Going Walkabout (British History)

[Hatty]

That's funny, Ilchester popped up in an unrelated context as the place in Devon where the Fosse Way starts. Rather bizarrely this is said to be the only road with a Roman name but fosse (meaning ditch) is a French word...and the Fosse Way leads unerringly to Lincoln and thence to the Humber. It is 182 miles long with barely a kink yet is not and never has been a major route. Its raison-d'etre seems to be a boundary road, following several parish and some county boundaries.

Royston -- there's another French connection surely -- is on the Fosse Way. Its name supposedly comes from Royse's, or variations thereof, Cross, situated at the crossroads of Fosse Way and Ermine Street. Royston is also on the Michael Line, so it seems to be trebly significant.

[Mick Harper]

If it is true that the Fosse Way, Ermine Street and the Michael Line coincide at Royston, it follows that either the Fosse Way or Ermine Street must have been originally laid out with respect to the Michael Line (otherwise the coincidence is too overwhelming). It is probable that both were laid out with respect to the Michael Line and that therefore we have here a very early national triangulated something-or-other.

[Hatty]

Royston cross-roads marks the meeting point of Icknield Way and Ermine Street. Regardless of Roise's or whoever's cross, the stone not the cross is embedded in the name. It was clearly a boundary stone, at one stage Royston lay within five parishes before it was established in Hertfordshire.

The place where Ermine Street and Fosse Way meet is Lincoln. Brian said, in the How the Ancients measured the Earth discussion, that you need "a very high pole". Lincoln Cathedral was officially the tallest building in the world for hundreds of years. The etymology is given as Lindum Colonia, Latinized version of Welsh llyn meaning pool. More like 'line column'. A straight line from Lincoln would end up just to the east of Chichester. The only seriously high ground it would cross would be the Chilterns near Tring (where the modern Ridgeway route ends).

[Ishmael]

[Hatty]

I haven't thought about may poles much but just today reading about Elmet, a British or 'Celtic' kingdom in Yorkshire that flourished for a couple of hundred years after the Romans left, I found that Barwick-in-Elmet (only one of two place-names to retain 'Elmet') has the largest may pole in the country. Not expecting to find anything beyond a rather phoney country custom I then see there are two hills, Hall Tower Hill and Wendel Hill side by side which are described as a motte and bailey castle and an Iron Age hill fort.

The so-called hill fort is partly obscured by a large clump of apparently rogue sycamores but is cone-shaped far as I can tell. Such a large example is almost unknown outside Wessex according to the archaeological report. Maybe the conical mound was built by Normans though they are usually said to have razed everything to the ground in the great Harrying of the North.

[Hatty]

Talking of dykes and banks, it's illuminating to see how the kingdom of Elmet with Aberford in its midst was protected http://www.barwickinelmethistoricalsociety.com/elmetmap.jpg

Becca Bank is said to have been constructed as a defence against the Romans. The east side of the Roman road was swampland; clearly the bogs provided adequate protection.

Castleford is the site of a neolithic henge as well as timber circles, smaller henges and numerous barrows. Most if not all finds are the result of salvage excavations arising from the A1(M) extension and Ferrybridge power station.

In Domesday the only mention of moors is in connection with Otley, to the south of Ilkley. Strange since Yorkshire is famous for its moors. Ilkley, which overlooks the Wharfe, was a wasteland when it passed to the Percy family and not because of the Harrying. It's almost as if the plateau had been placed out of bounds.

[Hatty]

My sister has sent a sprig of wormwood from the garden of the Roman villa at Fishbourne in Sussex. In her note she wrote "the Romans apparently introduced a lot of herbs and plants into Britain".

This cannot be so in the case of wormwood, the OE is given as wermod * for which all manner of translations are offered such as 'man-courage', 'spirit-mother' (the Latin, absinthium, is said to come from Greek meaning bitter which is a quite different emphasis). How about wermod = Hermes. It is clear that worm/orm is the same as herm and a similar connection exists between wormwood and wisdom, which is definitely the province of 'angels' and heroes not mere peasants.

Could there be a connection between worm, the earth-turner, and George, the tiller of the earth I wonder, i.e. a connection between worm/Hermes and George.

I will try to take a photo of the sprig. The leaves are fleur-de-lis in appearance, silvery-green in colour (might be faded though).

* There are variations -- wyrmod, weremod, vermod, uermodae, uuermod, wurmod, wearmod, weremod, weremot, wermot. Wormwood is clearly English, nothing like Artemisia or A. absinthium.

[Hatty]

This is interesting (well, I think so). I read that most toll houses were hexagonal. A couple of days ago I met a stone expert who claims that he's traced a hexagon encompassing various 'sacred' sites like Glastonbury, Stonehenge, etc. and on his journeys along the ley lines he found hexagons or Solomon's seals in churches on the route.

Perhaps it's a coincidence but Telford, who designed toll houses as well as almost everything else to do with transport, was a stonemason by trade. The point is, they were instantly recognisable just as a stone circle would have been.

[Ishmael]

Hexagonal.

Giant's Causeway.

[Hatty]

The stone expert who 'found' the hexagon started his talk by saying that six occurs in nature (six petalled flowers, six-legged insects). He then said that the cross had six arms originally but didn't show any of those artefacts you suspect so much to back up the claim.

[Mick Harper]

If the Giant's Causeway is natural and hexagons are oh-so-natural, then we should be inundated by natural hexagonal geological thingumyjigs. Could somebody start the list here.

[Chad]

Klfshamarsvk - Iceland.

[Chad]

Devils Postpile - California.

[Chad]

Snake River Rock - Washington State.

[Chad]

Somenationalparkorother - New Zealand.