the newsletter of the friends of wincobank hill issue 3...
TRANSCRIPT
Light up the Hill 2014
Wincobank hill...probably the best view in Sheffield!!
It’s that time of year again when the nights are
drawing in, the leaves are falling off the trees and
the weather takes its turn for the worst but it’s not
all bad news as it’s also the time when we run our
annual event of the Light up the Hill lantern walk.
For those of you who are not familiar with the
event, it’s when we escort groups of children and
their parents up onto Wincobank Hill with the
lanterns they make to experience a memorable night
of awe and wonder, a chance to see the twinkling of
lights and stars as well as parts of our magnificent
city from one of the greatest vantage points in
Sheffield!
Once at the top there is a tale of bygone times when
this land was very different, a time of wolves and
threats of armies from foreign lands, a time when
the people here had to build fortifications and use
the resources around them to make into weapons
for protection.
There were no such things as mortice locks or the
police to call upon, just men in all weathers on
watch, with swords and spears of iron they drew out
of the rocks, to ensure your safety while you slept.
The children themselves are what make this event
as they themselves make the lanterns that see them
through the dark meandering paths of woodland on
Wincobank Hill. Hinde House School with the
Roots of Iron team and Wincobank Youth Group
(based at Upper Wincobank Chapel) along with
Anna-Mercedes Wear, a community artist, have all
been very busy.
Come and join us!! This annual event is getting stronger year on year
and it offers kids the opportunity to do something
they would not normally do in a group safely so they
can experience and appreciate their locality as it is at
night, a night of atmosphere and local historical
events that they won’t forget.
Below are some links on Youtube of previous events
and links to some of the groups on Facebook.
On Youtube--http://tinyurl.com/mfz7rzf
On facebook-- http://tinyurl.com/lkgusv8
Roots of Iron--http://tinyurl.com/m8olj3p
and the most importantly the Friends
https://www.wincobankhill.btck.co.uk
Join the Wincobank lantern procession
If you enjoy the procession then do consider coming
to join us. All details can be found on our website
(see above) but you can just come along to our
monthly meetings held at the chapel. Out
membership includes a wide span of ages, from
teenagers to senior citizens and considered to be one
of the most active friends groups in South Yorkshire
(if not the world!). We are always keen to embrace
new members and the skills they bring with them,
whether it is making tea, gardening or land
surveying!
Join us for a light fantastic on the hill!
The Newsletter of the Friends of Wincobank Hill Issue 3 Donations welcome Autumn 2014
The Newsletter of the Friends of Wincobank Hill Issue 3 Autumn 2014
A visit to Caerau On Shared Ground 16th-19
th July 2014
An pop-up interpretation panel at Caerau
As Friends of Wincobank Hill we were intrigued by
the On Shared Ground initiative which aims to link
communities that have shared interests in urban
hillforts. We knew that very few hillforts have
survived in urban areas for obvious reasons and felt a
link with the similarly placed sites in Cardiff and
Aberdeen. We had met with some of the people from
Caerau, near Cardiff, when they came to Wincobank.
We hope sometime to have the opportunity to visit the
Aberdeen hill fort.
We have long been fascinated by ancient sites, for
differing reasons. The link with our long-ago ancestors
and the ways they expressed and satisfied their human
needs and desires and the search for knowledge and
understanding about the world and their own place in
it, sheds light on our own condition.
Earthworks at Caerau
We found obvious similarities between Wincobank
and Caerau. Immediately noticeable was the lack of
local awareness, [no-one we asked could tell us how to
get there], and the sound of a nearby busy road, ours
being the M1- theirs the A4232. The physical locations
of both hill forts are similar being on 'Hog Back'
sandstone formations. Both hill forts overlook rivers,
rivers: Caerau has the River Ely and Wincobank has
the mighty Don! Both leading eventually to the sea
and navigable in earlier times.
The finds from the two archaeological digs at
Caerau, dated from the Neolithic age to the present
day and opened our eyes to the possible long history
of settlement on the wider reaches of Wincobank
Hill. We should remember that Wincobank Hill has
produced evidence of Mesolithic flints and Bronze
Age barrows (burial mounds) as well as the Iron
Age hillfort. Much of this evidence is now, sadly,
probably lost through urban development and the
covering up by council rubbish dumps, making
allotments and playing fields over what old maps
indicated was an “Ancient Settlement”. People have
living memory of cottages and of Wincobank Hall –
a meeting place for famous activists in the anti-
slavery and social reform movement: as valuable a
history as any other.
The range of ceramic finds from Caerau
It was of great interest to actually witness the
finding of relics from the past and to realise the
significance of different layers and colours of soil
through talking to the archaeology students on the
dig, and to see the involvement of local
schoolchildren. We were able to handle some recent
finds, a piece of a pottery bowl from the Neolithic
period and an axe head, and to marvel at the careful
decoration on a household pot from the first century
BC. Arrowheads and flint scrapers from the
Neolithic and Bronze Ages are constantly turning
up plus a medieval arrowhead and a lead musket
ball from c.1700AD. In addition to finds, new
features were also discovered, whilst we were there.
A new stone- based road was uncovered that looked
as though it was leading along one edge of the site
towards the church or possibly a strengthening of
the outer edge of the hill fort. The evidence of
Caerau being an ancient sacred site include a recent
find of a small lead curse roll only found in Roman
temples and the medieval church, used up till the
1970's. This is typical of how people have regarded
the significance of high places since the earliest of
times. Although our chapel does not fulfil these
criteria, not being placed on the top of the hill, it is
highly likely that were we able to look for it, evidence
of this kind of activity would be found.
Between earthworks and church-a metalled road??
The evidence of Caerau being an ancient sacred site
include a recent find of a small lead curse roll only
found in Roman temples and the medieval church,
used up till the 1970's. This is typical of how people
have regarded the significance of high places since the
earliest of times. Although our chapel does not fulfil
these criteria, not being placed on the top of the hill, it
is highly likely that were we able to look for it,
evidence of this kind of activity would be found.
An impressive fragment of an Iron Age pot from Caerau.
Joseph Hunter, a Sheffield archaeologist, ' gave an
account of round 'tumuli' situated close to the hill fort
at Wincobank until the late 18th
century. These features
resembled 'barrows 'that Hunter had observed at other
sites and comprised 'two or three round tumuli....near
the summit, and therefore near the great earthwork'.
[Gatty 1869,24].
We visited Tinkins wood and St. Lythan's
chambered tombs built c.3,700BC Situated within
a few miles of the Caerau site. Here, for the first
time, we came across two sturdy metal devices
that enclosed recorded information about the
tombs that could be accessed through turning a
handle This seemed an interesting and weather-
proof way of communicating with visitors.
Nearby megalithic sites
As a look-out post, a defensible space, a statement
of ownership, a focal gathering place for the
community and a site of luminal significance, both
hill forts are superbly placed. They were a
supremely important for these reasons in the past
and their value should be recognised giving the
areas around a meaning for the widest community
that they may have been felt to lack. Friends of
Wincobank Hill have joined with the On Shared
Ground project in recording local people's
memories and feelings about the hill.
FOWH member Ken Allen overseas finds sieving.
This will be a valuable and up-to-date resource for
conserving its long, fascinating history and perhaps
helping people's perception of these spaces to evolve
constructively. Involving the local schools in the
ways that we at Wincobank are doing, and what we
saw at Caerau on our visit, may be a means of
ensuring that there will be no further erosion of the
integrity of these sites by highlighting their
significance within the community and beyond.
Authors : Hilary Allen and Ken Allen
The Tour de France
at Wincobank Hill On Sunday 6
th July 2014 the world’s elite cyclists
raced up Jenkin Road to the delight of an estimated
20,000 spectators who lined the route.
Spectators watching as the cyclists come out of the steepest
section on the entire route.
On Wincobank Common the Friends welcomed
visitors into the “Iron Age Village” area to see an
imaginative reconstruction of Queen Cartimandua’s
roundhouse created by children from six local schools
with help from Heeley City Farm. You could try your
hand at pottery, wood turning, weaving– and in
honour of the world’s greatest cycling event it was
possible to fan the heat in an Iron Age smelting
furnace by bicycle power courtesy of a collaboration
between The University of Sheffield, SCC Woodlands
and the HLF funded project-Roots of Iron.
Those who didnt make the Peloton helped make iron in Le Tour
de Steel!
On the circular monument to Queen Cartimandua our
Wincobank re-enactment group told the story of her
historic decision to turn Caractacus over to the
Romans.
Elsewhere on the hill, artist Paul Evans worked with
local children, University students, and groups to
prepare a piece of landscape art that brought together
elements of the Iron Age, the Hill and the cycling
theme. It was a very successful installation and
attracted constant stream of admirers over the
weekend. If you venture on to the common today
you can still see the traces of the installation
although it is of course best viewed from the air.
Art and Politics-Paul Evans talks through the installation to
David Blunkett MP
Its not Christmas yet ....BUT...
The friends will be holding their Xmas social on
FoWH Christmas Social – Thursday 4th December
2014. Do bring yourself and offers of food for our
“Bring and Share”. The social will take place at the
chapel from 6.30pm.
POETS CORNER The newsletter is always keen to attract letters and
poems and other thought. This issue we have a short
one for the lantern procession.
A trail of twinkling lights The marching of small feet
All meander through the woods to a drummers beat.
Byron Cowling
Newsletter submissions are welcome at any time, but deadlines
for each issue are 1st Nov and 1
st May each year.
Contributions can be sent in any format (hand-written, typed,
email, floppy disk, CD-ROM, etc).
Newsletter Editor: Byron Cowling [email protected]
Dept of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S1 4ET