Gretel and Aerial Photographer Hedley Thorne visit Wayland Smithy

Dear friends, new and old, welcome to an episode that was recorded yesterday in the Oxfordshire sunshine but took a while to publish; huge apologies for the delay and also for the absence of our readings.  What a joy an honour it was to spend time with Hedley; such a lovely human being, whose curious and boyish attitude was delightful and charming.  Please find him on social media and YouTube and follow his wonderful work.  On my way home I spent a quick but incredible hour in Laycock Abbey, which should feature in tonight’s episode.  Thank you to kind Hedley, the Gabriel Varden of Didcot.  I look forward to our next rencontre. 🙋‍♀️

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:39

I'm just walking along the ridgeway, half an hour late, to meet adorable Mr. Headley Thorge. Lovely to me.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Oh my goodness. How are you?

SPEAKER_03 0:54

I'm gonna do a little test here. Would you like to say hello and see if it comes up, Mr. Well, I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna see if it pops up.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Hello, Gretel. Lovely to be here with you. I hope this is coming across okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:05

Well, you've got a very nice voice. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

You're so here.

SPEAKER_03 1:09

Let's stop this, right? Yes. And you look very nice today. So do you, Gretel.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

SPEAKER_03 1:21

Right, after a bit of uh Gretel getting lost and being an being actually being a bit of an idiot because we're meant to meet at Wayland Smithy, and I I put the directions at well, actually, I'm not going to bore you with it all, but the point is I'm late and Headley's kindly not minded. So it's thank you so much for the city.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

How could I not mind on a day like today? Isn't it wonderful?

SPEAKER_03 1:42

Well, do you want to describe the weather today? Because it is beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

So we've got kind of a mixture of fluffy white clouds and an impossibly blue sky, especially over there. Look at that, and little aircraft buzzing over as well. And and we're in front of this wonderful copse with one of the most famous long barrows in the world just sitting there in front of us.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

Oh, it's absolutely wonderful. And it's the first time I've come. I've come to the White Horse before, and I could have done a bit of a sneak preview yesterday, but I didn't want to because I thought, well, you can tell me all about it. And I know you said you had lots of information with you, but I would rather a blag, a bit of a should we just wing it together and have a look. And also it's about describing what you see as much as anything else, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 2:28

The first thing I mean you'll notice when you go through here. I mean, there's a lot of people here now. Yeah. Earlier it was just myself, which was really strange to me.

SPEAKER_04 2:35

Really?

SPEAKER_00 2:36

And I had, as I was describing earlier, this this what I call an atavistic feeling.

SPEAKER_04 2:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

And it's what that means is you know when you go somewhere special like this, that's very old, very ancient. When you arrive there, you're having the same feelings that your ancestors had when they arrived there too.

SPEAKER_03 2:53

So atavistic actually means what?

SPEAKER_00 2:55

I think it means it's kind of a it's a common feeling that you get in a certain place that people before you had as well.

SPEAKER_03 3:02

That's wonderful. I need to, I don't know, I have used that before. No, no, I'll have a quick check, you're right, but I've heard people use it and I just wouldn't have had the confidence to use a dead hedge here.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Yeah. This was all of this was kind of shrubs a few months ago. Okay. And what they've done, the the Ridgeway uh trail, they've produced, they've cut it down, but they've turned it into a dead hedge for animals, and then they've planted a new hedge in front of it. So it's going to go back to how it was, but with more undergrowth than the animals.

SPEAKER_03 3:30

Brilliant. So it basically can provide habitat for all types of animals.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

That's right. That's right. And of course, it gives us a nice open view of the long barrow as well.

SPEAKER_03 3:42

Yeah, no, it's wonderful. Let's let's just let these people go. And they're they're are they so the trees in front of us are they're beech trees.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

They were planted, I believe, in the 1800s. So you have to imagine prior to that, this probably would have been open fields. And so the long barrow was on on the crest of a hill with a commanding kind of position. So I think there's probably very dignified people in there, buried in there.

SPEAKER_03 4:08

And who who would have planted the beech trees? The uh landowners of the bridge.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Yes, landowners. I think beech trees, I'm I might be wrong on this, but certainly clumps of beech trees were maybe a little bit of a status symbol.

SPEAKER_03 4:19

You see them along the ridgeway in the clumps, and I think they were kind of and lining uh routes to old stately houses and things like that. So we've got obviously this, and we've got the white horse. Do you know in what we're talking about in terms of the dates and how they compare?

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Yeah, so uh Wayland Smithy is very old. We're actually standing on the Ridgeway. A lot of people call this the oldest road in Britain. So this is roughly 5,000 years old, so looking very nearly. I mean, it's and it it's formed in the way that ants form a line. Oh so you would have had people trading things like animals and such.

SPEAKER_04 4:58

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

And they wanted a safe passage to get to places, you know, different places to trade.

SPEAKER_04 5:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

And the problem is people got attacked a lot back then. Yeah. So you need to be on the brow of the hill so you can see over, but you also don't need too much gradient so that you can make more progress in a day with animals. You don't want the animals getting weary.

SPEAKER_04 5:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

And so the Ridgeway just kind of formed.

SPEAKER_04 5:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

And I think Wayland Smithy is about the same age. It might even be just a little earlier.

SPEAKER_03 5:26

So it's impacted. Is that right? And chalk maybe. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

So this is this is chalklands here. Yeah. And Wayland Smithy was built probably only a handful of years after West Kennett Longbarrow. Okay. The big one that people know in Wiltshire.

SPEAKER_03 5:40

And you don't we and it was built as a kind of well, I mean, people obviously think it's built as a burial mound, which obviously it was, but also was it more of a do you think it started as a a waypoint or I I think it probably so you see these barrows in fields, these kind of bowl barrows and stuff.

SPEAKER_04 5:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

I I think I'll have to check later. I haven't done much research. Same, same thing. From what I know I think it was a couple of barrows. Yeah. And then it was kind of created into a long barrow. Now what you see at the front here, these big stones are called orthostats. Now they about 60, 70 years ago were just lying around. So they have been put up at the front in a way that they in the way that they think they might have been. And then you've got smaller stones going down the side, which just sh demark the edge of the barrow.

SPEAKER_03 6:31

Right. And but that wouldn't have happened now, would it? That would have seen as meddling, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 6:35

But it would I don't know. I I know Stonehenge was kind of realigned, wasn't it? Oh, we've got a very excited dog coming towards us.

SPEAKER_03 6:43

And I know Avebury was.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

Yes, Avebury was as well. So I I think it's probably everywhere, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_03 6:48

Yeah. A lot of the stones would have would have fallen down in time. Well, let's let let's let's get head in. We're about, I think, what, 50 yards away.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_03 6:56

And yeah, and I'm I'm trying to tune into that tell me the word again. Atavistic. Ata vistic feeling. I'll t I'll tell you if it comes my way.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

It's it's it's a bit difficult with children and dogs running around.

SPEAKER_03 7:09

No, no, it's lovely, and and I I've right from the start of the podcast, it's just, you know, whatever noise there is is is noise there is. And I guess the people who don't like that disappear and the people who don't mind it stay. So Yes. But also while we're walking here, you Yeah, while we're strolling through the we we've got lovely the dead leaves still ready to waiting for a big deluge to form uh this year's new earth, and they're underfoot, and we're just creeping round a whole tour of people and trying not to get in their way. But you were telling me I didn't get time yesterday have time yesterday to go to Uffington Church and tell me what you like about it, uh Headley, if that's all right.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

We could walk around here, but that's a good idea. Uffington is a very it's a strange thing, it's a very modest sized village, it's a very beautiful village.

SPEAKER_03 7:58

Sort of a couple of hundred, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Uh probably a little more, I'd imagine. But the the church is absolutely enormous for the size of the village. Yeah. And it's known locally as the Cathedral of the Vale.

SPEAKER_04 8:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

And it's a very, it's got this big octagonal tower. I'm guessing the one you went, you said on on your podcast last night, the one you went to in Wallstone. Yes. So this is far, far larger, and it's got two transepts, and the northern one's got a beautiful stained glass window. Oh, I'm gonna have to. Which I really hope you get to see.

SPEAKER_03 8:28

How old is the stained glass window?

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Because often, I really don't know.

SPEAKER_03 8:31

Because often I uh you the stained glass windows that are beautiful, but they are a couple of hundred, and I've got this annoying snobbery about me that I only like stuff that goes that's sort of pre-1600, which is very wrong, I know, because there's a lot of amazing stuff that's been done since.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

You're going to see that it's a very active church, so it's clearly uh it's right next to the school, and there's clearly a lot of proactive younger people in the village, so there's loads and loads of things to look at in the church itself.

SPEAKER_03 8:59

Yes. So octagonal tower is quite unusual, really.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

It's very unusual, and in fact, you'll see it from the top of uh Huffington.

SPEAKER_03 9:06

I saw it last night. It really really you can see it from a long way, and of course that was the wide way reason why people built them. So we've now found ourselves at the the thinner end of the barrow. And how how long would you say it is all together?

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Oh uh it's got to be fifty yards, do you think?

SPEAKER_03 9:24

Yeah, I think so. Maybe twenty across.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Yes, definitely, certainly at the the slightly thicker end. So you I again I believe it was probably two barrows, two tombs that was formed in, and here down the side you can see these sort of edging stones, which it looks like it's to keep the earth in, and maybe it maybe it was, but it demarks the side of the actual burial itself.

SPEAKER_03 9:46

Well, you only have to go to a churchyard like I wandered around yesterday, and that's exactly what we do now. Yes. So why wouldn't they have done it then? Yes, exactly. Great way of marking it, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 9:56

And then you've got the sort of the tail stone just down there, which is very small.

SPEAKER_03 9:59

Well, let's go and have a look at the tail stone. Is it famous, the little tail stone?

SPEAKER_00 10:03

It's uh something that's on most barrows, but it this one so what is a very large barrow? It's a very modest kind of stone at the back, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 10:10

But it could be as uh as they say, the tip of the iceberg.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Yes, I believe so. And you can see the large ortho stones we were talking about earlier at the front where all the people are congregating.

SPEAKER_03 10:21

Yeah. But actually, it's lovely to be at this side, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 10:24

It's beautiful, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 10:26

And people will have farmed here for thousands and thousands of years.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

So I think we're in an area where there was a lot of Roman agriculture, and you can see on some of the hillsides lots and lots of agriculture. That just down there, you see those trees over there? Yeah, just to the left of them is a place called Odston Coombs. Okay, and it's wonderful. It's kind of a rippled landscape. Hence Coombe. Hence Coomb, yes. And it's it's it was rippled. No, I've got to get this right. It's using a process called solifluction.

SPEAKER_03 10:53

Right. He knows all the grand words, doesn't he? Headley does he show me up. Playing my ace cards. You learn them all this morning and you just thought I'd have to try that real.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

So uh I've I use these words on my own podcast. Um but yeah, Odds and Coombs, it's a it's a a soliflucated landscape, so it's kind of wavy. What we could actually do to save having to walk all the way over there, I've got the drone with me. We could later send the drone over.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

That's a very good idea. I was going to ask actually, maybe we could do a little bit, I could watch you at work.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Yes, I mean I I there's a lot of people here, and I'm very reluctant to put a noisy drone up, but over there there won't be, so we could walk along a little bit and send it out that way.

SPEAKER_03 11:35

No, that's a good idea.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

We can get some pictures of the coombs over there.

SPEAKER_03 11:38

Actually, we can come back to this a minute while we're on drones. Do you mind just telling me perhaps because I know, but the the listeners won't necessarily how what got you into it? And are you are you just sort of a a nerd about it all?

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Well, I yeah. I work in technology, as you know, so I'm always a nerd. But um so I when I started working at Heathrow Airport, I basically gave up my road cycling. I used to cycle to Henley and back every day and cycle the Alps and the Pyrenees. I was very fit back in those days, not so much nowadays. And what I did instead is I started walking the Ridgeway because I didn't have the time to do the long cycle ride.

SPEAKER_04 12:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

And when I was on the Ridgeway, I started taking pictures of some of the views, and I copied the work of local artist, very well-known artist locally, Anna Dylan. Yes, landscape artist. Anyway, I got a drone for my boys, they didn't really take to it, so I being interested in flight and being a bit nerdy, I I flew it. That dog's really having a good time.

SPEAKER_04 12:38

So, how long ago was this?

SPEAKER_00 12:40

So this is probably about six, seven years ago.

SPEAKER_04 12:43

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

And then so I started copying Anna's pictures from the from my new drone that I got for myself. And she followed me on social media and said, ho, oi, what's she? Choose your own views. Well what she actually said was she she asked me if she could paint one of my and I absolutely, yes, of course, fantastic. How wonderful is that. Yeah, and then she actually paid me a bit of money for it as well. I'm like, wow, I'm having Anna Dylan paint my pictures.

SPEAKER_04 13:10

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

And the next thing is she asked me if she wanted to go for coffee.

SPEAKER_03 13:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

And that's how we formed our exhibitions together. Yeah, so a little bit of a partnership. We've got a very good partnership going on. So we have uh our biggest exhibitions have been Wessex Airscapes in uh Radley and Devises, and we do things like we got uh next week, we got this isn't an advert.

SPEAKER_03 13:31

No, no, in New York it's fine. Oxfordshire aren't we? It's nice to get people along, isn't it? Yeah, and so what when does that start?

SPEAKER_00 13:37

So that is the I think it's the set I'm not actually there on the second, but the second and the third of May, and then at the weekend following, is there's a website about it somewhere. But we're basically displaying with a a lady called Rebecca Carrozza, who's also an artist, in Anna's Garden in Aston Tyrrell, and it's a beautiful place, and uh I'm looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_03 13:57

Oh, how wonderful! It's like you're both doing uh two sides of the art.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

So she paints my pictures, so you have or rather uh my photos. So I like to think that she takes a landscape she from me, she distills it and then she hands it back. Yeah, it's lovely.

SPEAKER_03 14:11

Yeah, and and in this part of the world, I mean you don't have to drive far to come across, I mean, I won't name places, but some really grotty parts of England. And and people, you know, drive along the motorway and think, goodness, our our country's being you know paved over. But actually, does your does your area uh photography give you faith that actually a lot of our country is still very green?

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Yes, it does to an extent. So where I live myself over in Didcot, I mean it is turning into a big housing estate, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_04 14:40

And it is depressing.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

I don't know quite what to think about that. Um we seem to be losing a lot of the green space around there. However, when you come up to the downs and places like this, and this this is sacred, you know, this this is a permanent, what's it called? A permanent place, I think it's called persistent place, classic, yeah, another term where it's got had continuity. So it's had continuity, and there's always been something special about this as far as like salt high stone, and yeah. And this I'm I'm pretty confident looking from drone shots, this is not any time going to become a housing estate.

SPEAKER_03 15:18

No, no, I mean one of the things I like living in in Sherbourne is that, and again, people might have their the views about this because it's owned by the castle estate, so it is privately owned by a wealthy family, however, that wealthy family stop people from from building out of character. Yeah, but so it's difficult. I I know a lot of people get very passionate about it. Um and I suppose all that most of us would agree with is while we know that people have got to have homes and and people have got to have places to work, that if we start eroding the beauty of the world around us, then a sort of all is lost, really, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 15:59

And that that's why I think it's contrary to what you know common sense may say, I think it's important that people visit these places.

SPEAKER_04 16:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

I think that okay, we we've had a lot of people here, a lot of them have actually gone now, but yeah, we can walk down perhaps. We've a lot of uh people visit these places and Whitehorse Hill and Whitnam Clumps over that way, and they have an an amazing amount of visitors, but I don't personally mind that at all. It makes the place more special, it means the places come up in conversation.

SPEAKER_03 16:28

Young couples as well, or all the children.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Yes, exactly. And if you bring children to places like this, they remember that when they're adults, yes, they will help preserve the place as well.

SPEAKER_03 16:38

No, that's absolutely right. In fact, it's probably one of the benefits because there are so many neg reasons why phones are awful, obviously. But one of the benefits is because all the children are taking photographs of themselves, then they've got record of it all.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

And it doesn't really matter what capacity they come here in. If they're little kids running around and jumping about they're not interested in the history necessarily, are they? But they remember the place. And when they get into their 30s, 40s, 50s, this will mean something to them. I remember coming here as a kid. I probably wouldn't have come back here had it not been for that. And now I'm here already.

SPEAKER_03 17:14

Because you want to revisit. Exactly. Before we get to the I've just stopped, Headley mid-talking, because I mean how hot are you on geology? And I mean, do you know your stones?

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Could you tell me really quite bad at everything?

SPEAKER_03 17:25

Because this isn't chalk, is it?

SPEAKER_00 17:27

No, this this looks like it's limestone granite, I think.

SPEAKER_03 17:31

Because the chalk chalk would have deteriorated.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Yes, it would. And you've got an amazing selection of mosses and holes. Look at the pits on this stone.

SPEAKER_03 17:38

Yeah, and the like and it's it's all very pitted. Some and we were touching the stones here, and the stones are lovely. They're uh they're marked with as as Hedley was saying, some of them pitted, some of them have just got natural little craters in them. And and and if it's okay with you, maybe as we just walk w round the round here, we'll just actually both of us stop talking for a moment and because I always think that's so imagine yourselves if you're in America or Canada or wherever you are, you're now at Wayland Smithy, and that's it's just in the middle of Oxfordshire, and the sky's blue with lots of little fluffy clouds, and see if you can pick up on the sound of any birds. Like, is that a buzzard? No, what's it?

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Yeah, I think that is a buzzard, yes. Yeah, so you get a lot of kites and buzzing. You've got the new leaves on the beech trees.

SPEAKER_03 18:29

New leaves on the beech tree, so kind of lime green, and I'm just gonna give you a bit of quiet to have a feel that you're here. And I envy them, you know. I envy them. If I could snap my fingers and start again in those times, I think I would, I think I would to have a life without the technology. I know people talk about the diseases and all that, but you know, we take our chances now with life, don't we? I don't know. It's a silly question, but what would you do? What would you do? How would you want to live your life if you could? Right, I'm gonna make my way back to Headley, and he's dug out some information put together by a knowledgeable lady who who and we have her permission to read apparently. So we're not going to get told off. So let me give back his microphone. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Let me just load up the uh so um I'm uh friends with Wendy Tobbett and she works for the how can I find the email again?

SPEAKER_03 19:59

No, don't worry, we can pause it if you want. Hedley's just been taken off to take photographs of people who've arrived, and he's you wouldn't believe it, he's charged them up. No, he hasn't. Right, okay, so go for it. Tell me what you're about to do.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

I'm about to prepare an invoice for the photography. No, so I'm I did a little video here not long ago. It's a bit of a jokey one about Wayland Smithy, but I've been given a a piece that I've got permission to read from Wendy Tobbit. Now she works for the historic Ridgeway project, and uh she's done a nice little summary of Wayland Smithy.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

So she says, Mystery, myths, and legends surround this ancient and monumental burial place. The name Whaland Smithy comes from old Germanic and Scandinavian legends about a master blacksmith and an elvish lord who flees persecution. In a Saxon charter of nine fifty-five, a time when metal working was a potent, even magical practice, the name Wheland Smithy was recorded for this site. A legendary story is that an invisible blacksmith will shoe a traveller's horse left here overnight if a coin is left on a stone. Similar stories occur across Europe. But beyond the name and the legend, two uh ancient burial mounds lie within one long barrow.

unknown 21:23

Oh okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

The structure here today was created in 1965, when the site was restored after a two-year excavation using sarsen stones that have been placed here 3460 BC.

SPEAKER_04 21:40

That's really old.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

And these are the obviously the author stats at the front. The 1962 dig by staff and students from Edinburgh and Cardiff Universities revealed an original unchambered earthen long barrow with the remains of fourteen people in a stone and wooden box. There is uncertainty about how they died. Some had marks of lethal arrowhead strikes. Others may have died through illness. Radiocarbon dating shows these were probably placed here during a short period of time between 3590 to 3550 BC.

SPEAKER_03 22:18

So one f kin kin group over a couple of generations.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Yes, it seems sounds that's probably linked.

SPEAKER_03 22:25

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

So it says the barrow was later closed with earth and stones dug from the land immediately surrounding it. A generation or two later, the site was again used for burials and a large amount was created. Archaeologists have since found skeletal remains of about ten people together with broken pottery of the Neolithic type from about 2500 BC.

SPEAKER_03 22:48

Oh, so like a thousand year gap.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

Yes, yes, it seems like it was re re well not repurposed, but repurposed for the same purpose, if you see what I mean.

SPEAKER_04 22:57

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

So she she kind of finishes by saying the people who built it may have felt the need to create a sense of history and connection with the land here and place large stones around it. In the 1640s, antiquarian John Aubrey made a drawing of Whalen Smithy showing monumental sarsen stones standing upright around the mound. The long barrow would have been very visible in the open downland landscape, especially down in the Vale, I think. The beech and fir trees that surround it now were pla planted here around 1810, when the land was owned by the Craven family. During the 19th century, Wayland Smithy continued to attract antiquarians and, along with the Uffington White Horse, it was among the first to be protected under the Ancient Monuments Protection Act of 1882. The mystery of Wayland Smithy and the legend of Wayland has inspired many writers, including the anonymous author of the old English poem Beowulf 975 2025, and featured in Sir Walter Scott's Kenilworth, 1821, Rudyard Kipling's Puck of Pooke's Hill, 1906, and Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising fantasy novels 1965-1977.

SPEAKER_03 24:12

Absolutely. Yeah, thank you so much. But the thousand year gap is interesting because that the the the the sort of kindr kin group in the who would have done the sort of second lot of bearing, they must have obviously known about it through what oral legend, through discovery?

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Yes, exactly. And and you have to think, I guess, about the type of people that were buried here. Yeah. There must have been either a link. Well, with a thousand years there wouldn't have been a link, would there? So it Well that's the interesting thing. It probably would have been just for very prominent people. I mean, this was would have been treated almost as a sacred site, I reckon. And you know, just as though you wouldn't want a bulldozer in there today to dig a hole and put more people in. I think back then they probably would have felt something their connection to it would have made them not do that then. So to actually use it again as a burial site a thousand years later, it must have been a very special people that were buried there, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 25:13

Does it does it not seem more likely that actually there was continuity and that the bones haven't been found?

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Would that it could well be. It could well be. But uh it would have been a very different site back then. Um envisaging envisaging it without all these stones.

SPEAKER_03 25:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Without these trees.

SPEAKER_03 25:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Probably much more bleak, maybe a bit more chalk and mud around, you know. Yeah. So it would have been a very, very different place to this sort of slightly, dare I say it, manicured look that we've got now.

SPEAKER_03 25:45

And so and what what do you think the main reason why this place was chosen? Because it's not entirely obvious, is it? Whereas obvious it's very obvious why the white horse is put where it was.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

The one thing a lot of these long barrows have in common is that they are built on the visible crest of a hill. Yeah. So not necessarily the summit, yeah, but the highest point you see from the valley below.

SPEAKER_04 26:09

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

And so they're always there, they can always be seen. And I it's difficult to tell with the trees, but maybe without the trees, you could have seen this a long way that way.

SPEAKER_03 26:19

We always need to find that spot, don't we? Yes. But it there'll I mean there'll be Facebook pages, won't there? There'll be all sorts of things. Neither of us has have have done much research deliberately. In fact, when I was over there, I was sort of chatting about the fact that I I deliberately try not to research churches before I get to them because you we want to have that first impact. Yes. You want to have what the the go on auto oh darn it, I need to learn the word. That feeling you were talking about. Atavistic. Atavistic. Every your room wants to be laughing at me. It's it's that I keep to say it thinking it's the menopause fog. But and the birds are quite quiet. I bet if we came eighty so you were here first thing this morning, was there much more of a racket?

SPEAKER_00 26:58

It was a little windier, and you had that lovely wind in the trees noise overriding everything.

SPEAKER_04 27:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

And there were lots of light aircraft, and I actually quite like that. It's got that kind of English summertime feel when a little what I call a bug smasher goes over.

SPEAKER_03 27:12

Yes. Well, of course, I mean, as you are a as you're a drone person, you like all that anyway. But uh in fact, last night I as I was walking around the village, there was the sound of someone mowing the lawn, and again, I I like that sound. It's a little bit of a hum.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 27:26

So they didn't do any testing on the skeletons as much, as far as you know.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

As far as I know, I mean I I literally that this is everything I know about whale and smelly, but it's as far as I know, they haven't. And I I think back then in the 60s they wouldn't have had the the techniques, obviously they anything like that.

SPEAKER_03 27:44

But might they have taken a couple of I bet they took a couple of I'm gonna do some research, guys. Instead of guessing, I I'll I'll I'll try and well I don't know if there's anything more to say about it other than that it's absolutely wonderful. I I know what question I was gonna ask. Where was do you think was the closest habitation to this point?

SPEAKER_00 28:01

Right. Well, it's very difficult when it was built because we have no reference from 5,000 years ago on anything, nothing was obviously written down. The there are three settlements or potential settlements around here. You had three hill forts. You have uh Hard Hardwood Hardwell Camp just down there. Okay. So you're pointing east, aren't you? Yeah, sort of east-northeast.

SPEAKER_04 28:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

Hardwell Camp was a hill fort, strangely, halfway down the hill. So that probably would have been Iron Age, looking at probably just over 2,000 years ago. And then up, obviously, you've got Uffington, which we all know and love up on the hill, which we'll we'll see later. Yeah. And then in the field the other side of Uffington, this this may relate more to this, was a Neolithic enclosure called Rams Hill. It may have been repurposed afterwards by the Iron Age as a hill fort. But there were what that indicates is there were settlements around here. You have springs going along uh the bottom of the hills here as well. So if you needed to get water, it's not a long walk down to a spring down the hill.

SPEAKER_03 29:07

Well, and of course, well land, do you think it was to do with the fact that there there might have been a well?

SPEAKER_00 29:13

It could well have been, yes. Well play on words there, sorry. But yes, it it it could well have been as well.

SPEAKER_03 29:20

You didn't tell me you had the comic elements, which I'm sorry. But uh well, should we uh should we take some pictures and then move on? Yes, yeah. You won't get any selfies of us, I'm afraid. That would be embarrassing for both of us, wouldn't it? Right. Right, Mr. Thorne has gone off to ask a family whether they mind him flying his drone because he wants to take some pictures of Wayland Smith, and it's very good he's asking, but the only thing is, would they feel that they have to say it's okay? I'm just wondering if I were here with husbands, so but he's doing that, and then I think all we're going to do after this is go to Uffington. There's so much more to see. I suppose I'm just gonna have to come back and do this again, aren't I, Headley? I mean, I now now I know he's not he's not a serial killer. Well, I don't know, you meet up with these strange men and you just not anyone with a past hobby. So yeah, I think we'll have to come back again. So we'll we'll do a little bit of droning, go to Uffington Whitehorse, and then I think that'll be that'll be the day. But I think what I'm going to do is end this episode now. Well not end the episode but end being with Headley so that this evening I can add to it with a little bit of reading and I'm gonna start another episode. So what what I'm probably gonna do is publish two episodes tonight, Sunday, uh this evening, probably at about ten o'clock at night. I'll check that's okay with Headley, and I hope it's okay with you, because I don't like there to be too much of something. So actually, what why don't you tell me what you're up to, Mr. Thorne? Oh, he's got some kit in front of him.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Just outside of the National Trust area, so we can fly. Oh, you haven't got your thing here. No, I haven't got it. So just outside of the National Trust area, so I can launch this drone and we get some pictures of the front of Wayland Smithy and maybe some from above. Okay. There's a family over there, and I think the kids are quite keen to see the drone go up. So yeah, we'll get that up in uh in about 30 seconds.

SPEAKER_03 31:19

Okay, he suddenly looks like an eight-year-old boy. Are you sure you don't mind? Are you sure? Oh, really? I've not seen it before either. He just wants to show off, really, doesn't he? Do you do you want to say something on the microphone? Do you would you like to hold this and say hello? Only for your mummy says it's okay. Oh, uh yeah, I should ask the parents. Oh, I'm uh I'm a podcaster, but not very, you know, I'm not like famous, right? But I do lots of history places and things like that. And there are no there's no photographs or anything. Oh, falling over. Are they happy for them to say hello? Don't forgive their names or anything. First name, is that all right? Yeah. Do you just want to say hello and what your name is?

SPEAKER_02 31:59

Where did it go?

SPEAKER_03 32:00

You put it near your mouth.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

Where is it gonna go?

SPEAKER_03 32:03

Oh, it's a po it's a podcast that I do.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

My name's Gretel, and I do a podcast about like history and why don't why don't you tell her where you were on holiday and where you come here?

SPEAKER_02 32:13

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

What did you say in France?

SPEAKER_02 32:16

I went on holiday to France. Did you? What part? Um I saw Le Candy Gaffani, and it's like a two, and there's only one passage, although it's quite big. Did you just say the name again? Licandigafoni. That's beautiful. You said that so beautifully.

SPEAKER_03 32:35

And what's it got inside it?

SPEAKER_02 32:36

It has um like carvings. Wow, the radiator stones. And do you know how old they are? Um no.

SPEAKER_03 32:48

6,000 years, that's amazing. What did you think of them, darling?

SPEAKER_02 32:52

I think it was really cool. You thought it was beautiful. And what's the name of it?

SPEAKER_03 32:57

Oh crazy. Headley's just showing them. Oh my goodness. So Headley's showing the yeah, do you want to bring it to that's amazing. It looks like a big cabbage.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

It does look like a cabbage, doesn't it? I never thought I thought it was a Dory, but you're right, it's a cabbage.

SPEAKER_03 33:17

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It does, yeah. He he he does this all over the all over the world world and country, and and I've not met him before, so we I'm interviewing him, you see, for my podcast. Do you want to say the name of your brother if he's okay, or does he want to say hello? Do you want to say hello, darling? Or just say you don't have to, you just get a little bit near like this and say, No, we don't know.

SPEAKER_02 33:43

He named Hugh.

SPEAKER_03 33:44

Hugh, that's a great name, Hugh. If I'd have had another boy, because I had one, he's called Tom, I would have called him Hugh. It's a really nice name. How do you spell it? Do you want to say that again? That's brilliant. That's the that's the good way to spell it, I think. Well, unless you're called Hugh, spell it the other way, and in which case it's perfect too. And are you having a lovely day, darling? Yeah. Yeah. Oh good. Thank you for letting me speak to your children. It's so nice. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

Write it down. Your little bit of a few.

SPEAKER_03 34:20

Okay, so if you these, they're so cute, aren't they? They're like l when I get I've got a puppy at the moment, and when I get these out, the puppy just wants to grab them and run off with them. She thinks they're little creatures. Yeah, they do like yeah, so they're microphones, and I I'm not professional, but I do use these, otherwise the wind just makes a horrid noise. But it means that you just hold it and you can talk into it. And if you put it really close, then you sound really loud. Do you want to do a hello really close? That's funny. So it's Gretel La Maitre, so L E and then M A I T R E. Yeah. I'm just gonna pause it a minute. You call your drone Arthur Headley.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

The previous one was Alfred. This one was our this one is Arthur. So I've landed it now.

SPEAKER_03 35:13

Um at least you haven't given them girls' names, because that would be very kind of like a thing. Oh, I call my beautiful drone Mildred or something. I keep dropping the microphone.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

I've got it. Yes, yeah, no, I've I've always got I'll put the drone down actually.

SPEAKER_03 35:28

So what happened to the first one?

SPEAKER_00 35:29

It needs it had it had many years of flight behind it.

SPEAKER_03 35:33

And then it did it have a disastrous end?

SPEAKER_00 35:35

No, it had a software issue. Oh. So I was flying it to Beacon Hill in New Hampshire.

SPEAKER_03 35:42

I know where Beacon Hill is.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

And uh with my good friend Paul Whitewick, and we were doing a an outdoor podcast. Yeah. A bit like today. And the drone uh just told me it had a software error and it came back and landed where it took off from. Right. Um, shut itself down and never woke up again. Oh, okay. But it had hundreds and hundreds of flight hours, so it these it did its job. These these drones are very, very well used and they're evil looking things, aren't they? Look at that.

SPEAKER_03 36:07

I mean, it yeah, it looks like um something out of Star Wars. Yes. And it wouldn't be on the good side. It would be a Darth Vader thing, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_00 36:15

This is why I don't like flying it around when there's people around.

SPEAKER_03 36:17

In fact, do you think if they make like Star Wars and stuff, in instead of CGI, they could just have all these as little mini little things. Now I missed oh sorry, go on you.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

Interestingly, these these Mavics are the ones that they the Ukrainians have been using as well.

SPEAKER_03 36:30

Really? Right.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

So these are serve serve more than just a pleasure purpose. They're not supposed to, obviously, but uh but bigger versions, no?

SPEAKER_03 36:38

This this very well. So tell me how what they would have attached to it then, because that's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

So yeah, they would have attached underneath a little cradle just here.

SPEAKER_04 36:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:47

And when you activate these lights, which are search lights, yeah, that would have had a light trigger which then opens the cradle and drops whatever horrific thing needs to be dropped.

SPEAKER_03 36:56

So it just shows how small the horrific things are. I mean, it's it's that's the future of warfare, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 37:01

It is, and this has got a range from the controller of nine miles. Yeah. So I could, you know, if I didn't care about the law, which obviously I do, yeah, I could fly all the way from here back to Abingdon Wanted quite anywhere.

SPEAKER_03 37:13

Do you think it's it is going to be a problem in the future?

SPEAKER_00 37:16

I think so. I think that's because they're all the people who don't care enough to Yeah, I th I think as far as flying drones are concerned, I like to be very careful. That's why I engage this family. I I don't want to fly around people who don't want a drone buzzing around. Yeah. I mean you heard it, it's quite noisy.

SPEAKER_04 37:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

And unfortunately, you do get people who get them for Christmas and don't take the online examination, they don't learn how to fly it diligently.

SPEAKER_04 37:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

And they do just buzz it around people, and ultimately that kind of gives us all a bit of a bad name.

SPEAKER_03 37:47

Yeah. So yeah, I suppose it's like that it's the thing about cyclists, isn't it, when they cycle on the pavement or anything else that people use. I I could see, by the way, there's a lot of graffiti on the on the trees. It's quite nice when what when you see that. Well, I mean, we miss recording the sound of the drone. I'm wondering whether we want that. I I don't think it matters unless you want the sound of your little drone going up there. I'm very happy to do that.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

What you can do, or it it's if if it suits you, I can I can just give a little take off and should we do that?

SPEAKER_03 38:16

Alright, so Mr. Thorne is going to Ooh, do you hear that? Whaaaa. I'm gonna take some photos. That's so great. I mean, imagine you come to a lovely place like this and you've got someone making that noise, so yeah. It's wonderful. So it does look like a TIE fighter or whatever it is in Star Wars. Um just hovering, looking menacing. And he's about to sell it eastwards, I think, just to try and get a sense of maybe what the monument. Wow. Oh, it's so fast. Up it goes. It's probably 100 foot now, or climbing 150. Do you do you know the altitude?

SPEAKER_00 39:02

Yeah, so current altitude is 53 metres, it's 150. Oh, I'd go it's on. I think the legal limit is going to be 400 foot.

SPEAKER_03 39:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 39:12

So I'm keeping it sort of about 200 now. It's going about 50 miles an hour away from us.

SPEAKER_03 39:17

Although it'd be quite good to get a picture of it. Could can you get a picture of it with Artington so we can see the relation?

SPEAKER_00 39:23

Yes, now actually that's a very good idea because what I can do, if I send it over that way, which is over there, I can zoom back in. The sun's gone in actually, but uh I can probably zoom in. So this is the live view from the drone.

SPEAKER_04 39:37

Oh wow. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

If I turn it around a little bit. And what I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_03 39:49

Yeah, it's clouded over now, guys, which is a shame, but never mind.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

But oh that's too there's Uffington. So if I go backwards, I should be able to get Wayne and Smithy. Wayne and Smithy in as well.

SPEAKER_03 40:03

Yeah, we're trying to get them both in. There we go. But actually, thinking about it, this probably doesn't make for good audio. So I I'll pause it at that point and I'll just have fun with Headley while we try and work this out. Catch up with you in a bit. I'm now standing but near very near the white horse, just in the middle of a beautiful valley area. And uh it's where the solufluction is that uh Hedley was talking about. And looking across, I can see one, two, three, four, five, six. It just goes on and on. Probably about ten of the lovely ripples. And because of the time of day, you can see all the shade behind all the clumps of grass. I've got to see if I can get a picture of it. And uh it's just heaven, really, really beautiful. I can see for absolutely miles, and I wanna I'm looking at quite a lot of flat plains in the distance. This reminds me of the area around Glastonbury, and I'm wondering if a lot of it was flooded at one point. I'm gonna take a few pictures. Lots of cyclists.

SPEAKER_00 41:07

It's Headley again, due to uh technical difficulties. We didn't actually manage to record saying goodbye to each other at the end of the podcast. And in fact, we had it was quite an eventful time. We had a very eventful descent by car of Uffington Whitehorse Hill as there was a cycle race coming up the other way. Anyway, I promised Gretel that I would record an outro from myself. We had a lovely day at Whalen Smithy, and I think someone recently said to me, I I asked them who who owns these monuments now, and they said that uh nobody owns them, they own us. And as such, every so every time we visit one, we're part of their history. So it feels to me like uh in a very small and modest way, Gretel and I have become part of the history of Whalen Smithy uh through this podcast. I'm not sure whether the technical difficulties are going to stop uh you hearing green sleeves or bokcherini. I hope not. But uh thank you, Gretel, for a fantastic day. I really, really enjoyed it, and I really hope we uh get together again soon and do another recording in a place just as special as Wayland Smithy.