26 October: Dig the whole day through.

Mrs T and I went to Richborough Roman Fort this morning, a few miles from Canterbury. There are high walls still above ground but much more remains underground. We had booked a tour to the excavations, along with several other adults and children. It’s one of those places where the sea has retreated. In Roman times it was an island, linked by a causeway to the mainland, famous for oysters. The former sea is now farmland, the sea a good 2 miles away. All change!

The tour was most interesting, led by people who knew their subject and could speak to the non-expert. At various times between 43 AD and the great Roman retreat, the place was a garrison and a trading port and there is a sizable town under the earth. The bit that was being excavated had been identified as an amphitheatre in Tudor times, but this was the first modern dig after a local surveyor had a peek in 1850 or so. His plan did not fit the one the technology found from drone flights, till the scientists allowed for the shift in magnetic North, which aligned the two plans exactly.

What we could see was of course trenches cut through the soil, but one of them included a section of the wall of the bullring, which was painted: only 17 others have been identified throughout the Empire. Experts are coming down to have a close look and try to interpret the painting, meanwhile the young archaeologists, and a couple of elderly ones, were still digging and cleaning the painting with smokers’ stiff toothbrushes. A nail brush would be too hard.

There was also a wall of what had been thought to be an entrance to the building but turned out to be the holding area for the beasts. Grooves for the hurdles to keep them apart. A few yards away, a complete cat’s skeleton was found, bagged up for analysis, and nicknamed Bagpuss. Coins, pottery, jewellery; there are many finds to be examined and recorded.

And now the archaeologists have to hurry as the farmer wants his land back in the middle of next month. The walls will be covered up again, but carefully, to ensure the safety of the relics for possibly a few hundred more years and to leave the surface safe and sound for cattle to graze over.

It was a privilege to see this amphitheatre; no photographs allowed at the dig, so no photographs in the blog either. The view above shows part of the remaining Roman fort.

Skaters are tidy people

This is another view of the disused car park – disused by parking cars, at least, but taken over by roller skaters and skate boarders. There’s space enough to work up speed safely, while the redundant plastic barriers can be used to define a course.

Yesterday morning these young skaters were picking litter from the bushes beside the railway line. Thank you to them!

(The building to the left of the photo is Canterbury West’s historic signal box, once installed at central London’s Blackfriars Station. It is, unusually, fixed above the railway instead of to one side, and is an historic listed building.)

Gilbert White’s New Year Reflection.

Scabious, common on chalky land, as around Selborne.

Gilbert White, Anglican clergyman and pioneer naturalist, is writing to his friend, Thomas Pennant, reflecting on his studies and writing. Enjoy the XVIII Century prose, but reflect: what observations should I be sharing that might induce any of my readers to pay a more ready attention to the wonders of the Creation, too frequently overlooked as common occurrences? Dip your (metaphorical) pen!

If the writer should at all appear to have induced any of his readers to pay a more ready attention to the wonders of the Creation, too frequently overlooked as common occurrences; or if he should by any means, through his researches, have lent an helping hand towards the enlargement of the boundaries of historical and topographical knowledge; or if he should have thrown some small light upon ancient customs and manners, and especially on those that were monastic, his purpose will be fully answered. But if he should not have been successful in any of these his intentions, yet there remains this consolation behind—that these his pursuits, by keeping the body and mind employed, have, under Providence, contributed to much health and cheerfulness of spirits, even to old age:—and, what still adds to his happiness, have led him to the knowledge of a circle of gentlemen whose intelligent communications, as they have afforded him much pleasing information, so, could he flatter himself with a continuation of them, would they ever be deemed a matter of singular satisfaction and improvement.

Gil. White.
Selborne, January 1st, 1788.

 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE: LETTERS to THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.

from “The Natural History of Selborne” by Gilbert White)

Vandalism takes many forms

We can feel beset by vandals. Walls get tagged with graffiti that has no artistic merit. Later in the year I hope to see good results from guerilla gardening on a wall near my place.

There was a bitter-sweet story locally last week. The preservation society for the long-lost railway behind our house, which would be doing good business today, decided to open up this subway under the trackbed – one of the oldest railway bridges

 in the world, dating back to the early 1830s. It had been filled with rubble some 50 years ago.

Indeed they did open it up but it is less than 2m high inside, and deemed unsafe by the city council, so it is already sealed off with steel gates. However there was another reason for closing it off – to prevent its being tagged.

When the subway was built there was farmland at either end and the footpath led across fields to the farmhouse and on to the next village. There is the remains of an old hedge alongside the footpath which had an undergrowth of celandines at this time of year. Now it is barren, thanks to over-enthusiastic spraying of weedkiller by the city council’s contractors. There was meadowsweet in summertime too, for this path ran by a ditch, now covered over.

Celandines look like this, reflecting the sun. I won’t share the barren hedge-bottom with you. Maybe the contractors found it easier to kill everything rather than scythe or strim the nettles once or twice a year. Maybe I’m the only one who’s noticed, or cares. Maybe the wild flowers were too scruffy.

For the last two summers a bed of ‘wild flowers’ has appeared on the playing field that now occupies the bottom of the old farm. But they don’t look wild, just scruffy.

One good thing about student landlords’ laziness is that many wild plants stand a chance in their gardens, as these celandines do next-door but one. I hope you can see ladybird biedronka in there!

Celandines are dear to me as when I was little a kind teacher introduced them to me. I was away from my family, allowed just one parental visit per week, only able to wave from the window to my siblings, even having my Easter egg confiscated to be pooled with all the other children’s. Our crime was to have been ill. We were in a convalescent home. The fresh air was good, but there was no thought for our spiritual or mental well-being, except among the staff caring for us day to day. They did not make the rules.

The celandines were a promise of new life, outside the gates. Now they remind me of a greater promise of new life. Shame on the city council!