Spot the bow ties

Apologies for the recent hiatus in postings: it was largely caused by the need to plan and cook lunch for 50 in 3.5 hours and recover from the (mainly splendid) experience. On a food theme, here's a 1977 shot of the lunch with tablecloths & waitress service that was enjoyed by Messrs. Irvine, Howell, Glaskin & Roberts. Here they are in mid-trough snapped by Anna Behan. Love the bow ties.

Southwood by the huts

Flight Lieutenant Southwood looks characteristically cheery in this 1977 snap taken during a teabreak by Becky Sanderson (Spencer). Who's that sitting next to Terry Courtney in the background?

Max Glaskin & the Irvines in 1977

Jim and Kath Irvine pictured here by Becky Spencer (now Sanderson) in 1977 with Max Glaskin as the prime mover in making a hat appear to levitate in thin air above their heads. In the background C-H-M thinks he recognises the purple-adorned door of the lorry that was hired that year from Brockworth for transporting huts and tools between the hill and Ullenwood. Its presence means this picture was taken either right at the beginning, or more likely, I suspect right at the end of the digging season. Update from Max: "More likely the start because I don't think I was there at the end. Mind you, it's easy to forget minutiae after a gap of something like 32 years, 5 months, 11 days and 19 hours."

Relaxing in Cheltenham ...

It can't be December already, but it is. C-H-M enjoyed his Cooking Theory Examination yesterday and is looking forward to the Practical Examination on Friday. This involves cooking under examination conditions against the clock (no talking except about sharing ovens, no conferring, no asking the teachers what to do or how to cook it). If the food isn't served at the appointed hour you have to leave the kitchen and you fail. So served at exactly 1.30pm will be one loaf of Italian bread, one chicken sauté Normande with mashed potatoes, carrot batons and broccoli and one lemon meringue pie... And no, that's not a balanced menu: it's meant to test the skills we've learned this term, as indeed it will. Must go and write the time plan now. All good clean fun.

Also good clean fun was a visit to the beer tent on a Thursday off in Cheltenham. Pictured here in one of Corky Gregory's photos are, L to R: Paul Noakes, John Howell, C-H-M, Jane Charman, Ros Cleal and Jo Bacon. Judging from the immoderate amount of hair displayed by C-H-M this must be 1977. (C-H-M's hair featured for this season only as it all began to fall out the following year.) Dr Ferris remarked that I look as though I've walked into a Timotei advertisement: "Even now, people vividly remember the advert featuring a lady with wonderful long blonde hair walking through a sun-dappled meadow", says their website. Steady on, Dr Ferris ...

Sitting on the step

Nattering away together on the doorstep of the mess hall, Dr John Howell and John Parry. Looking directly at Anna Collinge taking the picture in 1977 is Ken Fussell, who, with Dave cooked for us all that year.

Thinking of cooking, I promised a vegetarian recipe to Les Capon a week or two ago and have been remiss in not getting round to it. So here's a simple delicious Moroccan tomato salad from Madhur Jaffrey's 'World Vegetarian'.

2 tbs or 30 ml lemon juice

1/2 to 1 tsp harissa (Moroccan chili/garlic paste) (The tinned Le Phare du Cap Bon brand is excellent if you don't want to make your own)

225 g 8 oz cherry tomatoes, halved across the middle

2 tbs finely chopped onion

1 tbs finely chopped fresh coriander or parsley if you do not see the point of coriander

1/2 tsp ground roasted cumin

1/2 tsp salt

In a small bowl stir together the harissa and the lemon juice

In another bowl combine the remaining ingredients. Add the lemon juice mixture and mix well. Let sit for 30 mins to let the flavours marry. Will keep in fridge for 24 hours but cover with cling film.

The addition of bean and pea sprouts works well with this, but it is delicious as it stands.

No prizes for guessing the year ...

From Corky Gregory's album: Miss Collinge and Miss Griffiths, then attending Cheltenham Ladies' College, in their salad days, when they were green in judgment, but not, I think, cold in blood. They look very cheerful and carefree ... the T-shirts, I seem to recall were printed in Cheltenham on a Thursday off.

The management 1977

During a tea break in summer 1977, L to R: Cameron Moffatt, Terry Courtney, Philip Dixon, Robin Hall, Mike Webb and John Howell. Looks like it was one of the rare chilly days. From Anna Behan's collection.

When I go Elsan-cleaning ...

The late posting today was caused by C-H-M having been up & out with the lark at 6.45 and then carrying out his first duties as "plongeur" for the evening class at Leiths, after a long day over a hot stove. First cuts and burns have been sustained, but nothing remotely serious. C-H-M earned the cost of three days' bus and tube fares. Eat your heart out, Eric Blair. But at least C-H-M's endeavours were remunerated. Above is the 1977 edition of C-H-M, surprisingly cheerful as he was snapped by Anna Behan (Collinge) on the way to empty the Elsans. Without pay.

1977: Robin's ditch

A fine set of beautifully cleaned steps cut into the limestone: 'Robin [Hall]'s ditch' is the caption Becky Sanderson attached to this picture: Neolithic, C-H-M suspects. Wonder what the weather report was the day this was dug out ...

All smiles at lunch in 1977

A beautiful day and everyone in a good mood at lunch. L to R: Corky Gregory, Kate Gilbert, Jo Bacon, Rosie from Lytham St Annes, Ros Cleal, Jim Irvine, and is that a youthful Dave Hollos in the foreground? Jim's positioning and the hint of tablecloth tells me this was the day he sat down to lunch with Max Glaskin, Robert Roberts and John Howell with Jane waiting at table, known as Wibble, because of a terrible but very funny joke about a butler that Max told that year. Wine, most unusually was served as evidenced by one very early post on this blog. Photo: Anna Behan. Update: and, now, I realise I must have taken this photo just before or after Anna took hers.

The butler joke Max told went something like this: "An English Lord had a butler named Wibble. One very hot summer's day, his Lordship summoned Wibble and said, "Wibble, would you run my bath, please?" "Certainly, my Lord," replied Wibble. "Will there be anything else, my Lord?" "Yes, Wibble, please see that some cool clothes are laid out after the bath. It's confoundedly warm." "Indeed it is, my Lord. Certainly, my Lord. Your Lordship's linen suit, I think. Will there be anything else, my Lord?" "Yes, Wibble, please tell her Ladyship I will dine at my club." "Of course, my Lord" "Anything else, my Lord?" "That will be all. Get on with running the bath, man."

Wibble ran the bath, told his Lordship it was ready and, having escorted him to his bath, hovered nearby in case there were any further instructions. "Will there be anything else my lord?" "This bath is not too hot is it, Wibble?" "No, my Lord, I have checked the temperature by dipping my elbow in it. Your Lordship will not be scalded. Will there be anything else my lord?" "No, Wibble. If I require anything else I shall call you." With that, his Lordship lowered himself into the water and let out a long, loud fart.

The blisteringly hot day sapped the energy of both Lord and butler. His Lordship went for a walk, dined at his club, came home and, at last, retired to bed. It was still sweltering. He was aghast to find a hot water-bottle in his bed. Furious, he rang the bell for Wibble. "Wibble, have you taken leave of your senses, man? What the hell is a hot water-bottle doing in my bed? It's one of the hottest days for months. One can scarcely bear to move. There isn't a trace of a breeze. I'm gasping for the touch of cool bedlinen. And you take it upon yourself to put a blasted hot water-bottle in my bed. What on earth were you thinking of, man?"

"But my Lord, you asked for a hot water-bottle." "I most certainly did not! Why would I order a hot water-bottle on a day like this?" "But you did, my Lord. As you lowered yourself into your bath this morning, I distinctly heard you say, "Whadabowdawadderboddlewibble?"" © Max Glaskin 1977 and Julian Parker 2009.

A supervisor doing some work ...

Dr Ferris has awoken from his reveries: "While it was very kind of Crickley Hill Man to compare my youthful, hirsute self to the iconic French filmstar Alain Delon, I'm afraid to have to tell him that the film actor I was compared to appearance-wise most recently was the late Donald Pleasence. Time is indeed a cruel mistress.

In my Delon picture, and indeed in the previously-posted picture of me posing rather too camply on the barrow baulk at West Heath Common, I note that I am wearing one of my mother's hand-knitted jumpers, the last of which sadly succumbed to a moth infestation in the mid-1980s. Much like my hair."

Here is a 1977 Becky Sanderson picture of Dr Ferris caught, unusually for a supervisor, doing some work on a cutting. He appears to be holding a brush in his left hand. Behind him I suspect that curses rent the air as JP had spoil brushed all over him by the cove in the white trousers. Dr Ferris, meanwhile, is more Dougal, the iconic dog from the Magic Roundabout, than Donald ...

A youthful Ferris throws a shape ...

This portrait of Dr Ferris was taken by Becky Sanderson (Spencer) in 1977. It could easily be a still from an Alain Delon film, I thought. Somewhat more prosaically Mr Boden suggests it's probably on the steps outside the dining room at Ullenwood. I suspect he's on the money with that.

I'd rather hoped this one hadn't survived ...

Dr Anna Behan (née Collinge) produced this charming vignette of C-H-M in his youth at the reunion. Kate Cole-Dumycz remembered that I was 'the Elsan King' - how kind - but I did not realise that my late-teenage ecological activities had ever been captured on camera until I came across Dr Behan chuckling away to herself with Penny Hart examining this shot ... but we might as well get it out of the way - nothing to see, move along there, you know the sort of thing ...

Bob Alvey as ever hunting molluscs ...

Corky Gregory captures Bob Alvey, glancing up from his patient labours sifting and picking through the dirt looking for those elusive little snails. As Corky says, it looks as though he's in tent.

I recall Bob giving me fascinating accounts of the activities of, and conditions endured by, Royal Navy submariners from his days under the sea. I think the subtext was, in some degree, "If you think Ullenwood's a bit spartan, young Parker, try one of Her Majesty's submarines." I remember him talking to me about the cramped accommodation after I'd been to visit the Royal Navy Submarine Museum at Gosport where I'd seen one of the submarines of the class in which he'd served. Sleeping on torpedo tubes can't have been comfortable. He was mildly dismissive of more modern types of submarine that had cissie things like bunks installed with the comfort of the crew in mind.

More from Crickley Hill and Gloucestershire Prehistory

Thanks to Philip Dixon and the Crickley Hill Trust for permission to reproduce the following abstract from " Crickley Hill and Gloucestershire Prehistory", published in 1977:

"Later Developments

After the destruction of Crickley’s second hillfort, perhaps about 500 BC, the site was again abandoned.  A few pieces of metalwork were found in the turf (Iron Age pins, a brooch, Roman sandal nails, and Anglo-Saxon dress ornaments) imply no more than transient visitors, and no permanent buildings have been recognized later than those of the last hillfort period.  No signs of planning have been noticed and the hill was presumably used only for grazing.  The burnt wooden buildings would soon have disappeared, but parts of the ramparts stood until the 3^rd or 4^th century AD, in their final collapse burying a small pig which was apparently rooting in the rubbish of the ruined entrance passage.

Changes meanwhile occurred in the settlements of Gloucestershire.  A new group of hill forts was built to the north, on Bredon Hill and the adjacent Cotswolds slopes.  No radiocarbon dates are available, but their pottery belongs to the 4^th and 3^rd century and later, and closely resembles the material from the forts of the Malverns and Herefordshire: the influences in the area seem to have shifted from east to west.  A discovery of great significance has recently been made at Beckford, near Bredon, where rescue excavations, in advance of gravel workings, have exposed parts of the large lowland settlement, whose houses were set within a regular grid of rectangular boundary ditches.  The arrangement resembles that at Dragonby, Lincs., and is the first clear occurrence of an eastern flat settlement in the West, an area otherwise dominated by hillforts.  The Beckford pottery is identical to that from the tiny fort at Conderton nearby, which can thus plausibly be seen as the citadel of the otherwise unfortified village.  No open settlement is yet known which might have been associated with the Crickley Hill fort.

Farther south, the small hill fort at Painswick Beacon, with its multiple lines of banks and ditches, is of a type associated with the latest Iron Age, but no dates are available for the site.  During the first century AD and new centre of settlement was formed at Bagendon, near Cirencester, a tribal capital 200 acres in extent within its banks, the predecessor of the Roman town.  An important family must have lived near Crickley at this period, for road making between Crickley and Birdlip in 1879 revealed a small cemetery of the early 1^st century AD, whose rich grave goods are now displayed in Gloucester Museum.  No contemporary settlement site has been uncovered, and Crickley itself remained deserted until the foundation in the 2^nd century AD of the small Roman farm whose branch boundaries may be traced within the wood to the east of the hillfort.

Further Reading

E. M. Clifford Bagendon (1961)

C.  Green 'The Birdlip Early Iron Age Burials', Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society XV (1949)

W.  Britnell 'Beckford',  Current Archaeology 45 (1974)

J.  Dyer Southern England: an archaeological guide (1973).  An excellent gazetteer and general guide"

The Second Hillfort

Again, by kind permission of Professor Dixon: the Second Hillfort at Crickley section of "Crickley Hill and Gloucestershire Prehistory" from 1977:

"After the burning of the first fort the site was abandoned for several years at least, while silt layers and turf formed above the ruins.  Rebuilding began piecemeal: the old walls were patched up and a new gate inserted into damaged entrance.  Subsequently this gate was massively rebuilt in a single operation and was now defended by a pair of stone bastions, approach being checked by a second gate in a large outwork.  Behind this spectacular and formidable obstacle the settlement was replanned: a great round house, nearly 50 feet in diameter, stood directly beyond the inner gate; around it lay an irregular ring of smaller roundhouses; further away small square buildings in clusters were presumably used as granaries, and other groups of postholes, in pairs or similar arrangements, may be seen as the remains of ancillary buildings like those of the earliest settlement; (see figure 3).  A radiocarbon date from the new gateway suggests a date for the rebuilt fort not later than the late 6th or the early 5th century BC.

The difference in building techniques is striking, and the new community used a fine decorated pottery quite distinct from that of the first hillfort.  To regard the inhabitants as newcomers seems reasonable, but they will not have come from far away, for similar pottery-styles (and similar houses) were in fashion in contemporary sites in the mid and upper Thames basin.

The life of the second hillfort may well also have been short: the new cobbled road through the entrance was worn and patched, but there were no signs of repair or rebuilding the postholes either of the houses or of the defences.  Despite its massive ramparts the fort was attacked and captured: the houses were burnt, a thick layer of charcoal covered the cobbled road, and the walls of the bastions were reddened by fire.

Other sites to see

Of the many hill forts of the Gloucestershire Cotswolds only Leckhampton, near Cheltenham, has produced evidence of an occupation broadly contemporary with that at Crickley, ending in a similar destruction.  Excavation has shown that the Leckhampton rampart belongs to a single period of building, with a few scraps of pottery resembling that of the second Crickley hillfort.

Nothing is yet known of the houses inside Leckhampton, but roundhouses are familiar from many sites in Britain.  Small roundhouses (based on examples found at the later Iron Age sites ofConderton, near Bredon, Worcs., and Glastonbury, Somerset) may be seen reconstructed at the Avoncroft Museum near Bromsgrove; a large roundhouse, modelled on the house excavated at Pimperne, Dorset, has recently been built at the experimental Iron Age farm on Little Butser Hill, near Petersfield, Hants.

Further Reading

D. Harding, The Iron Age in Lowland Britain (1974),  B. Cunliffe, Iron Age Communities in Britain (1974), B. Cunliffe, 'The Iron Age' in British Prehistory, ed. C. Renfrew (1974), Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, Ancient and Historical Monuments in the County of  

Gloucester, Vol. 1: Iron Age and Romano-British Monuments in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds (1976)"

The First Hillfort

Again, by kind permission of Professor Dixon: the continuation of the First Hillfort at Crickley section of "Crickley Hill and Gloucestershire Prehistory", the first part of which was posted here:

"Continental scholars have traced the growth of strongly fortified hill-settlements from 1200 BC onwards.  In Britain the development came later, with C14 dates not earlier than the 11th or 10th centuries BC, and most of the hillfort foundation-dates belong to the later period, to the three or four centuries after 700 BC. The first fort at Crickley was built early in this latter period perhaps in the 7^th or 6^th century.  The new rampart and ditch enclosed an area of some nine acres, more than double that of the causewayed enclosure, and provided a substantial barrier with a rock-cut ditch 2 m (6 ft) deep, and a drystone wall built of the stone taken from it at least 3 m (10 ft) high.  The entrance was a narrow timber-lined passage shut by two gates, and the defences were presumably capped by timber or wickerwork screens. 

Behind the entrance roadway ran between lines of buildings whose position is now marked only by the post holes in which their principal upright timbers were set.  Beside the roadway the buildings were probably large rectangular barn-like houses, and two more houses of this sort lay in the area of the abandoned near the enclosure - one, indeed, along the line of its ditch, as can be seen in the reconstruction drawing (figure 2).  Groups of small square huts, each supported on four posts, stood around the houses. 

None contained hearths, and they were probably intended for the storage of crops.  More irregular collections of post holes may have belonged to subsidiary buildings, such as drying racks, animal pens, hovels for farm implements, all roofed stack stands.  A variety of these structures is shown in the two reconstruction drawings of the hillfort periods, (figures 2 and 3) but there is, of course, no certainty in any of the versions adopted.

The houses so far uncovered (in about one third of the fort's total area) could perhaps have accommodated from 50 to 200 people: there is no way of estimating the density of settlement in the unexcavated area.  This community survived long enough to wear down the entrance roadway, but had gone, it seems, before the replacement of rotten timber in its houses became necessary: one generation, then, or two at the most.  The end was clearly abrupt.  The gates were burned, the walls slighted, and the houses destroyed by fire."

Jim Irvine finds a reference to Crickley Hill in 'The Times' ...

Good spot by Jim Irvine: he emails to tell me that there's a reference to Crickley Hill in this piece by Norman Hammond in 'The Times' on 9 January 2009.  The article's headline is "Radiocarbon dates indicate early Irish were just visiting". I was wondering what on earth Jim had sent me when I saw "life_and_style" and "court_and_social" in the URL, but it seems that's where the Thunderer's web editors file archaeological pieces these days!  Don't think that's where the Dewey decimal system would put it, nor would it be the first place I'd think of, but there we are. Actually, I'm being a bit naughty saying that, because the Court & Social, now that I reflect on it, has been the page where archaeological articles have appeared in 'The Times' for most, if not all, of my life.  I take it back! The article itself is rather interesting and refers back to a piece that Normand Hammond wrote about Crickley Hill more than 31 years ago - 7 November 1977.

Happy New Year! Even if it's a trifle chilly ...

Happy New Year to everyone. In London, it's distinctly "wrap-up-well-&-stay-snuggled-with-a-book" weather unless you are one of those hearty types who get a buzz from breaking the ice before going swimming. Which I'm not. Any more. Stood under a Lake District waterfall one New Year's Day - probably 1984 near Buttermere - and it was as startling as you might expect. 

From what I can tell by examining the weather maps of the world, my North American readers may well be shivering as well and the only person who's a regular reader of the blog who's got much of a chance of even some warmth today is probably Jane Lambert (nee Fitt) in Cyprus.  

So to remind us of what a warm day can feel like, here's a 1977 Crickley lunch break view of the Management sheltering from the blazing hot sun.  L to R Toni Webb, Terry Courtney, ? Carole Anderson, Philip Dixon, Robin Hall, ?, ?, Mike Webb in bandana.

The Neolithic Period at Crickley Hill

Again, by kind permission of Professor Dixon: the Neolithic section of "Crickley Hill and Gloucestershire Prehistory":

"The first farming communities in Britain, which used no metals, are dated by radiocarbon to the years before 4000 B.C.  Their earliest settlements may well have been no more than a scatter of isolated farmsteads, but during the course of the next two millennia complex societies developed, trading in flint, and hard rocks from Wales and Cumbria, the raw materials for their tools.  In southern England, they manufactured and exported pottery over considerable distances. Remarkably little is known of their dwelling places, a mere handful of sites throughout the country.  More obvious their numerous earth or stone-built burial mounds, the largest several hundred feet in length containing dozens of bodies.  These clearly had a religious use, and some ritual function may have been served by another type of monument left by these early Neolithic peoples, "causewayed camps", enclosures marked out by rings of ditches and banks, whose continuity is interrupted by causeways.   

The first major occupation at Crickley was a causewayed enclosure of this sort.  Two lines of interrupted ditches cut off the low knoll in the centre of the promontory.  Behind each line ran a bank, built of the stone taken from the ditch, through which at least two entrances had been built.  The inner ditches had been filled in, and were then partially recut and backfilled several times, a process which implies a lengthy but perhaps intermittent use of the site.  Other activities were doubtless practised within the enclosure, and Neolithic pits and has been too obscured by later prehistoric occupation to reveal the site's first function.  

After the final filling-in of the older to choose a new and larger ditch was dug parallel to the inner causewayed line.  The old ditch was still visible, but was avoided, and the new bank was piled above it, faced with dry stone walls and surmounted by offence.  At least two entrances were in use.  Only the base of these structures survived, and the reconstruction is tentative.  

Whatever its precise form, the new work was defensive and presumably enclosed the settlement.  Flint arrow heads lying in the entrance passageway and against the burnt palisade imply a sudden end to the Neolithic occupation.  

Other sites to see 

The fortified enclosure at Crickley is so far paralleled in England only by the recently excavated defended site at Carn Brea near Redruth Cornwall.  Causewayed enclosures are more numerous, and examples may be seen at Windmill Hill, near Avebury, Wilts, or Hambledon Hill, near Iwerne Courtney, Dorset.  Neolithic burial mounds are common in the Cotswolds.  The nearest, on private land near the end of Greenway Lane, is less than a mile northeast of Crickley.  Similar Cotswold Barrows open to the public may be seen at Hetty Pegler's Tump, Uley, or Belas Knap, Charlton Abbots."