The BBC web site has a great photo portrait of our friend Tim Daw's wonderful project -- a long barrow which will be available for people who wish to have their ashes stored somewhere rather pleasant long after they are dead and almost gone. Apparently the spaces are already starting to sell.......
Well, it's not so different from the custom of storing coffins and corpses on little shelves in cemeteries in the Canary Islands, where the ground is often too stony for burials to take place. See photo below -- a cemetery on La Gomera.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-26683268
Thanks Brian - can I plug www.thelongbarrow.com as a source of more information?
ReplyDeleteThanks Tim
When I was quite a youngster it was a treat for me to occasionally have a car trip on the moors above Sheffield - not many folk had cars where I grew up, a steel town north of the City. My favourite occupation was trying to spot prehistoric barrows out of the car window. I just loved it! Probably the wild upland space added to it all.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on getting this off the ground Tim.
ReplyDeleteI had an old beetle ('67) and used to make trips out of Sheffield up to the hills (back in the days when the Mam Tor road was still open). Brakes failed whilst coming down Winnats Pass.. that was scary, especially coming round the corner knowing about the gate at the bottom. Got through it, handbrake stopped us eventually.
Having moved with my parents southwars into Derbyshire from Yorkshire, I excavated for the first time when about 15 at Green Low Chambered Tomb in Derbyshire's Peak District. Was fortunate to have an educationally - oriented archaeologist who immediately set me to work scraping away around the tomb's forecourt. I found the matching piece of a greenstone axe within a few minutes. I am eternally grateful to T.G.Manby for introducing me to excavation.
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