F3351 with baulk 1979

After the labours of many people, here's the pit whence came the horse skull just before the final removal of the baulk. Marion Barter and Sarah Roberts's cuttings in the background. For a view of F3351 after the removal of the baulk and with the presence of Ros Cleal see here.

Christmas Caption Competition ...

From 1979, a fine Phillpotts portrait of Mr John Parry, then and now of Ross-on-Wye. A prize at the reunion for the best suggested caption, or if you prefer, speech bubble recording the wisdom of JP ...

Two men and a dumper truck ...

As so often, the end of the season in 1985 was a race against time, against ominous skies, to finish the work. Planning frames everywhere on "Slot City" as Phil Dixon, watched by Clive Anderson, begins the backfilling. Clive is presumably keeping a lookout to make sure that no diggers or tools get accidentally buried. On second thoughts, diggers we can easily get more of, but tools cost money ...

1985: Julian Thomas planning Slot City again ...

Fine Phillpotts action-planning shot of Julian Thomas in 1985 on his cutting that was dubbed "Slot City".  You can even (just about) make out elements of the plan which shows just how good Dr Phillpotts's camera was all those years ago: now any digital camera would produce even better definition.  Looks a rather jumbled and awkward cutting.

The Fourth Report 1972:

By kind permission of PWD, extracts from the 1972 report. Figure 1 above shows the area excavated during the 1972 season. An aerial photograph taken during the season I posted earlier here:

"Summary

In the fourth year of excavations the area behind the hillfort entrance was stripped.  Here were found traces of six long aisled houses, arranged either side of the road from the entrance and associated with the first defences.  During the second period of fortification a large roundhouse was built in the same area.  Cuttings across the inner bank exposed more of the Neolithic enclosure, and showed that this part of the site was also occupied during the period of the hillfort.  Evidence from the pottery found so far suggests that the site was abandoned before the fifth century BC.

The work was again made possible by the generous support of the Gloucestershire College of Art and Design, in Cheltenham, and we are thanks to the owner of the land, County Councillor Tom Morris, for permitting us to excavate.  Muir-Hill Ltd, of Gloucester, lessees of the quarry, kindly allowed us access through it to the fort, and were most helpful to us.

We are most grateful to the County Valuer's Department of the Gloucestershire County Council for permitting us to live in the County Training Centre, Ullenwood, during the excavation, and to Mr and Mrs Marcinkiewicz for their constant kindness to us during our stay there.  We would like to take this opportunity of expressing our gratitude to the local and other firms who have helped us in various ways, including Chelhire Limited, its proprietor Mr E E Jasper, and Mr John Kear, whose special skill as a JCB operator has relieved that of many worries.  Bowring's of Cheltenham, printers of the text of this and other papers issued by us; Holton Studios in their careful preparation of the litho plates and illustrations; Fred Stephens Ltd; J. Jones and Son; Sharp and Fisher (Builders Merchants) Ltd; Central Motors, Gloucester; A.C. Hands Ltd; G. A. Willetts Ltd; Swanbrook Transport. All these have made our work considerably easier.

The success of the excavation depends on volunteers and adequate financing.  We should be most grateful to any contributions to supplement the generous help from the Gloucestershire College of Art and Design.  Any donations should be made out to the Crickley Hill Excavation Fund, and sent to the Secretary of the excavations, Mr R D A Savage, Gloucestershire College of Art and Design, Pittville, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL52 3JG, from whom further copies of these notes, and copies of the note on previous seasons, may be obtained (1969, 15p 1970 and 1971, 25p all plus 5p for postage etc).  Persons interested in taking part in future seasons of excavation in this series should get in touch with Mr Savage at the address given (telephone Cheltenham 32501).

Crickley Hill

Fourth Report 1972

The fourth season of excavations at Crickley Hill took place between the 30th June and 13th August, 1972.  During this period work was carried on by an average of 80 volunteers a week, and I am most grateful for their efforts both to them and to my site supervisors, Clive Anderson, Simon Bruton, Terry Courtney, Janet Dixon, Chris Gingell, Mike Hall, and Alice Pandrich, whose initials appear on the drawings for which they were responsible.

The Site

Crickley Hill is a spur of the Cotswold escarpment, about 4 miles south of Cheltenham and a mile to the north of Birdlip.  The flat-topped hill is bounded on two sides by cliff edges, and forms a roughly triangular area, whose third side is cut off by a rampart about 300 m long.  The excavations of 1969 on the area of the entrance through this rampart revealed four main periods of occupation: the rampart itself belonged to the second and third of these periods, and was accordingly identified as a Period 2 and Period 3, the latter subdivided because of reconstruction into Period 3a and Period 3b.  Period 4 described intermittent occupation until modern times after the abandonment of the hillfort as a fortification; structures below the first rampart were ascribed to Period 1.  The investigations of 1971 in the eroded bank about 120 m within the rampart compelled the formulation of a separate division into periods of both this area and the interior of the hillfort.  One result of the 1972 season has been to allow correlation of the periods across the site, and in the following account a revised system is adopted.

Phasing of the Site (1972)

Neolithic          

1a        Occupation, revealed by post holes, before the building of the first Neolithic bank

1b        The first enclosure (ditches 309, 311, 319 and 853 = 384)

1c        Occupation, revealed by post holes and a fragment of walling in the filled in Period 1b ditches.

1d        The second enclosure (ditch 304/603).

1e        Occupation, revealed by post holes below the first hillfort rampart.  This period may be identical with any of the preceding periods or maybe a separate occupation between the end of the second enclosure and the founding of the hillfort.

Hillfort

2          The first rampart, built with timbers lacing together the drystone walling, and an inturned entrance passage defended by two gates.

3a        After destruction by fire, the entrance was repaired and the front of the rampart rebuilt.

3b        The entrance was reconstructed to produce a much more formidable defence.

4          And the fort was again burnt, and abandoned; subsequent occupation involved no significant building.

...  this scheme is only interim, and may well be complicated by further digging."

There was a little bit more digging to be done... but only more than twenty seasons' worth...

To be continued/

Axe no good? Let's push the tree over ...

And here's what happened next. Plainly the exertions of Mike Webb and Jo Stone caught everyone else's attention and they all stopped to watch. L to R Ken Collier, Bernie Dawson, Ros Cleal, Graham O'Hare, Gail Boyle, Mike, Jo, Marcia.

The power of a brand can be seen in this photo: even at a range of 40' and 27 years you can tell at a glance the Ros is wearing Hunter wellies, so distinctive are the green colour and the white tags on the front. I suspect she wouldn't have let us use them for welly wanging. Not entirely certain that Mike's footwear looks very suitable for tree-pushing, but it's hard to be sure.

The axeman cometh ...

A little light wood-cutting on Ros Cleal's cutting in 1981. L to R Ken Collier, Graham O'Hare, Gail Boyle, Gill, Bernie Dawson, Mike Webb wielding the axe, Marcia, Tarka, and Jo Stone holding the saw. There's nothing quite as satisfying as a good blow with an axe, eh, Mike?

To which Dr Ferris rejoins "I was surprised to see that Crickley Hill Man, probably somehow in error, had posted on his blog a publicity photo from the last series of 'I'm Not a Celebrity: Get Me Out of Here', in the form of a photo capturing the almost-unforgettable moment in which ex-Boy Band member Mikey cut down a youthful eucalyptus tree in order to provide fuel to cook the kangaroo's penis that he had volunteered to eat in order to avoid this indignity falling upon Germaine Greer or one of the other desperate media figures ensconced in the jungle encampment. Following this act of ostentatious self-sacrifice, Mikey and his band 'The Oldest Swingers' re-entered the pop charts at No. 136 with their best-known song 'What You See Is What You Get', something that Crickley Hill Man might not have been aware of."

Am I obsessed by legs? Dr Ferris is getting worried ...

Dr Ferris writes: "I am sorry to read that Crickley Hill Man is still suffering from the mystery virus that had struck him down when Lynne and I paid him a visit a short while ago. Strangely, we did not go on to catch this virus ourselves, probably because each day Lynne has more supplements than the Sunday Times and because once home I turned up the anti-viral filter on our geodesic dome in Selly Oak to 11.

It is worrying, though, to see that in his feverish state Crickley Hill Man has developed an almost-unhealthy obsession with legs, a number of his most recent postings featuring both extended discussions along the lines of 'whose legs are these?' and a bizarre fascination with Phil's shorts. Once his brain fever has receded and he is returned to a state of mental equilibrium, Crickley Hill Man may wonder how this leg-obsession, doubtless previously buried deep in his psyche, came out in such a public manner and on such a public forum."

OK, Iain, I hear you: lest anyone thinks that I have a narrow range of anatomical interests, here's a photo of backs (albeit with some legs inevitably associated) from the 1981 Phillpotts album: L to R Jane Dineen, Arwel Barrett, being anointed by Dr Cleal ...

Steve Vaughan and his cutting ...

The mists of time have fogged the Phillpotts memory so he's not sure whether this is 1988 or 1989: it looks a little Long Mound-ish? Any light that you could shed Steve, please when you see this post? The feature in the foreground looks intriguing - some kind of fence line perhaps? Any illumination would be welcome ...  Note that even though Steve is standing in a hole, the top of his head is still above the height of the person next to him!

Possible wall, top of the bank, CH 1981 ...

Armed as I am with Dr Phillpotts's captions, I know to whom these fine legs belong: L to R Joe Stone, Gail Boyle, Julie Fissenden, John Boden and Ros Cleal. It would have been grossly unfair to set the identification of the legs as a blog competition, so I restrained myself...

Cutting AXV, JCB, Dumper Truck and JP 1979 ...

This was right at the end of the 1979 season as the backfilling of cutting AXV, the big rampart cutting, was nearly at an end. I drove the dumper truck quite a bit during this particular episode of backfilling which was, at times, tricky because we had a big ditch at the bottom and a narrow rampart at the top. Dumper trucks can fall into ditches and off ramparts even if you're being pretty careful and in 1979 they did not come with rollbars. There were some very unsteady, even if carefully planned, pieces of filling where I had to take the dumper across spoil that had not yet become compacted. I'd forgotten until I saw this Phillpotts shot of the JCB and the dumper cosying up to each other that there was more than one occasion where my lack of skill at judging the compaction of the spoil led to the dumper getting stuck. I rather suspect that this picture shows an imminent rescue of the dumper truck by the JCB driver who was very adept indeed at hooking out the dumper truck without damaging it. JP in the foreground.

PWD inspects the cutting ...

Amongst the many photos I have collected through the generosity of readers of the blog, this Phillppotts 1990 effort is the only shot of Phil in shorts that has come my way... he seems to be scrutinising carefully work on what must have been one of the last cuttings in the Long Mound.

Apologies to my readers for the thinness of some recent posts: I've been laid low for the last couple of weeks by a rather exhausting bug which has affected inspiration, research and output. Please keep the photos and comments coming - I will publish them all in the course of the next few weeks.

CH 1983: this lot have been working rather hard ...

This picture from the Phillpotts 1983 archive shows virtuous exhaustion at its best: L to R Jane Fitt, Steve Vaughan, John Gale and Julie Fissenden. Come on , drag yourselves to your feet, pick up those buckets and get back to work ... Must have been pretty warm as well if it was necessary to have the finds hut window open.

Towards the end of the 1980 season ...

Where have all the diggers gone? Three baulks, three planning frames and a few buckets: this was quite a sizeable cutting. For a different perspective of the same cutting see here and two more here.

A culinary update from Tony Watts ...

Tony writes: "It's good to see that my meringue has been recorded in the annals of British archaeology - not so the sandwiches.  However I was happy to see my food referrred to as 'robust' - I think.  One year in celebration of something or other I made Rampart Cake which was very carefully detailed and bore some resemblance to the trench that had been cut through the rampart at the time.  I don't suppose anyone has a photo? I wish I had taken a picture at the time. Maybe Phil Dixon did?

The finer art of sandwich production began in Lydia's kitchen in 1969 during the Leckhampton dig. It was refined - if you can call it that - when we occupied the Ullenwood Camp in 1971. With the splendid post war kitchen facilities available were able to bang out 100's of sandwiches. I do recall one year we had a sandwich riot because we had the same fillings for 3 days in a row. I believe Terry was the ringleader but details fade with time."

A trip to the Air Balloon with Dr Ferris ...

Dr Ferris writes: "I am pleased to see from recent blog entries that Crickley Hill Man has tracked down some more of our fellow diggers. However, I wonder if he knows the whereabouts of 'The Skeleton' who was a fixture around Ullenwood for many years and who I last saw in 1983 leaning against the wall outside the mess hall in a rather insouciant manner, dressed, inexplicably, in one of Terry Courtney's denim jackets. Perhaps he was waiting for a taxi to take him into Cheltenham?

'The Skeleton' was originally employed to help out at St John's Ambulance training days at Ullenwood but he hung around there after the courses were discontinued and eventually he became more associated with the diggers. John Boden and I once took him to the Air Balloon, much to the bemusement of the locals, but 'The Skeleton' was rather sullen and uncommunicative that evening and drank little. I therefore find it hard to believe the rumours that he is now a barely-functioning alcoholic giving periodic Health and Safety demonstrations in Blackpool to help make ends meet.

Perhaps if Crickley Hill Man were to publish another photo of 'The Skeleton' on his blog, it might prompt him to get in touch and, perhaps, attend the reunion in July."

A 19th century description of Crickley

My thanks to the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society for permission to reproduce extracts from their transactions. Here from 1896-97:

"On their right a mile distant, was Crickley Hill Camp, formed by a mound and ditch running across the projecting height in a slightly curved line, with a second mound and ditch running parallel to it 100 yards off. The three other sides of the defence were formed by the natural slope of the hill, scarped artificially.  The defended area was about nine acres. The entrance remains in a perfect condition and is defended by a bank and ditch.  In the immediate neighbourhood there are six round barrows and one long barrow" (This description of the camp is drawn from Mr. Witts' Archaeological Handbook of Gloucestershire.)

Another dig party - this time 1980 ...

I posted a photo of Jane Lambert (nee Fitt) here the other day.  Jane replies from Cyprus where she's now living: "I can't remember exactly how I earnt a "well deserved rest", the 1979/1980 seasons are kind of blurred together in my memory. Was it something to do with the pit? Or was it when I'd found a leaf arrowhead, no - I think that was 1979?

I did actually work in archaeology (as an archaeobotanist) until 1990, mostly in Rome but also on another Nottingham University project in Bulgaria for a couple of seasons. Several career changes later I'm running adult literacy centres for the army (well, it does help if they can read what's on the ammunition cases....)"

Wonderful to hear from you, Jane: here's another photo of you, this time with Maryam Ghaffari, Julie Ann Morrison (nee Souter), Jim Gale and Training at a dorm party in 1980.

1982: a rampart comes to an end, or does my berm look big in this?

Two tiers of Iron Age wall are visible in this Phillpotts 1982 picture of Cutting AXVII. The nearer lower tier wall is the Period 3b rampart with tumble visible on the left from the end of the gangbreak. Above is the Period 2 wall. Having just re-read the relevant section of "Crickley Hill: the Hillfort Defences" (Dixon 1994) at pages 144 to 149, this gangbreak marked the end of the construction of the 3b rampart: "The team working on this part of the rampart were compelled to work very slowly removing stones and successively planning the result, in case the jumbled mass of stonework was not collapse but a badly built stretch of walling. During this process, at the eastern end closest to the ditch, a well-preserved south-facing vertical face suddenly appeared. The tumbled stones peeled from it, leaving large voids at the base, to demonstrate that they had fallen southwards from the lower tier of the rampart onto the inner side and berm* of the old ditch. The alignment of this new cross wall exactly matched the end of the recutting of the ditch and this it was clear that the Period 3b rebuilding of the rampart (and the concomitant recutting of the ditch) had proceeded no further than halfway across cutting AXVII, before coming to an end."

* berm: in mediaeval military engineering a berm (or berme) was a level space between a parapet or defensive wall and an adjacent steep-walled ditch or moat. It was intended to reduce soil pressure on the walls of the excavated part to prevent its collapse. It also meant that debris dislodged from fortifications would not fall into (and fill) a ditch or moat.

The day of the lorry hire ...

PWD was remembering a week or two ago here the agonies of getting the huts out of the hangar at Ullenwood and up to site and built. This picture, taken by me in, I suspect, 1980 shows that rather busy day at the end of the season when we did all the hard work. I can remember loading and unloading this particular lorry: there was so much by way of huts, shelter parts, the photographic tower, tools and wheelbarrows that had to be transported that at least two journeys were needed. Heavy builders' wheelbarrows, in particular in quantity, do not lend themselves to neat stacking and we had a long struggle puzzling out how best to balance up safety, stability and economy. Many other curious and unhelpful shapes and jagged edges had to be carefully accommodated, all in something of a rush so that the lorry could be returned to the hirers by close of play without incurring an additional day's hire charge. Somehow the job was always done. 

Jim Irvine comments: "My first job at Crickley (1977) was dusting the mattresses with flea powder (or some other choking white WMD!). My second job was sitting on top of a precarious load of hut bits and barrows as they were shipped up the hill on the lorry. "What happens if they start to slip?" I asked: "Jump!" I was told."