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And Maskelyne got another when he "confessed to being one of the two gentlemen attacked in the newspapers for having chipped off a portion of [the stones]. The pieces he took weighed exactly 1 oz 404 grains—(laughter)…". So perhaps the only confirmed hammer-wielding vandal is an Oxford prof…

"He confessed to being one of the two gentlemen attacked in the newspapers for having chipped off a portion of them. The pieces he
took weighed exactly 1 oz. 404 grains—(laughter)—and microscopic sections from them he intended to place in the beautiful museum at Salisbury, so as to help, as far as possible, any one else who might be able to advance this enquiry. (Applause.) He hoped that he might
himself one day give to the Association the sequel of what was only the commencement of this great enquiry. (Applause.)"

…with the first address "on 'The Petrology of the Stonehenge Stones' by Mr. N. Story Maskelyne… Professor of Mineralogy at Oxford." As the cutting shows, it doesn't seem to have taken much to raise a laugh from an audience that had just enjoyed "a most recherche" anniversary dinner...

Cutting from the Wiltshire County Mirror, 29 Aug 1876:
"CONVERSAZIONE AT THE BLACKMORE MUSEUM.
At eight o'clock there was a conversazione at the Blackmore Museum, the unique contents of which attracted much attention. Sir John Lubbock occupied the chair, and there was a numerous attendance.
PETROLOGY OF THE STONEHENGE STONES.
The first address delivered was on 'The Petrology of the Stonehenge Stones' by Mr. N. Story Maskelyne, F.R.S., of Bassett Down House, Wilts, Professor of Mineralogy at Oxford. The Professor had prepared a long and elaborate paper, but time would not admit of its being read in full. He therefore compressed the results at which he had arrived into an extemporaneous speech, which lasted about three-quarters of an hour. He commenced by saying that the entire silence of history in regard to Stonebenge, left archaological speculation the fullest and freest scope—(a laugh)—and he regretted to say that that speculation had not resulted in anything very certain. There was, however, a single path that might possibly lead to results in the region of fact. That was the path of petrological enquiry which led along from what was the nature of the stones up to the localities from which it was possible they might have been obtained..."

100

All was not quite as it seemed, however, as became clear a few days later at the annual congress of the Wilts Archaeological & Natural History Society. Does any name stand out in this list of the great and good? Well, on the evening of 23rd Aug "there was a conversazione at the Blackmore Museum"…

Cutting from the North Wilts Herald, 4th Sep 1876:
"WILTSHIRE ARCHEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY.
THE ANNUAL CONGRESS.
The annual meeting of the members of this society was held last week at Salisbury. The proceedings commenced on Wednesday afternoon at the Council Chamber, Sir John Lubbock, Bart., M.P., D.C.L., F.R.S., president of the society, in the chair. There was a very large attendance. Among those present were the Bishop of Salisbury, Sir Alexander Malet, the Ven. Archdeacon Lear, the Hon. and Rev. Canon Gordon, the Rev. Chancellor Daubeny, Rev. Canon Jackson, Prebendaries Morrice, Wilkinson, Bennett, Jones, and Olivier, the Revs. C. Soames, J. G. Joyce, F. Goddard, B. Duke, G. S. Master, H. A. Olivier,
J. D. Morrice, J. J. Daniell and A. C. Smith, the Mayor of Salisbury (Mr. C. H. Radcliffe), Professor Maskelyne, Dr. Roberts, Dr. Blackmore, Mesers, J. Hussey, G. Eyre, A. Buckley, C. Penruddocke, E. T.
Stevens, F.S.A., W. Cunnington, F.G.S.. H. J. F. Swayne, J. H. Parker, C.B., N. S. Maskelyne, C. Roach Smith, Blackland, J. E. Nightingale, F.S.A., T. Bruges Flower, W. Morgan, C. Talbot, &c."

200

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Not a 'hammer for hire' but another twist on the tale for #StandingStoneSunday. In August 1876 the Times (and others) carried a letter from one 'Druid' criticising the "selfish barbarism" they'd witnessed at Stonehenge: "two gentlemen (?)… busy with chisel and hammer detaching portions of the ruin"

Cutting from the Blandford and Wimborne Telegraph, 25 August 1876:
"STONEHENGE.
CADS!-'Druid' writes to the Times from Penzance:-
'On the 14th inst. I visited Stonehenge, and and was much surprised at the way in which that most interesting relic has been mutilated, the lower portions of the stones being much disfigured. Upon arriving I found a party of ladies and two gentlemen (?); the latter were busy with chisel and hammer detaching portions of the ruin to keep as specimens, and regretting their inability to obtain larger pieces in consequence of their being provoked with a carpenter's, instead of a geological, hammer. Surely some steps might be taken to preserve this national monument from such selfish barbarism. With what feelings of indignation would the public regard the chipping off of portions of any of our cathedrals to adorn the private collections of individuals, and yet we have many cathedrals, and could better spare portions of them than of our one Stonehenge."

170

For #FlintFriday, an anonymous poem about an arrowhead , published in the Kirkintilloch Herald 100 years ago this week. I don't usually care for verse written in archaic language (even for 1926) but I like the conceit at the end that in some post-apocalyptic future these things might be used again…

From the Kirkintilloch Herald, 29 Sep 1926 (via the British Newspaper Archive):
"Prehistoric Remains.
(A Flint Arrow-head Found on a Hill.)
The same wild hills are round me flung,
And this—the same stern brow,
But where's the hand that fashioned me,
Where is that hunter now?
With him I ranged the oaken wood,
The mountain clough in storm and flood,
When oft my barbs were red with blood—
O, hunter, where art thou?

The deer that loved yon northern hills,
Now looming bare and grey,
The wolf that oft, like lightning flash,
I flew so swift to slay,
The shaft to which he bound me true,
The springy bow of upland yew,
His bare strong arm once backward drew—
O, tell me, where are they?

I wake, and see the flight of time
From ages pale and wan,
The myriads that have come and gone
Since first my race began;
And I, a bit of fashioned stone,
Left on these moorlands, bleak and lone,
Have seen all that these hills have known
Of little human span.

Fling me afar among the ling,
Where I would ever be,
Till this proud Scotland hath returned
To her wild infancy ;
And when the ages long have rolled,
And Time repeats its usage old,
Some young barbarian, strong and bold,
Will head a shaft with me."

021

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

More from the Antibes archaeological museum, this time a charming little Cupid from the wall of a Roman townhouse for #FrescoFriday

Fragments of painted wall plaster representing a curly-haired Cupid with wings on his back

052

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

50 222 The scraping-blade before the eyes at sunset. The wedge above the crown to south. The black disc behind the head. Never shut of them, 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿 𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗲𝘆𝗲𝘀 that tear the skin to 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱𝗲𝘀 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀. Hopes that drill the skull, and compass the head in coastal darkness, faint glitter on the point.

Fig. 896 from Mortimer's 'Forty Years' Researches' showing a drawing of a skull surrounded by flint tools, captioned 'Showing the relative positions of three worked flints around the skull in Barrow No. 222'

140

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

A rather fine panelled wooden door at the 17th-century Abbot's Hospital, Guildford #AdoorableThursday

View of a red-brick building with wooden door beneath a commemorative stone, window and clock

Close-up of door with wooden panels and fan-patterned head

030

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

HJM on Old Sarum for #HillfortsWednesday: "they chose a low, featureless hill perking up from the valley of the Avon, and breathed upon it, and lo, the turf sank and swelled and vast green billows of earth curled round their crests into oval cirques that even the brutal heel of war could not deface…

Photo of the ramparts of Old Sarum from Massingham's 'Downland Man' (1926)

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Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

For #TombTuesday here's the Roman gravestone of a 12-year-old boy named Septentrionis ('northerner'), presumably a slave, who had danced well for two days in the theatre at Antibes (biduo saltavit et placuit). The original is in the local museum and there's a reproduction on a wall in the town.

Gravestone in the Archaeological Museum of Antibes, with the epitaph:
"DM
PVERISEPTENTRI
ONISANNORXIIQVI
ANTIPOLIINTHEATRO
BIDVOSALTAVITETPLA
CVIT"
The epitaph is set in a semicircle surmounted by seven ?cypress trees, above a vase with a cross-hatched body from which two leafy branches emerge.

A replica of the gravestone on the wall of a building in the old town of Antibes

0163

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Reading HJ Massingham's 'Downland Man', 100 years old this month, and coming to see it's not really a narrative of British prehistory but an attempt to process the trauma of World War I — then realising that all prehistory from the 1920s to 40s in some way reflects the reality or threat of war…

Title page of 'Downland Man', first published in 1926, with frontispiece reproducing a drawing of Avebury from Colt Hoare's 'Ancient Wiltshire'

Extract from the publisher's ad in The Bookseller, September 1926, listing Massingham's book alongside other volumes

1121

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Amazing 17th-century Flemish windows, depicting the story of Jacob, in the chapel of Abbot’s Hospital, Guildford. Whoever made them was clearly a dog person as they have scattered several little pups through the scenes 🐕 #StainedGlassSunday

A window with four panels of stained glass showing Biblical scenes, with Latin text at the bottom

Detail of a small dog curled up on a tiled floor

041

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

As reported #OTD in 1926, 100 years ago they were burning HG Wells' 'Outline of History' in Kentucky: "The outraged pastor told his flock that Mr. Wells' famous work contained even more propaganda for evolution than Professor Scopes had tried to foist upon the defenceless inhabitants of Tennessee"

Cutting from The Western Mail, 15 Sep 1926:
"'MONKEYVILLE' AGAIN
FUNDAMENTALISTS BURN MR. H. G. WELLS' HISTORY.
'TOO POISONOUS TO BE READ.'
AMAZING SCENES AT INCINERATION CEREMONY.
An episode which recalls the famous 'Monkeyville' trial of Tennessee has taken place in the neighbouring State of Kentucky, U.S.A.
With religious ceremony, H. G. Wells' 'Outline of History' was committed to the flames because of an alleged conflict with the Book of Genesis and Zane Grey's 'To the Last Man' (which the pastor considered too spicy) followed it, as did a pack of playing-cards and a Sunday newspaper.
The outraged pastor told his flock that Mr. Wells' famous work contained even more propaganda for evolution than Professor Scopes had tried to foist upon the defenceless inhabitants of Tennessee.
KENTUCKY EMULATES TENNESSEE
PARIS, Tuesday.
The renarkable scenes which attended the burning of Mr. H. G. Wells' 'Outline of History' and other books by the perfervid Fundamentalists of Harlan, Kentucky, while the Rev. J. R. Black, pastor of the Harlan Baptist Church, pronounced an anathema and prodded the offending literature with his stick to stir up the flames, are described in a cable to the Paris edition of the 'Chicago Tribune.' Because of an alleged conflict between Mr. Wells' text and that of the anonymous author of the Book of Genesis, Dr. Black admonished his followers, none of whom had read the lengthy and imposing volumes, that the book was 'poisonous and unfit to be read'..."

021

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Probably the least accurate depiction of a Palaeolithic 'Venus' figurine, in the Westminster Gazette 100 years ago this week; this is Willendorf II (not the famous one), made of mammoth ivory and unfinished (I suppose it does lack arms…). Also the actual figure from a 1934 article #FindsFriday 🦣

Cutting from the Westminster Gazette, 10 Sep 1926, headlined "25,000-YEAR-OLD VENUS." with a drawing of the Venus de Milo:
"CARVED FROM THE TUSK OF A MAMMOTH.
DISCOVERY IN A DANUBE DEFILE.
From Our Own Correspondent.
Vienna, Thursday.
It is announced that Professor Josef Bayer, director of the Prehistoric department in the State Natural History Museum here, has found an ivory statuette of Venus, dating back to the glacial period.
The find was at Willendorf in the Wachau (a sequestered defile noted for its scenery and legends) on the Danube, where the Professor found a similar figure in limestone in 1908.
The new Venus is carved from the tusk of the lower jaw of a mammoth, whose remains were discovered close by. A massive chisel of jasper was discovered near the spot.
The new statuette, which is about 10in., is believed to be the largest belonging to the glacial period yet found. It is probably between 20,000 and 25,000 years old, and is in good preservation owing to the
protection afforded it by the deposit of loess (loam and quartz).
The Professor believes both the statuettes he has found are the work of the same artist.
The famous Venus de Milo was found by a peasant in the island of Melos, or Milo, in 1820, and sold to the French Government for £240. It is now in the Louvre, Paris."

Photo of the figure from the Illustrated London News, 17 March 1934, in an article on Palaeolithic art from Malta in Siberia; captioned: "Fig. 6. 'Venus II.,' a statuette in mammoth ivory found by the late Dr. Bayer at Willendorf, Austria, where he had found 'Venus I.' (figs. 7 and 8): a type
akin to the Siberian figures. (Half actual size.)"

041

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

The hogback stone in Luss churchyard on the banks of Loch Lomond, decorated with an interlaced arcade on the side and scales or shingles on the 'roof' - a bonnie bonnie object for #TombTuesday. Described and illustrated by J Russell Walker in 1885.

The hogback stone among more recent gravestones in Luss churchyard

Side view of the stone showing carved arcades on the side and scale ornament on the top

Views and sections of the Luss hogback stone by J Russell Walker (PSAS 19, 406-424)

0141

Perhaps wisely Morton takes his leave when Spalding starts swinging a flint axe around, leaving us to ask if these replicas/forgeries were any good, and whether any of them still exist? Well, the answer is yes: collections.maa.cam.ac.uk/objects/4461...

"I left Mr. Spalding standing at his cottage door holding a Stone Age axe to which he had fixed a stout handle bound to the stone with rough strands of untanned ox-hide. He swung the axe and said how perfect the balance was: and it occurred to me that he looked rather like a caveman standing there in the darkness of his cottage door, ready to defy any inquisitive professor, ready to defend his discovery with flint-like tenacity. And I thought that had I been one of those people who cannot disguise their belief in reincarnation he would not have got off so easily.
Neither, perhaps, considering the perfect balance of the prehistoric axe, might I!"

Barbed-and-tanged flint arrowhead with hand-written label reading 'Forgery by Spalden Brandon'

120

After watching the succession of gunflints Morton asks Edwards to make an arrowhead. 'I can't do that', says Edwards, but he knows a man who can: "Mr. Spalding, who lives down the street… We get Sir Arthur This and Sir John That down here trying to get him to tell how he chips his flint implements"

"Make me an arrow-head," I asked.
"That's one thing I can't do," said Mr. Edwards. "There's only one man in the world who can, and he probably wouldn't. That's Mr. Spalding, who lives down the street. He can make arrow-heads and mace-heads that pull the legs of all the professors in the world; but he won't tell how he does it! We get Sir Arthur This and Sir John That down here trying to get him to tell how he chips his flint implements, for he's the only living man who can make a prehistoric flint-weapon that the expert can't tell from the real thing. For instance, he made this last week."

That sound was "The lost art of chipping flint" which "has been kept alive in this Suffolk village for tens of thousands of years. Nowhere else is the difficult art of knocking this stubborn stone into shape practised as in Brandon", and he describes watching "young Mr Edwards" making gunflints:

"As I watched young Mr. Edward knap his flints I realised that flint behaves well if you know'exactly when to hit it. Mr. Edwards took up a lump of the stone, hit it gently, and seemed to listen to the sound. When satisfied by the sound he hit harder, and the fint broke crisply along the lines of cleavage. He now had a nice flat piece of flint to work on. He struck it near the edges. It flaked, and he proceeded to fashion a little square gun-flint with a series of quick expert blows; and the marvellous thing to me was that the disobedient stone obeyed him! In a few seconds another gun-flint fell into the tin tub and another flake was on his knee."

120

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

#OTD in 1926 H.V. Morton was 'In Search of England' in the Express, reporting from a pub in Brandon: "while I was taking stock of the argumentative little groups round the bar there trickled in from outside a curious insistent tapping, a queer, tinkly metallic sound for which I could find no name" 🧵

Cutting from The Daily Express, September 7, 1926, headlined 'CAVE MAN'S SECRET. OLDEST ART ON EARTH."

183

Some archaeology (of sorts) near the start of HG Wells' 'World of William Clissold': a visit to 'Sir Rupert York', a thinly disguised version of Ray Lankester (see what he did), zoologist & advocate of rostro-carinates, "a peculiar sort of early stone implement with a beaked end", i.e. eoliths

"'WONDERFUL' is certainly the word for Sir Rupert; he is close upon eighty, but his mind is as bright as it has ever been. He talks and moves slowly, and he confesses that he feels no longer disposed to work hard and is easily tired by any effort, but he misses no point in one's talk and his thought is candid and serene. On his desk were drawings and a photograph and a plaster-cast of a gorilla's foot; some American has been writing unwisely of the use of the ape's big toe in walking, and Sir Rupert has been demolishing him, patiently, unhurryingly, and completely. He is also feeling his way towards the use of a peculiar sort of early stone implement with a beaked end, and the room is littered with specimens..."

040

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

The striking blues of Glasgow Cathedral's Millennium Window by John Kenneth Clark, with text and imagery from the Gospels #StainedGlassSunday

Three lancet windows with stained glass in a mosaic pattern

1234

And now a title page for the first part of the first volume, and then a contents page for the first part of the first volume... of which the first part is 'The Beginning of a Book'... on, er, p23.

"BOOK THE FIRST
THE FRAME OF THE PICTURE"

"THE FRAME OF THE PICTURE
THE SECTIONS
§ I. THE BEGINNING OF A BOOK..."

100

And, now the contents; right, we must be ready to go. Oh, it seems we also need a title page for the first volume of the novel.

"CONTENTS
THE DIVISIONS OF THE NOVEL..."

"THE WORLD OF
WILLIAM CLISSOLD

BOOK THE FIRST
The Frame of the Picture

BOOK THE SECOND
The Story of the Clissolds—My Father
and the Flow of Things"

100

Turning over, yes, here's the title page - now we can start reading... oh not quite, first there's a dedication (Odette was the one after Rebecca West, if you're interested...)

"THE WORLD OF WILLIAM CLISSOLD
A Novel at a New Angle
BY H. G. WELLS

London
ERNEST BENN LTD.
Bouverie House Fleet Street
1926"

"TO
ODETTE KEUN,
SELF-FORGETFUL FRIEND AND HELPER"

100

Ok, there's 'a note before the title page', in fact there's seven pages of it, and then... ah, not the title page, but a page before the title page (and HG's bibliography)

"A NOTE BEFORE THE TITLE PAGE
NOVELS with prefaces are like pictures with inscriptions below them; there is a confession that something was left over and had to be expressed by an addendum. But the note which is offered here is not a preface so much as a protest, and in token therefore it is put before the title-page and does not figure in the list of contents. It is a protest against certain stock tricks of the book reviewer and certain prevalent vulgarities about books. They concern the treatment of opinion in works of fiction and what is called 'putting people into novels'."

"THE WORLD OF WILLIAM CLISSOLD
Παντα ρει"

100

That HG Wells (and/or his publisher) was a bit of a tease - I'm just embarking on The World of William Clissold, his 'experiment in autofiction' as you might say (see also Pedro Almodovar...), published in 3 volumes starting 100 years ago this month. Here's Vol 1 so let's open it and get going... 🧵

100

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Celtic and Irish seas palaeocoastal reconstruction (extract) from Furze et al (2014), 'Deglacial to postglacial palaeoenvironments of the Celtic Sea'

160

I've not seen the Bayeux tapestry but I was given this little volume, which is a minor miracle of printing in its own right. Shall we unfold and see if a 1/7 reproduction will fit in my rather small house?

0103

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Haylie is a Clyde cairn of which only the chamber now remains, nestled unobtrusively behind some back gardens in Largs. However, if you go a bit further up the hill you get a sense of the larger (is)landscape in which it sits...

A closer view of the chamber with the inner compartment still covered by its capstone

View of the Cumbraes, Bute and Arran from the hill above the tomb

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

100

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Well, the dog and I finally made it to Machrie Moor last week - what an amazing place! A striking contrast between the large stones that dominate the landscape and the modest circles that frame the surrounding hills. I gather there's plenty to sniff and smell too... #StandingStoneSunday

Three large standing stones in an open landscape with hills behind

A circle of small stones, with sitting dog

0272

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

As often noted, you had to follow the story by walking round the frigidarium, and I rather like the way Achates appears in two scenes at once: collecting gifts for Dido from the ships, while oriented with the frame round the corner (near the entrance to the room) from which he's evidently been sent

The corner of the mosaic with Achates collecting the gold diadem, next to a group of Aeneas, Cupid (in the form of Ascanius), Venus and Dido.
Open-access volume on the villa here: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/109705

061

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

For #MosaicMonday here's the Dido and Aeneas mosaic from Low Ham in the Illustrated London News #OTD in 1946. In fact this wasn't the first time it had appeared, though when shown as work in progress in May the story wasn't quite straight, with D&A's embrace described as "two warriors fighting" 🤔

Black and white image of the whole mosaic from The Illustrated London News, Aug 17, 1946, headlined 'The Loves of Dido and Aeneas in the Low Ham Mosaics' and captioned "One of Roman Britain's finest mosaics shown in full beauty: a classic legend in pictures."

B/w photo of the mosaic under excavation in the Illustrated London News, May 25, 1946, captioned "The Roman mosaic pavement of the Low Ham villa revealed in its full beauty: left, horsemen; right, ships; centre foreground, two warriors fighting; middle, a naked figure with two Cupids; background, a group of four figures; beyond, a geometrical pattern."

2196

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Ouch 😆 (from today’s Observer)

Column by Melanie Reid headlined ‘Lyrical nature nonsense?…’: “Without fail, the words
‘palimpsest’ and ‘liminal’ trigger me. Encounter the first, in a description of the countryside, and an alert sounds in my brain. Reach the second and a full-scale BS alarm goes off. My engagement stalls, my judgments form.
All it takes is the appearance of ‘penumbral’ in the following chapter and I'm gone. Then a book just becomes amusing, which is cruel, because those who write about nature are achingly earnest. All that emoting over soil and stone, humans and wild places, history and deep time, is deadly serious work.”

020

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

The army in the firing line from archaeologists #OTD 100 years ago: the Wiltshire Arch Soc annual meeting passed a resolution calling for greater powers to protect monuments, especially on land occupied by the War Office, where there was "continued demolition of and damage to prehistoric earthworks"

Cutting from The Wiltshire News, Friday, August 13, 1926:
"ANCIENT MONUMENTS
DAMAGE CAUSED THROUGH IGNORANCE.
ARMY BIG OFFENDERS.
WILTS ARCHAEOLOGISTS WANT GREATER PROTECTION.
The question of obtaining increased protection for historic monuments and remains in this country was considered by the Wilts Archaeological Society at the evening session of their annual gathering at Chippenham on Tuesday, when a comprehensive resolution, which is to be forwarded to H.M. Office of Works, to M.P.'s and to the leading archaeological societies in England and Wales, was unanimously adopted, calling attention to the need for further powers to be granted for this purpose."

132

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Outside with the hand-held approach

040

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Eclipse projected on door, dog unimpressed

1110

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

As a last word, here's a screenshot of a map from the 2018 archaeological DBA with the location of Dobby's grave added: the blue line is the preferred cable route, which is pretty much the final route, with other options in different colours, but none of them go anywhere near the elf

0144

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

On another part of the route, c 60m from the Devil's Quoit dolmen, they found a small standing stone, now recumbent, dated to the mid-4th millennium cal BC. In other words the real ritual landscape is far more interesting than the fictional one... archwilio.org.uk/her/chi3/rep...

Photo from the mitigation report of the recumbent stone in a trench with a herd of cows behind, one looking at the camera

26911

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Ireland ended up living in a converted windmill with a view of Chanctonbury, which had influenced his music since 1920; a pupil wrote that part of the Piano Sonata was “inspired by a rough autumnal day on Chanctonbury Ring, an old British encampment”. You don’t have to go far from Shipley to see it.

View of the clump of trees at Chanctonbury Ring on a downland ridge, from Knepp Wilding near Shipley

020

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

The reason for the unconventional headstone is explained on a plaque in the church. But why was Ireland laid to rest at Shipley when he didn’t live there? Because on a country drive he once met a ginger tom at Shipley churchyard, who “delightedly responded to Ireland's tickling behind the ears."

Close-up view of Ireland's grave: a sarsen headstone with plaque and two flat stones

Plaque in Shipley church reading: In memory of JOHN IRELAND 1879-1962 Composer and Church Musician His resting place opposite the south door of the church is marked by pre-historic Sarsen stones to symbolise that antiquity the love of which inspired much of his music "Many waters cannot quench love"

120

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

West Sussex rarely features in #StandingStoneSunday but if you’re ever in Shipley churchyard (and who wouldn’t want to meet the local custodians) you may notice some slightly incongruous pieces of sarsen, marking the grave of the composer John Ireland, whose birthday is this week (b. 13 Aug 1879) 🧵

A row of graves with standard headstones and one with an irregular piece of standing sarsen

1181

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

"When the pavilions are falling into decay and the success or failure of the Festival has been forgotten, many of these exhibits will still be as valuable as ever." I'd love to know what happened to them? Here's an image from Jonathan Gardner's excellent discussion (note the Neolithic design behind)

‘A Man’s Goods 8000 BC to 2500 BC’, with replicas of hunting implements', from Fig. 5.7 in Gardner, J. 2022. A Contemporary Archaeology of London’s Mega Events. London: UCL Press (Open Access)

Jonathan Last @johnnythin.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

"…one of the two official lines of entry into the South Bank Exhibition will be through a pavilion where many hundreds of thousands of people will find it difficult not to give at least a passing glance at a display of British prehistory." Entering "as through a road cutting… openings will allow…

Opening paragraph of 'The Origin of the British People: Archaeology and the Festival of Britain' by Jacquetta Hawkes (Antiquity volume 25, issue 97, March 1951, pp 4-8)