Who and Henges

It does feel a little late to be posting this.  As I write we are only hours away from the resolution of the new Dr Who series.  The Tardis is exploding, Amy has been shot and the Doctor is being locked forever into the Pandorica by all his foes, in a secret chamber under Stonehenge.

But therein lies my problem.  Under Stonehenge?  Surely everyone who is anyone in the field of SF and fantasy film making has been there already.  Every evil villain, and some heroes, have burrowed beneath those stones to create their secret bases.  Secret?  Frankly, it's the first place you look if you don't know where your enemy is lurking.

So there is something of a credibility gap, for me, in the new series's denoument beneath the henge.  And although at one level, I realise that discusing the notion of credibility in relation to Dr Who is itself something of a stretch, in another sense the use of Stonehenge feels a little, well, too ordinary.

Or it did, until I realised there was a simple answer.  All of those lairs, hidden bases and secret chambers can indeed be found under Stonehenge.  They are all present, in their hundreds, and all available for use by any story that needs them. 

The diagram below explains how this works:-

When the writer or director realises they need to locate their incredibly secret complex below the henge this week - ignoring the fact that it is one of the UK's most-visited tourist attractions - they ring ahead and the appropriate Evil Lair is brought forth from the massive Evil Lair Storage Facility (ELSF for short: think of it as something like a huge version of those vertical car parks they have in Germany).  It is loaded onto the ELDV (Evil Lair Delivery Vehicle), updated with any specialist equiment - cyberman arms or whatever - and then conveyed on ultra-heavy duty rails to a point beneath the henge. It is carefully alligned  with the heel stone and altar stone (so the stairs to the surface are properly lined up), after which a mighty piston  raises the required Lair into place, so that it can fulfil its role in the story.

During the rare times when Stonehenge is not featuring in some story or other as the centre of the bad guys' plans, a default plug of stratified earth, containing lip-smacking Bronze Age and earlier finds is pistoned into place, thus keeping all of the archaeologists happy and contented.

Now, I know this is all rather Thunderbirds-ish, and might be seen by some to be overkill, but I can think of no other sensible explanation that covers all the known facts.. 

It also explains why the Government has cancelled the new Visitor Centre scheme.  Apparently all of the alterations would have risked the discovery of all of this technology - and the politician's own emergency Lair....

Spain Tour 22: Altamira

After leaving Orviedo, we drove along the coast road, took a short stop for an hour or two on the beach, and then arrived at the Altamira Museum. This is built close to the Altamira caves, celebrated for their cave paintings.

The Museum is very well done indeed. The main, permanent exhibition is well laid out and the explanations are sensibly done. Light and airy, and the cases are not cluttered. The Museum also has a complete mock-up of the caves, through which tours can be taken. This does give a sense of how amazing the real cave paintings are, and I suppose it does help to conserve the original. But there is still something about authenticity... which was a little missing.

All in all, a really impressive museum, and not too large.

Henge and Hawks

Last weekend we went out West for the day.

Even at first sight, Stonehenge seems a contested space. After a journey down the (far too fast) A303, and parking up, this is what the typical visitor sees as they head for the entrance to the site.

Much of this reverberates with cod-history, mythology and romantic wish-fulfilment. It seems to me to have little to do with the ancient site and its uses. The bulldog seemed a typical icon, fuzzily-used and not clearly understood.
However, although having little support from what I can gather are the known facts of history and prehistory, it could be argued that they have as much right to believe their beliefs, and to use the site in their own (non-destructive) ways as any other visitors.

And this is what some of the latter look like:

This site was ancient when the Romans first encountered it.

The really difficult imaginative leap for me is to understand how much it has decayed, and been tumbled around, and how close (or not) the remains are to the intentions of the (various waves of) builders.


As Frances Pryor writes (in Britain BC), Stonehenge is set in a much larger and in some ways more complex landscape of barrows, ditches, causeways and other henges (the remains of woodhenge is not far away). One notion is that a broad ancient concourse lead to Stonehenge, with high banked sides so that it could not be seen until a corner was turned - after which suddenly it leapt out at the traveller, and dominated the skyline ahead.

Other books speak of how the stones are set so as to appear tapered, and taller than they really are from that angle of approach. It certainly seems to have been intended to dominate the area for many miles around.

Here one of the ditches or moats that still surround the stones can be seen.

The view above shows how the heel stone can be seen through one of the archways, with the so-called "altar stone" lying flat in front.

The key point is that the sun, rising, shines over the key stone, through the archway and on to the altar stone (and onwards to where the photograph was taken from) only on Midsummer's day.

There certainly seems to be something in the idea that the stones were laid out with due regard for the cycles of the sky and sun.

(The '4' in the picture just indicates the point in the audio tour where this view is explained. Which is why I can write about it now!)

The other way in which this World Heritage site is contested, I suppose, is by the car. The A303 stops being a dual carriageway as it approaches the site, but it is still very busy.
The guidebook still speaks of the plan to move the road underground, away from the landscape. All very well, I guess, but isn't that an aesthetic move rather than one that properly seeks to conserve the site? Personally, I think a better solution might be to route the whole main road away, and have a small carefully-routed visitor approach road.
The other thing that surprised me, given how inexpensive the tickets to the site seemed, was the number of people such as those above who decided to look at the stones from the chain link fence, much further away.

After the ancient stones, we moved a few miles back down the road to the Hawk Conservancy Centre. We arrived late in the day, and only had the chance to see a few birds flying.

This owl (apparently a Big Grey Owl) is seemingly renowned for having the flattest face of any owl, which makes it ideal as a receptor for sonar apparently.

It was extremely hard to catch the birds in flight in a reasonable photograph. This was one of the better attempts.
And this wasn't!
When the handler brought out four vultures to feed, this one parked himself just above our heads. A dangerous place to sit for those below!
There are also traditional aviaries, holding a really interesting range of birds.

The largest flighted bird.

Personally, I preferred the hunting birds displayed in the mews, such as this American Eagle.

... Frodo...
... and this sharp, stripped-down looking Harris Hawk
As something of a sideshow, the Centre also has a ferret run - these were great fun to watch.

At the end of the day they also staged a 'ferret race' (really, I suppose, just the ferrets' feeding time).

We didn't really have enough time to do the Centre justice. One day, we may go back.

I'll ask my secretary to remind me...

The trees around Nunhead on Tour 2: Cresswell Crags

August 3rd, 2008
Cresswell Crags is the only place in Britain where Palaeolithic cave art has been found (according to Wikipedia, at least). This picture above gives an overview of the site today.

The Cresswell Web site is a good introduction to the area and its attractions (http://www.creswell-crags.org.uk/). It includes artist’s impressions of the Crags as they might have appeared in the Ice Ages, with the caves looking out on a narrow river valley. I remember the launch of the site in the British Museum a few years back. The Beast of Bolsover (Dennis Skinner) came, as the local MP, and was very charming. I was involved in ensuring that the site would work when showcased in the Reading Room.

There is a new visitor centre under construction, which I guess was the reason why the entrance to the car park seemed a bit of a building site. However the existing centre isn’t bad, and gives a feel for Cresswell and the caves.

As you can see above, nowadays the valley that the caves look down is flooded, with a rather nice dark green, swan- and duck-filled lake. The caves themselves are only accessible as part of a guided tour (book in advance).

This was a short, relaxing break on the trip, but we didn't stay for the cave tours. The images here were taken through the protecting grills.

And, for the record, we spotted a rather nice tree.