I was very sad to hear that one of the towers at Clifford Castle has collapsed, due to the heavy rain we've been having.
The owner of the castle had been opening it to the public for twenty eight days a year (I went up there with a group a few years ago, and had a good look round). But now he says he's closing the site, because he can't take the risk of anyone getting hurt. He's working with Historic England now to see how the site can be stabilised and made safe.
Tim Hoverd came to Cusop Village Hall on Thursday evening to talk about the Herefordshire Hoard (or 'how can two metal detectorists be so spectacularly stupid?'). It's a talk he says he's given "too many times", but it's part of his job to publicise things like this, to show what happens when people don't follow the law in metal detecting.
Put briefly, two metal detectorists from South Wales walked some fields near Leominster without the land owner's permission (they asked the tenant farmer, who did not have the authority to allow it), and they found a hoard of silver coins from the Viking era. They did not declare the find, as they were supposed to do, but eventually produced a few pieces to satisfy the Finds Liason Officer - an arm ring, a ring, a crystal orb bound with gold, and a badly damaged coin.
They intended to sell the rest of the coins - it was later estimated that there were around 300 of them. But the police quickly became involved. The detectorists had taken photos of their finds, which is how the archaeologists could estimate how many coins were in the hoard. Some were found when their homes were searched. Others had been already sold, but once the story became public, it became almost impossible to sell any more of the coins on the open market, because they are very distinctive.
If archaeologists had been able to study the hoard, as a whole, they would have been able to tell a lot more about the dating, and the conditions at the time the hoard was buried, and who was most likely to have buried it. From the few pieces that were recovered - about eighty coins were found - they can tell that the hoard was likely buried at the time that the Great Viking Army was sweeping across Saxon England. The coins were mostly from Wessex and Mercia - and the designs on the coins showed an alliance between King Alfred the Great and his Mercian counterpart Ceolwulf II. Some are struck with only one king's head, but there are others with both, known as "The Two Emperors" coins.
If the detectorists had declared the hoard, they would have got a huge payout. As it was, they got six and ten years in prison, and one of the coin dealers they tried to sell the coins through was also prosecuted. They were involved with the criminal underworld in South Wales, and owed someone nasty a lot of money - and Tim Hoverd suspects that the bulk of the coins went to some crime boss, and may never be seen again.
Earlier in the evening, before the talk, Tim sat down with the committee of the Cusop Castle dig to flesh out a few details. The dig will take place from Friday 5th June to Sunday 14th June, and they are looking for volunteers. It won't all be heavy digging - there are plenty of jobs around site for people of all sorts of varying ability, and full training is given. I'm going to be there as much as I can - bearing in mind that I was last a professional archaeologist over thirty years ago, and a full day's digging now would probably kill me!
If anyone is interested in volunteering, they should contact Cusop History Group - there's a link on their front page. Under sixteen year olds must be accompanied by an adult who is taking a full part in the dig, and Tim has a strict No Dogs policy.
Also at the talk, to sell copies of his new book, was Joseph Emmett. It's called New Roots, Ancient Lands: Walking Through Herefordshire's History, and it looks very interesting - I bought a copy, but it might be some time before I get round to reading it. In it, he visits local sites like Arthur's Stone and Mouse Castle, Snodhill Castle and the Gloucester to Hereford Canal, as well as other sites right across the county.
The next Cusop History Group talk will be "The Murder of Katherine Armstrong and the Trial of Herbert Rowse Armstrong" with Tony Pryce, introduced by Peter Ford. It will be at Cusop Village Hall on Thursday 16th April at 7pm. Entry is £2, with donations for refreshments.
I generally go to the Baskie on Wednesday nights to sing in the acoustic session there - the new picture on the sidebar is me singing one of the filk songs I learned when I went to a Filk Convention in Norwich recently. Filk is Science Fiction Folk Music - back in the 1970s, when someone was typing out a convention programme (on a manual typewriter!, to be mimeographed) they meant to type "folk" and missed the key - and it's been "filk" ever since.
So all sorts of music are welcome there - this week we had a lady fiddler who we hope will come again. She mainly plays folk, but was a welcome addition to House of the Rising Sun, which everyone joined in on.
Next week is the 13th anniversary of the session, so we're hoping for a good night. Starts at about 8pm, goes on to 11pm, and we usually finish with Jolene, which is Joe's favourite song.
And when we came out at 11pm last night, there was snow everywhere.
The post box has been looking a little naked lately, but now there's a new topper!
Last week the Castle closed for routine maintenance, but this week they're open again.
At the moment, the Castle Trust is working with local primary schools to design a new interactive model about the Castle's history, which will be unveiled in May.
The latest newsletter also mentions a lot of Trusts and charitable foundations which have been supporting work at the Castle. These include the Moondance Foundation, Adrian Swire Charitable Trust, Mumford Memorial Trust, Community Foundation Wales, Simon Gibson Charitable Trust and Oakdale Trust. Hay Castle is also one of only eleven recipients of the Colwinston Trust award, celebrating innovation, excellence, creative expression and the power of story telling. Other recipients include the British Library, National Library of Wales, Welsh National Theatre, BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Rambert Dance Company - that's quite an impressive list to be part of!
The Castle is also preparing for this year's Weekend of Mistakes, the third year it's been held here. The weekend in question is 20th to 22nd March, and they have a website at www.weekendofmistakes.org
The focus of the weekend is to explore financial and economic ideas.
This morning, I was whisked off to Brecon to give a talk about archaeology to a dementia group there. I was talking about some of the digs I'd been on, and showing slides, and I had a few things to hand round, too, including my trowel!
The group meets at Kensington Baptist Church, near the Castle Hotel, which is a lovely modern building. I gave the talk in the chapel part, and we had lunch in the hall (there's a proper kitchen - we had fish and chips). All the people in the group were absolutely lovely, and told me all sorts of things about the local history of Brecon, and the farms they grew up in, and so on. They asked interesting questions during the talk too. I'd prepared quite a bit, but I was ready for the talk to go in several different directions, depending on what people were interested in. In the end, it even included Martello Towers on the South Coast and the Wrexham Lager Brewery!
Apparently there is another archaeologist who is one of the volunteers for the group, and she recently gave them a talk about Orkney and the archaeology up there (which is fascinating - I'm sorry I didn't get to meet her).
So I had a lovely time - and I got a great compliment. One of the ladies said that sometimes, speakers came and they couldn't wait for them to finish, but they wished I could have gone on for longer.
So it was rather later than I had hoped when I got back to Hay, and I only caught the tail end of the Cusop Castle group meeting in the Swan. Still, it was great to get back in touch with Denise Darbyshire again - who is doing research into the history of settlement in Cusop along with Peter Ford who lives across the road from me.
Next week, I'll be nice and early for the talk at Cusop Village Hall on the Herefordshire Hoard - the talk starts at 7.30pm and will be given by Tim Hoverd, the archaeologist from Herefordshire Council. The group organising the dig at Cusop Castle this summer will be able to have a short meeting with him before the talk begins, and there will be a form available for anyone to sign if they are interested in being a volunteer on the dig. Some people have already expressed an interest. The dig is taking place at the beginning of June. For further information, email the Cusop History Group.
