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History is all around you

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 Lankyman 27 Feb 2021

Just earlier this week I found out that one of my most frequently walked lockdown routes runs (in part) along a newly discovered Roman road. Or at least a newly discovered alignment. That odd cylindrical stone I've passed dozens of times IS actually a Roman milestone. All due to the wizardry of lidar. Try searching for 'Lancashire Roman roads' (other parts of Britannia are available!) for some amazing flyovers. This path through the fields was the main north-south route for almost 2,000 years - even Bonnie Prince Charlie must have passed that way. Anyone else stepped through history lately?

 Welsh Kate 27 Feb 2021
In reply to Lankyman:

Lidar is fantastic, I was involved with a tv programme a few years ago using Lidar to discover and investigate sites in the Roman empire and it's amazing it can 'strip back' the vegetation.

Don't know about history being all around me at the moment, at least physically, as I'm stuck in a Victorian seaside town, but I've just finished recording lecture materials on asymmetric and amphibious warfare in the Roman world

In reply to Welsh Kate:

> Lidar is fantastic, I was involved with a tv programme a few years ago using Lidar to discover and investigate sites in the Roman empire and it's amazing it can 'strip back' the vegetation.

The Amazon settlements are probably one of the most spectacular results of LIDAR surveying. Then there's the ground penetrating radar surveying of Egypt and the various ancient Nile courses and associated settlements.

Removed User 27 Feb 2021
In reply to Lankyman:

I've done an awful lot of walking around Edinburgh in the last 11 months. It's a fascinating city in that there are many layers of history here. I often find myself coming home having seen something interesting and check its history starting with the old maps of Edinburgh on the NLS website: https://maps.nls.uk/index.html . I'd imagine there's an equivalent for the rest of the country. The other week for example I spent time looking at the area around the end of the Union canal which links Edinburgh and Glasgow. At one time the end of the canal terminated in a large basin. That area of Edinburgh had always puzzled me as the layout seemed odd, now I understand that where student flats and offices are was once water surrounded by factories, a meat market and a distillery. Going back further there was a manor house and orchards. 

Another revelation is that my local cemetery hosts a Nobel prize winner, Edward Appleton, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Victor_Appleton after whom the Appleton tower of Edinburgh university is presumably named after.

 neilh 27 Feb 2021
In reply to Lankyman:

Yes. Walking through the city of Thelwall. No longer exists. Small city in Edward the confessors time ......

 Wainers44 27 Feb 2021
In reply to Lankyman:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-devon-562216...

Some of Exeter's history is quite interesting thanks to WW2!

mick taylor 27 Feb 2021
In reply to Lankyman:

I often walk to a small local nature reserve called Hic Bibi in Coppull Moor. You walk along Star Brook to get there. At the side of the brook, on the Wigan side, is a sign saying Hic Bibi. Folk reckon Cromwell stopped there for a drink, and I think Hic Bibi means ‘I drink from this well’ in Latin. Chances are it’s when Cromwells men, supported by Leythers like me, kicked Wigan ass in the Battle of Wigan Lane. Anyway, it’s a cool name and is part of my email address. 
We go to Hic Bibi most Sunday’s for our breakfast (jam butties and a flask!).  Think it was a brick works, lots of sand and clay was excavated nearby, so it’s ‘sank’ into the ground and therefore sheltered. 

 Richard J 27 Feb 2021
In reply to Lankyman:

Just across the fields from me in Stoney Middleton there's a small piece of rough ground on the rim of Combs Dale.  I was thrilled to find cast up in a molehill there a few sherds of pottery, mostly coarse, blue-ish, but one much finer, red in colour, with traces of a moulded pattern.  A friendly archaeologist confirmed that the rough stuff was typical late Iron Age, and the red piece Samian ware, traded across the empire in Roman times, so the location was probably a Romano-British settlement (not really much more than a farmstead, probably).  Amazing to think of the inhabitants making enough of a living from their farm (maybe from a bit of lead digging too) to be able to buy some nice imported pottery, and me a couple of thousand years later finding it, maybe after they'd thrown the broken pot out of the door...

 DerwentDiluted 27 Feb 2021
In reply to Lankyman:

Our lockdown walk from our front door crosses a small stream on a little bridge, only a farm access track - nothing much. I discovered on the side of this bridge, written in the concrete, the names of several German POWs from 'POW camp no38, Belper' who built the bridge. 80 years on and Konrad Wolf spoke to me like he was there only an hour ago.

Post edited at 22:28
 The New NickB 27 Feb 2021
In reply to Welsh Kate:

> Don't know about history being all around me at the moment, at least physically, as I'm stuck in a Victorian seaside town, but I've just finished recording lecture materials on asymmetric and amphibious warfare in the Roman world

I’ll let the Victorian Society know that they don’t need to include you on the mailing list!

1
 Tom Valentine 27 Feb 2021
In reply to Richard J:

You can find a lot of interesting stuff when pulling out an old drystone wall prior to a rebuild: bottles are quite common, beer, water and a surprising number of pharmaceutical vials, but the best one of all contained a wrinkled and stained paper document.

It was in the form of a confession, detailing the writer's initiation and membership of a witch's coven. The details of the induction were quite graphic and left the reader in no doubt that the character of the leader was a forceful one whose sway extended well beyond the confines of the odd clandestine meeting on the misty moorland  slopes, whose hold over the members was complete and forced them to lead lives terrified of physical and mental retribution in the event of their letting slip to outsiders any slightest hint about membership and ceremonies associated with this outlandish and blasphemous society. Although the leader was given a female name, probably picked from some darker corner of an obscure Hebrew text, she had a hold over the poor writer which seemed much more masculine and controlling and it was hard to understand how a fairly simple ceremony with a few arcane chants and some monkish costumes could have such a grip over someone. It made you think of the power of religion and superstition in those times, and how different the spiritual aspect of living was, and how big a part of the ordinary person's life it represented , where a few well chosen words  by a powerful and evilly charismatic master or mistress could effectively damn a person's life  with the fear of ostracism and  in some cases much, much worse. It brought a real sense of living history to me and of the differences between modern secular living and life in a superstitious Pennine backwater tucked hidden away in time and realty.

In spite of the bottle being stoppered some damp had got in and the ink had run in places , making the writer's signature illegible but the place and date were quite clear : Stocksbridge, 1978.

 Martin W 27 Feb 2021
In reply to Removed User:

> I often find myself coming home having seen something interesting and check its history starting with the old maps of Edinburgh on the NLS website: https://maps.nls.uk/index.html . I'd imagine there's an equivalent for the rest of the country.

Go back and look at the NLS maps site again: it covers a lot more than just Edinburgh, or even just Scotland.  Look in the drop down list titled "Select a category" and you should see what I mean.  Viewing the georeferenced maps (in which you can "fade" between a modern map, or even an aerial view, and the old map) is also interesting.  Fascinating site.  I can (and have) lost hours on there...

Another good site for old OS maps is https://www.old-maps.co.uk.  They do tend to have one or two OS map series that the NLS doesn't (yet) have, although a downside is that you have to buy a subscription in order to be able to zoom in to the closest extents offered.

Removed User 27 Feb 2021
In reply to Martin W:

Yes I know you can see all of Scotland's maps but I didn't realise you could see maps outside of Scotland. 

The slide feature is good.

 65 27 Feb 2021
In reply to Removed User:

Pastmap is a great resource too, fairly easy to get to grips with. 

https://pastmap.org.uk

 freeflyer 27 Feb 2021
In reply to Wainers44:

> Some of Exeter's history is quite interesting thanks to WW2!

BOOOM!!

Very exciting! Shame the council or the experts didn't make more effort to record the blast / crater etc.

A very good friend of mine remembers Danger UXB, a 70s TV series all about bomb disposal in the Blitz which had me, I mean my friend, on the edge of the sofa.

The series is on Prime, but unfortunately I haven't succumbed to that yet, otherwise I'd have a watch.

Post edited at 23:21
In reply to mick taylor:

Hic Bibi is just 'I drank here', I think.

jcm

 Welsh Kate 28 Feb 2021
In reply to The New NickB:

> I’ll let the Victorian Society know that they don’t need to include you on the mailing list!

Hey, when you stop in the 3rd century AD, the 19th century is barely history

 Bobling 28 Feb 2021
In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

> Hic Bibi is just 'I drank here', I think.

> jcm

What I was thinking too but I'm waiting for Welsh Kate to give us the thumbs up on that.

My walk in history today failed.  I walked a few miles to where Google Earth told me there was an "Auxillary Unit Operational Base".  These were crude bunkers/hide-outs from which it was planned uniformed stay-behind units would fight the Nazis had they managed to invade and take territory.  I spent a while on the right grid reference traipsing around but could I find it?  Could I hell.  I guess that's the point though - they were designed to be hidden.  Better luck next time.

I did find a Hawker Hunter carcass which was part of the scenery of a local paintball venue which I never knew was there, and then an ammonite fossil in a field so I suppose I did find some history after all!

OP Lankyman 28 Feb 2021
In reply to neilh:

> Yes. Walking through the city of Thelwall. No longer exists. Small city in Edward the confessors time ......

Did the Romans build the Thelwall Viaduct then?!!

OP Lankyman 28 Feb 2021
In reply to Richard J:

> Just across the fields from me in Stoney Middleton there's a small piece of rough ground on the rim of Combs Dale.  I was thrilled to find cast up in a molehill there a few sherds of pottery, mostly coarse, blue-ish, but one much finer, red in colour, with traces of a moulded pattern.  A friendly archaeologist confirmed that the rough stuff was typical late Iron Age, and the red piece Samian ware, traded across the empire in Roman times, so the location was probably a Romano-British settlement (not really much more than a farmstead, probably).  Amazing to think of the inhabitants making enough of a living from their farm (maybe from a bit of lead digging too) to be able to buy some nice imported pottery, and me a couple of thousand years later finding it, maybe after they'd thrown the broken pot out of the door...

Years ago, a colleague of mine invited a few of us round to their house. On the wall they had a few small display cases with pieces of Roman pottery. I was amazed when she told us they'd come from the garden! Hadrian's Wall ran through it.

 nawface 28 Feb 2021
In reply to Lankyman:

A few days back I went for on the northern Carneddau.  Ran past current mining, ring cairns, stone axe factory, stone circle, Carneddau style sheep organising pen, roman road, ancient field systems.  Loved it.  So interesting and learning about this stuff has been a big part of lockdown for me.

The map site linked earlier will swallow my evenings at some point.

https://coflein.gov.uk/en/map/

There's another time eater for those in Wales. Have lost hours browsing that site with a nice beer or two.  Also for those in/interested in Wales

https://rcahmw.gov.uk/event/above-frozen-wales-aerial-archaeology-explorati...

And while we're at it this book was a really good read.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Making-British-Landscape-Ice-Present/dp/0753826674...

 neilh 28 Feb 2021
In reply to Lankyman:

There is a lot of history around the area as the River  Mersey has to be crossed to travel North.  

includes the infamous Red Lane  where blood flowed down a lane  after a skirmish in the civil war at one such crossing .

 Welsh Kate 28 Feb 2021
In reply to Bobling:

Yes, you and JCM get the thumbs up for the Latin :-D

 Wainers44 28 Feb 2021
In reply to freeflyer:

> BOOOM!!

> Very exciting! Shame the council or the experts didn't make more effort to record the blast / crater etc.

> A very good friend of mine remembers Danger UXB, a 70s TV series all about bomb disposal in the Blitz which had me, I mean my friend, on the edge of the sofa.

> The series is on Prime, but unfortunately I haven't succumbed to that yet, otherwise I'd have a watch.

My brother lives about 3 miles away and not only did he hear the boom but the shock wave from the blast was very clear. They dumped 400tonnes of sand on it before blast off too, so it was a proper decent sized bomb!!

Saves the builders who found it having to dig any deeper...

 Martin W 28 Feb 2021
In reply to 65:

Ta, bookmarked.

The Canmore site that is offered as a data layer on that map is pretty interesting in its own right as well: https://canmore.org.uk "The online catalogue to Scotland’s archaeology, buildings, industrial and maritime heritage".

mick taylor 01 Mar 2021
In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

Thanks. That would make more sense (the plaque is at the side of the brook). 


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