1978 material is striking and strange: neither I nor the Chronicler, Dr Phillpotts happened to spend much time on the hill that season which accounts in part for the lack of photographs: I think I managed only a weekend or so before I disappeared on a 6 week trip round Europe, mostly in Italy and I suspect Dr Phillpotts may have been similarly absent. Can anyone help to fill this obvious lacuna, please?

Dr Cleal is unimpressed

And finally, her saint-like patience reached its limit: harassed beyond endurance by the paparazzi, led by the Chronicler, Dr Cleal grabs a stave to defend herself and sticks her tongue out. From the look on his face, it seems that Graham O'Hare had some inkling that this might be coming. I hope the bruises didn't hurt too much, Dr Phillpotts after she'd finished with you.

Under a moody sky ...

Corky Gregory sent me this great shot of Terry Courtney and Richard Savage silhouetted against some very threatening-looking storm clouds. Corky says she thinks she was given this photo by Ros Cleal. I think Terry and Richard might be standing on the rampart cutting in 1979. Is that Barrow Wake in the background? Update: thinking about this again, the angle makes it more likely to have been 1982 ...

Dr Ferris's photograph as he has never seen it before

Iain sent me a pair of slides a number of weeks ago and it suddenly occurred to me as I was examining them that they must have been taken only a few seconds apart. The first photograph is of Phil at the top of the photographic tower. The second photograph is of me and two other people, one of whom, on the left, I think I can tentatively identify as Dr Phillpotts, acting as ballast to stabilise the tower and make sure that Phil doesn't come a terrible cropper. The collage function in the Picasa software has enabled me to join together the two originals and represents as one what Iain originally saw. If I was really good I would have spent two hours touching up the join between the two photographs, but sometimes even I lose the will to live on a task like that. I'm guessing from the context that this was cutting N7 or thereabouts. But I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.

Crickley Hill postholes spoil you for life ...

Andrew Powell fears this photo may not be rivetting, but I think he undersells it: plainly it is a thing of beauty: "I found this photo of a posthole, I imagine from a 1972 longhouse. I may have taken the photo to record my excavation of my first ever posthole, well supervised in the process, I remember, by Chris Gingell. Of course, Crickley Hill postholes spoil you for life and I have never come across the like since, I remember being amazed by the precision with which the limestone seemed to have been sliced through like butter." Top class digger's crumpet, if you ask me.

A Medley from 1979

I've created this 1979 collage from a series of Dr Phillpotts's photographs, some of which, alas, are not quite in focus: see if you can spot Marion Barter, Elsa Charlot, Maryam Ghaffari, Guillaume, Anna Collinge, Ros Cleal, Paul, Ranging Rod, Zoya Spivakowska, Randall Motkin & me. Most of these photographs were taken on the cuttings which were supervised by Ros Cleal, Marion Barter, and Sarah Roberts.

And here, by popular demand, is King Kong!

A few weeks ago Dr Phillpotts wrote: "Also in the 1980s refurbishment the whole stage and the piano was lost. Does no one have a picture of the mural that was on the back panel of the stage facing the kitchen? It featured King Kong holding Big Ben, and I believe it was painted by Pat Anderson's sisters c.1972."

Well, Chris, your prayers are answered: Corky rides to the rescue. She sent me a pair of photos last week which she suggested I should make into the collage above, doing the best I can to line them up and give us a flavour of the whole ensemble in all its glory. Corky says: "As you can see, the mural has been defaced by this time. I think I took these the year before the mural wall and the stage were removed." Corky knows, and I know, who it is that is pointing up towards the building at the right. Modest prize at the reunion for the first reader to identify the mystery man doing the pointing.

Another minor mystery: why is there a pair of kitchen scales on display?

Savage 1988: 9. A barbarian antiquity

Only a fortnight left now, before the reunion. Thank you to Richard Savage and Crickley Hill Trust for the permission to reproduce the abstracts from Richard's 1988 booklet.

"9 A Barbarian Antiquity

The Roman period, c. AD50 - 400

For 12 km the Roman Road from Cirencester to the Severn Crossing at Gloucester - the Ermin Way - heads straight for Crickley Hill. Only 4 km short of the hill it turns aside to Birdlip. The fact is hard to interpret but suggests that Crickley played some part, however briefly, in the Roman perception of the region. On present evidence the hill had been unoccupied for at least four centuries, but its wall was still standing, and it would have offered an easy reference point to surveyors who may, in any case, have been rationalising the line of an existing native trackway.

Crickley Hill does not seem to have been inhabited during the Roman period, though there was a small villa a kilometre to the north, at Dryhill, whose farming must have included it. Neither now nor at any time was the interior of the hillfort ploughed. Its use must have been confined to rough grazing. But its landscape was well occupied from Dryhill to Birdlip, where the main road from Cirencester to Gloucester crossed the scarp edge, and stray finds of Roman material on the hill confirm that it was visited from time to time.

The post-Roman village circa AD 420 to 500.

Soon after AD 400, with the withdrawal of Roman administration from Britain, its social and economic order began a slow decline into turbulence. The last permanent settlement on Crickley Hill was occupied at some time during the next century. It was a village in two parts. To the east, sheltering immediately behind the south end of the old Iron Age wall and built partly on the rubble of its collapse, huddled a group of small sub-rectangular houses each about 4 m long, with central hearths, built probably of turf and thatched with barley straw. A narrow entrance to it was partially cleared through the Iron Age stonework and protected with a wooden gateway. To the west, in a palisaded enclosure on the level shelf above the tip of the promontory, stood larger buildings 7 m by 8 m, kept much cleaner, with a granary. The finds suggest that the two groups of buildings are contemporary. It is likely enough that the western buildings housed the leaders - local chieftains - and the eastern the led. Both parts of the village were burnt, rebuilt, though not on the same plans, and finally burnt again.

Stratified among the eastern group of buildings was a military belt buckle, of a type made about the first decade of the fifth century AD but still in use two or three generations later.

[Photo: the military belt-buckle of the early fifth century AD from the post-Roman village. Length 65 mm]

We do not know why Crickley Hill and many other hill-forts were reoccupied in the fifth century AD because we have little certain knowledge of the period as a whole. We cannot suppose that administrative collapse could take place in a sophisticated industrial economy without causing fundamental changes in production and distribution and the power structure. These will have been complex and the results often localised. But the evidence does not suggest that the last villagers on Crickley Hill were a huddle of refugees cornered in a desperate resistance. They seem to have been an orderly, socially stratified group taking any moderate precautions, and successfully adapting themselves to the new lifestyle of the fifth century. They are abrupt end is more likely to be the result of internal discord among Britons than the arrival of the Anglo-Saxon conquerors at the end of the sixth century.

[Illustration: post-Roman village: Chieftain's house and granary in the western part. C. Clark]"

Iron Age Longhouse 1972

From the rampart looking west north west across the rather fine postholes of an Iron Age longhouse towards the splendid view: a 1972 season picture from Andrew Powell's archive. The turf walls must have been very satisfactory for leaning against during tea and lunch breaks.

A sombre scene of dereliction

The view across Ullenwood towards the big hangar with Lofty's house on the right: it all looks rather sad in this black and white shot from the Cold War project 1999 series by Michael Hesketh Roberts. Thanks as ever to English Heritage National Monument Record for permission to reproduce the photos.

Giant JPs, artworks & JB is innocent, OK?

John Boden reminded me (as if I could ever have forgotten) of the chant of Parryisms that was used to maintain morale, distress grockles and embarrass our dear Director when he was showing visiting local dignitaries around the site. A 'giant JP' chant was to have been part of the adaptation of 'Captain Lash' that was to be directed and produced by Dr Phillpotts, as JB reminded us here. I have been trying to reconstruct the words of the Parry-inspired chant, although I am not entirely certain that it can be published in full.

Mr Boden writes on this, and other matters:

"Now, the 'Giant JP' - that quoted snippet was the only reference in my Capt. Lash copy (which I now realise after only spotting 'Phillpotts on Lash' in your blog today, that the mystery hand of scripting was obviously Kris P. himself, and not such a rarity as I had supposed), but so well-known at the time that further explanation not needed! My dim recollection is that the Giant JP tended to evolve, on an annual basis perhaps, depending on whatever new bons mots fell from the maestro's lips. It did, however, always start with the same Leitmotiv - "Bastard, Swine, Long-handled bugger...." [Surely no comma between "Bastard" and "Swine"? Ed.] If I had to make a guess at the originator/moderator/MC of the 'Giant JP', that would be Biggles. For example, I vaguely recall in 1980, JP was incensed by someone in our dormitory scraping his boots with a trowel at his bedside, rather too close to breakfast time and JP himself, and he shouted out the gem: "Damn you for that scratchin'" followed by "Damn your eyes for that scratchin'" when the scratchin' didn't immediately cease. That was incorporated into the 'Giant JP' for that season, or maybe it wasn't, as False Memory Syndrome kicks in yet again!!

.. glad you thought the artwork I gleaned from Cyberspace worthy of 'running up the flagpole', and despite the fact that you personally didn't salute it - after a couple of glasses of the Lincolnshire Co-Operative Society's finest industrial-quality S. African Cab/Shiraz, I thought I could almost detect nuances of 2m x 2m planning grids, Limestone, Long Mounds and Leisuredromes.......

Finally, on a slightly different tack, which needs squaring up, the recently-posted incident of myself falling drunkenly into a bed of nettles (urtica dioica) - I categorically don't see me in the frame for that one! I'm sure I would have remembered the after-effects, if not the incident itself....

There was an occasion when one of our party appeared to have become detached on a walk back from the Air Balloon, and a head-count in the dining room late-pm led us on a search party down Greenway Lane, where our missing member was discovered having been botanically sidetracked (urtica dioica, again). Iain...help, you were there - unless another attack of FMS."

Crickley Hill in 1938 or thereabouts

This postcard was sent in September 1938 to someone who lived in Southampton. It's remarkable how few trees there are on the lower slopes of the hill and around Cold Slad. There is now pretty thick tree cover on the lower part and the houses in the Slad are hard to see through the trees.