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Saturday, 8pm: Britain At Low Tide
Fourth in a series of 6 (haven't seen the others)...this focused on the Severn Estuary. Among the topics of interest was the team's archaeological investigation of 'Chapel Island', only safe to access at low tide (tidal range of the Severn = second highest in the world at 50').
The island is a short distance south of the Beachley peninsula, which is crossed by the M48 Severn Bridge link between England and Wales.
The presenting team called in a number of experts to ascertain the age of the ruin at the highest point. Turned out to be mostly medieval. Old registers showed services were conducted there up to the C17th after which the churchyard was lost to rising river/sea level and the building had collapsed by 1720. (The so called Severn tsunami of 1607 was not referred to in the programme.)
The programme skipped over to reference the famous shot of Bob Dylan waiting for the Aust Ferry, a pair of barges which became locked and hit the old Railway Bridge and some stuff about the lost village of Sudbrook before returning to the archaeologists poking around on the island and in the record offices.
Interestingly the island has been renamed several times over the years. On one old map there is a spot in the River marked as 'The Treacle' and the island has also been known as St Twrog[g]s. He's one of Mick's favourite fakes/fakirs, a C6th Welsh 'Saint' who came over from Britanny to save the Welsh. His parents must have been something else because several, possibly all of his brothers were also canonised: Tanwg, Tecwyn, Tegai and Baglan. Twrog, according to Wiki, was a member of the College of Bardsey, on the so-called 'Island of the Saints'.
Did you see this programme? If not, there's more. Shall I continue?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Yes, I fell asleep and now, damnit, I'll have to go back and watch it.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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We have a tiny islet in the Bristol Channel which may have once been a causewayed tidal island. It has a small structure on it which appears to be a hermitage. It is adjacent to the main crossing point between England and Wales. So let me see ... what are the competing theories?
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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The ferry controlled by the chapel-on-an-island links Beachley in Wales to Aust in England and operated until the 1960's. But drawing a straight line across, Aust in the west is in turn linked to Foulness Island on the Essex coast, also a not very accessible tidal island
| Prior to 1922, when the military road was built, the only access was across the Maplin Sands via the Broomway, a tidal path said to predate the Romans, or by boat. Although public rights of way exist, the island is now run by QinetiQ on behalf of the Ministry of Defence, and access to the island is only permitted with a pass, obtainable from Shoeburyness. |
The 'capital' of Foulness is Churchend, the village's one pub is The George and Dragon. The coastline is a bit of a mess, lots of islands with remains of saltworkings presumed to be pre-Roman (no fresh water was available on the islands before 1829).
The straight line isn't of course replicated on the ground but it does seem oddly familiar, paralleling the east-west route further south between the Isle of Thanet and Weston-super-Mare which also ends/begins with a now disused ferry [very roughly the M4 and M40 courses]
| The name Chepstow derives from the old English ceap / chepe stowe, meaning market place or trading centre. The word "stow" usually denotes a place of special significance, and the root "chep" is the same as that in other placenames such as Chipping Sodbury and Cheapside. The name is first recorded in 1307, but may have been used by the English in earlier centuries. However, the name used by the Normans for the castle and lordship was Striguil (in various spellings, such as Estrighoiel), probably from a Welsh word ystraigyl, meaning a bend in the river. |
Chep/chepe = sheep. Not sure if the "Welsh ystragyl" exists (in French 'astragale' is the name of a bone in the ankle joint)
It might be over-enthusiastic but we're looking at valuable business -- sheep and salt -- and the Cistercians set up shop there pretty smartly
| Tintern Abbey was founded by Walter de Clare, Lord of Chepstow, on 9 May 1131. It is situated adjacent to the village of Tintern in Monmouthshire, on the Welsh bank of the River Wye, which at this point forms the border between Monmouthshire in Wales and Gloucestershire in England. It was only the second Cistercian foundation in Britain (after Waverley Abbey), and the first in Wales. |
The island may have belonged to the De Clares who owned the appropriately named Tidenhall estate, just north of the Beachley ferry, but the operation was presumably run by Tintern or one of its granges.
Victoria County History is always informative
| Beachley was also part of Tidenham manor by 956 and was apparently the area described in a Saxon survey of the manor made then or later as lying 'outside the inclosed land' and let in part to Welsh sailors; it has been suggested that the small seaport existed at the time of the building of the dyke and was excluded by it in order to leave both sides of the mouth of the Wye, and the Severn crossing at Beachley, under Welsh control. |
The crossing is clearly on the English side of Offa's Dyke. Beachley doesn't sound at all Welsh nor does Chepstow but St Twrog might be a relatively recent name.
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(I should have said it was on Channel 4, if non-regular contributors are interested.)
About half way through the programme I said to my wife "I bet it was a hermitage", thinking of TME, and so it has proved that its very inaccessibility makes this the most plausible origin of the building.
It must have been on the pilgrim route for some time as it was turning over £10 per annum "and you could live quite well on £5 p.a." in those days, according to one of the archies.
Twyrog was a new name to me but Wiki says,
| There are three other dedications to Saint Twrog: Bodwrog in Anglesey (St Twrog's Church, Bodwrog), Llandwrog near Caernarfon, and the ruin on Chapel Rock near Beachley by the Severn Road Bridge. When Twrog first arrived in the village now called Maentwrog, the valley was very marshy, which provided him with the wattle that he would have needed to build his cell. Outside the church near to the belfry door is a large stone known as the Maen Twrog (maen being the Welsh for stone). Twrog is reputed to have thrown the stone from the top of Moelwyn crushing a pagan altar in the valley below. It is said that his handprints can still be seen in the stone. The parish of Maentwrog gets its name from this stone[2] |
The archies tended towards the occupant being a renegade Benedictine but offered the alternative possibility of them being a male or female anchorite.
During the programme I noted reference to another saint's name of which I knew not the spelling, but it was surmised that the old map [date?] reference to the 'treacle' was a possible mangling of it. Sure enough a few guesses brought me to the good old Megalithic Portal:
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=26186
So, it has a spring or well to boot. And we can reasonably assume that 'treacle' refers to St Tecla/Thecla, an anchoress.
| She has other churches dedicated to her in Wales - usually spent Llandegley |
...continues the Portal article , but I'm not sure about this as Llandegley can simply be broken down into 'place of the church' ('church' in Welsh being eglwys).
Digging a little further I came across this interesting article:
https://feminismandreligion.com/2013/02/21/st-thecla-transvestite-saint-and-woman-apostle-by-michele-stopera-freyhauf/
Now can anyone remind me, did the designation Tecla come before or after Twrog. If before, was Twrog cut-and-pasted in to meet a doctrinal change, relegating women to lesser status?
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I have the answer to my question. From a note attached to the Portal:
| At some stage in the 6th or 7th century, after the martyrdom of St Tecla, her hermitage was taken over by another saint. He was St Twrog, a Celtic missionary from N. Wales - probably from Llandwrog. However, some accounts say a St Rioch or Riochatus, was also in residence on the tiny island in the Severn estuary. So this would account for the chapel having different dedications at various times in history. But in most cases St Tecla's name still comes to the fore and local people know it by that name. I now think that St Twrog and St Rioch are one and the same person. |
Wiki doesn't think this is the right Tecla, favouring a local Welsh virgin called | Tegla Forwyn ("Thecla the Virgin") | |
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| aurelius wrote: | | About half way through the programme I said to my wife "I bet it was a hermitage", thinking of TME, and so it has proved that its very inaccessibility makes this the most plausible origin of the building. |
Why inaccessible? It is a twice-a-day crossing point for use at low tide, where someone has to collect fares.
| Twyrog was a new name to me but Wiki says, |
Twrog's connection with Llandwrog (Llanddarog) seems to have arisen more than a thousand years after he reportedly lived. Llandwrog Church is eighteenth-century. If an earlier church existed there's no trace of it now.
| The earliest register dates from 1736. [The church] is believed to have been built in 1854 on the site of a previous wooden building |
On the other hand Roman stuff in the area lasts pretty well
| The Roman road Sarn Helen passed through this district, and overlooking the sea is Dinas Dinlle, a strongly fortified camp with a double range of escarpments, said to have been connected with Segontium. |
St Tecla/Tegla is similarly elusive. Her name was attached to one llan and one well, dated rather late considering she's supposed to have lived circa 30 AD. Historians are understandably cautious and the convention is to give her a Middle Eastern origin, which still doesn't explain the lack of archaeology in N-E Wales.
| In the 13th century Llandegla was acknowledged as little more than a chapelry dependent on the former mother church at Llangollen, and as such it belonged to the Abbey of Valle Crucis |
and
| The well lies about 200m to the south-west of the church and was excavated in 1935 and produced quantities of finds, most of the coins dating to the 18th and 19th centuries. Thomas relates an unsubstantiated report of 1710 that there was a monumental inscription associated with it. The presence of a holy well tends to reinforce, without proving, the early medieval origin of Llandegla. |
| And we can reasonably assume that 'treacle' refers to St Tecla/Thecla, an anchoress. |
Treacle apparently refers to dark, unpleasant water. The association is medicinal.
| Now can anyone remind me, did the designation Tecla come before or after Twrog. If before, was Twrog cut-and-pasted in to meet a doctrinal change, relegating women to lesser status? |
The only names out of the three hundred and forty-five Welsh saints that anyone can remember are David and Elen. and possibly Winifred, none of them are Welsh and none are doctrinal.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Take no notice of their claim that anchorite comes from the Greek. It means someone put in charge of an anchorage. Just as their claim that hermits are associated with 'deserts' (there's a mention in an ancient charter) is equally ludicrous. As we all know, a disert is a piece of land that is useful but not currently in use for crops (something like that, we haven't completely nailed it down). They did admit, with a merry laugh, there are no deserts in either England or Wales but were otherwise incurious.
Their claim that hermits and anchorites were looking for some secluded peace and quiet at the busiest nodal point in Britain... well that's probably true. It takes all sorts.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Andrew Lloyd-Webber (to Alan Yentob): "We were terribly poor. My father earned nothing as a composer. He was Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music."
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Watching The Assassination of Gianni Versace I was utterly engrossed whenever it was about serial killers but bored (and mildly repelled) when it was about gays. Can we help our own genres?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The Seth Rich conspiracy is on BBC-2 tonite, 9 pm. It will be interesting to see what editorial line is followed. Generally speaking, BBC-2 is an expression of the official British position. Not the same as the government position, more important than that. That it is being shown at all is interesting in itself, this not being something that flutters many British dovecots.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The Seth Rich programme turned out to be unexpectedly good, even exciting. I was anticipating a scissors-and-paste job but they had tracked down some pretty good talking heads (all good liberals, but not tendentiously so). Even the narrator inspired confidence (the co-star of Doc Marten). The overall tone was ‘Only in America...’.
The programme demonstrated, without actually spelling it out, that it was Julian Assange who was responsible for elevating what had originally been some routine conspiratorial knockabout into a national hysteria. One had to admire the way the old rogue managed to suggest that it was Seth Rich who had been Wikileaks’ source for the DNC email leaks though the programme didn’t point out that Assange couldn’t know one way or the other because that’s the way Wikileaks is set up. (See Fifth Estate, currently on Netflix, for details.) It was quite obvious Rich wasn’t though why Assange should want to float the idea he was wasn't. Mischief-making and desire for publicity one would think. If so, it certainly worked.
This was clearly critical because it gave the DNC (or the Clintons or whoever) a motive for murdering Rich. Not a very good one but enough for the current hysterical political situation in America to make it so. To understand the sociology any reliable account of the Titus Oates case should be consulted. Perhaps even the concordance between the names 'Seth Rich' and 'Titus Oates' plays a part. These things have a life of their own.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Watching the swathe of programmes marking the 100th anniversary of the RAF (one of the worst decisions ever, by the way) I was constantly irritated by every programme spending 90% of the time with everybody concerned going into raptures about this or that, 9% of the time going into to tear-filled sorrow about this or that and 1% of the time telling us anything important. Or at any rate technical.
PS Don't bother with Churchill (the film). Awful. And untrue, though I don't usually mind that.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | The Seth Rich programme turned out to be unexpectedly good, even exciting.... |
The Elite Left are circling the wagons. These are the same people who insist the DNC was hacked---and by the Russians no less. Forensic analysis has demonstrated conclusively that there was no hack. Moreover, Guccifer 2.0 was created by someone within the DNC to cover up for the leak.
Was any of this mentioned?
Once we acknowledge that the DNC emails were leaked and not hacked, we know someone was the leaker. If not Seth, then who?
What of the testimony of Seymour Herch? Even Donna Brazil suggested Seth Rich was involved (though she suggests the Russian had him killed).
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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All this may or may not be true but you are missing the point. Why would the DNC (or whoever) murder Rich after the damage was done? I acknowledge that the Russians might murder him to keep him from fingering them though it would be especially clumsy of them not to use a cut-out, false flag etc to ensure Rich didn't know who he was really working for.
But surely 'the Russians did it' completely ruins the right-wing conspiracy case 'the DNC did it' anyway? Unless there's something you're not telling us. Now why would that be?
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