Chris Catling
Chris has been digging since he was 16, and is currently co-Director with Tim Darvill of an excavation near Cirencester looking at a linked Neolithic long barrow and causewayed enclosure. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and writes their fortnightly Salon newsletter (http://www.sal.org.uk/salon/), considered compulsory reading by many in the heritage sector for its reporting of the policy issues that impact on archaeology. He is the best-selling author of travel guides to Venice, Florence, Amsterdam, Madeira, London and Crete, and with countless popular articles on British archaeology, he now joins us as contributing editor.
Morris and the Prince - and much more
Written by Chris Catling Tuesday, 15 September 2009 14:08
Morris and the Prince
Having just written a new guide to Kelmscott Manor, your diarist has a growing admiration for William Morris, whose country home this was. Morris was a true radical, and his ideas continue to reverberate, having now caused a rift between HRH The Prince of Wales and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (the SPAB).
Morris founded the SPAB in 1877 to protect ancient buildings, like Kelmscott Manor, from over-restoration. The SPAB’s manifesto, which every would-be member has to sign, is one of the best statements of conservation philosophy ever penned – remarkably, Morris scribbled it down on the back of an envelope as he travelled to Broadway with his family by horse-drawn carriage, angered at what he had just seen going on in the name of ‘restoration’ in Burford parish church.
Déjà vu, Stones and bones, Sunspots and destiny, ‘Dr Livingroom, I presume?’, Mosaic funding, A hermit’s life, Leaping to the defence of the church
Written by Chris Catling Tuesday, 14 July 2009 10:17
Déjà vu
The Times published a letter on 2 June 2009 signed by Professors Martin Biddle and Brian Fagan, who called on the nation not to forget the 150th anniversary of the historic lecture given by John Evans to the Society of Antiquaries on 2 June 1859, in which he presented crucial evidence for human antiquity – flint implements found in association with the remains of extinct mammals some 20ft below the ground in a gravel pit in the suburbs of Amiens, the capital of Picardy. This momentous lecture, they said, was in danger of being overlooked in the otherwise very proper tributes being paid to Darwin’s subsequent publication of On The Origin of Species.
Jargon, beauty, the South Downs, a heritage hero, Robin Hood and dragons...
Written by Chris Catling Thursday, 07 May 2009 14:16
Jargon: which words would you ban?
The Local Government Association has published a list of words and phrases that it thinks council staff and members should not use because they make it harder for the electorate to understand what councils do. In truth, many of them should simply be banned because they are empty of meaning. Much fun has been had at the expense of one particular phrase – ‘predictors of beaconicity’ – which originated in a Department for Communities and Local Government report of 2007 called: Predictors of Beaconicity: which local authorities are most likely to apply to, be short listed and awarded through the Beacon Scheme.
Read more: Jargon, beauty, the South Downs, a heritage hero, Robin Hood and dragons...
Allotments, spearing bison, Brookside, Brown's museum, the Olympics, nighthawking...
Written by Chris Catling Friday, 01 May 2009 00:00
Let it grow
One can only applaud the National Trust’s decision to create 1,000 allotments within its disused walled gardens and on land within its estates, even if that number is tiny compared to the 100,000 people currently on allotment waiting lists. Archaeologists have always made good gardeners: one Winchester-based pottery specialist, sadly no longer with us, used to win all the prizes at the local produce show. Another well-known Roman archaeologist retired to the west of England some years ago where he has the perfect arrangement with the local pub: he does their garden in return for free beer. Yet another busy and well-known former county archaeologist finds time not only to manage an allotment, but also to tend the lovely public gardens round Kettles Yard and St Peter’s Church, on Castle Hill, in Cambridge; while a fourth regularly sends correspondents bulletins on the state of his gooseberries along with learned papers on medieval archaeology in Wales.
Read more: Allotments, spearing bison, Brookside, Brown's museum, the Olympics, nighthawking...
From Festivals to Garden Sheds...
Written by Chris Catling Friday, 03 April 2009 00:00
When, at the IFA’s Liverpool conference in April 2004, I argued for a festival of archaeology to compare with the superb festivals of literature, history, science. jazz, folk and rock music that we already have in this country, I could find not a soul in the archaeological establishment to back the idea. Then, in 2007, I joined the Current Archaeology editorial team and found in Andrew Selkirk someone who had arrived at the same conclusion and who was prepared to commit the necessary resources. As a result, the UK’s first ever Archaeology Festival was launched at the British Museum last year, and was a resounding success.
Archaeology Festival Cardiff 2009
Written by Chris Catling Thursday, 02 April 2009 16:34
After only two years, we are already beginning to establish some Festival traditions. One is to tackle a ‘difficult’ subject. Last year Alex Bayliss, of English Heritage, explained Bayesian statistics; at each step in her idiots’ guide, instead of declaring QED, she said ‘woof, woof’, like a school teacher keeping her class alert and amused. This year nobody barked at us but we did get clear and entertaining explanations of the difficult science of the genome and what it can tell us about human migration and the settlement of northern Europe after the Ice Age.
I am told there were many brilliant papers that I missed; with two sessions running simultaneously, one can’t take everything in. But the highlights for me included Alison Sheridan’s enthralling account of tracing jadeite axe heads to their rock source high in the Alps, Sam Moorehead proving how much can be learned about late Roman Britain from Valentinian coinage, Steve Mithen’s riveting account of excavations at sites in Jordan on the crux of the Neolithic revolution, naughty jokes from Bettany Hughes about the physical attractions of Helen of Troy, and Francis Pryor saying, as he opened the envelope containing the name of the winner of the reader poll for Archaeologist of the Year, ‘Oh please don’t let it be an archaeological theorist!’
Heritage Protection Bill – RIP
Written by Chris Catling Friday, 05 December 2008 13:05
In 2002, launching the first ever ‘Heritage Counts’ digest of statistics on the health of the historic environment, Tessa Jowell, then Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport, pulled a surprise speech out of her back pocket: ‘I am launching a thorough review of heritage protection laws,' she said, ‘with the aim of making them more transparent and accountable.’
Seven years on, after exhaustive consultation, legal drafting, impact assessment and select committee scrutiny, just as the ‘once-in-a-generation’ Heritage Protection Bill was ready to be placed before Parliament, Andy Burnham, the current Secretary of State, used the launch of the 2008 ‘Heritage Counts’ to warn that the Bill might be a victim of the so-called ‘credit crunch’. Instead of debating archaeology during the 2008/2009 session of Parliament, it looks as if MPs and peers will instead be passing their time voting on emergency measures to keep the country’s banking industry afloat.
Stonehenge: class barrier or stock control?
Written by Chris Catling Monday, 06 October 2008 13:40
The world’s media reported in August that a huge timber fence was used to separate ordinary mortals from the privileged classes at Stonehenge. Josh Pollard, of Bristol University, whose team of diggers has found the post pits for a 20ft high fence snaking for nearly 3km (2 miles) around the stone circle, was quoted as describing the palisade as an ‘open structure which would not have been defensive and was too high to be practical for controlling livestock.’ The most plausible explanation, he said, ‘is that it was built to keep the lower classes from seeing what exactly their rulers and the priestly class were doing’.
