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Carlisle cartoon
I am a retired Civil Engineer and have enjoyed volunteering on Roman archaeological sites in Cumbria over the last few years. These include the Roman bathhouse in Carlisle, as recently featured on BBC2’s Digging for Britain.
They do say that one picture tells a thousand words: I hope that my cartoon speaks volumes for my experiences.
John C Mather, Thursby, Cumbria
Hibernating honeybees?
I worked as a volunteer for three wonderful summers 2017-2019 on The Heugh, Lindisfarne potentially the site of St Aidan’s monastery, established in AD 635.
As a qualified beekeeper, I would like to note that honeybees do not hibernate (as stated in your article on medieval Ferns in CA 408) but cluster in the hive to survive the winter. It seems more likely that St David sent St Aidan on his way with a mini-colony, (known as a nucleus) taken from an established hive consisting of eggs, young bees, pollen, and empty comb. It would be transportable, and the best months to do this would be May or June.
I have a colony that used this method.
Bryan Wallace, Edinburgh
Debating Hadrian’s Wall
I feel that Terry Lloyd (‘Letters’, CA 408) was a little unnecessarily dismissive of my assertion of Hadrian’s Wall as a defensive structure, preferring the theory that it was but a customs barrier between the peace-loving Scots and the Romans. Being a defensive barrier and a customs barrier are not mutually exclusive things, and I am sure the Wall functioned as both, as well as being a symbol of the might of the Empire; these things are not exclusionary, as so often in history there is not one answer.
At either end, the Wall will almost certainly have formed a customs barrier controlling trade between the lowland areas, but I would defy anybody to stand atop the Whin Sill near Housesteads (above) and to imagine how anybody could trade up that steep cliff face. And if you want to deter trouble from the north you want to build a wall to impress, and it does, so the Wall encompasses all three theories as to why it was built.
Sadly, this will not end the long-running argument. Positions are too entrenched for people to say, ‘Oh yes, maybe I was wrong, or only partially right’. To expect that is to expect that common ground will be found on the impact of the ‘Adventus Saxonum’ and whether we are essentially a Celtic or Anglo-Saxon people. Good luck on that one!
Bob Britnell, Canterbury, Kent
Worried about workhouses
Your article on workhouses (‘Hard Times’ in CA 406) reminded me of when I was nursing back in the 1980s. I worked on an orthopaedic ward and longer-term rehab was provided by outlying smaller hospitals. Some were in old workhouses.
One of my elderly patients was in floods of tears. She could hardly speak. She had just been told she was being sent to Hospital X, a repurposed workhouse. To her, it was still the workhouse. Her distress was palpable. The younger nurses who had not heard about the shame and degradation connected with these places just didn’t comprehend the enormity of her fears. It took a while and a lot of gentle talking to calm her. But I can still see her. I was just glad my mother had told us of her grandmother’s generation’s fears of these awful places, so I could understand my patient’s terror.
On another occasion, visiting an elderly man in a lovely modern (then still council-run) old people’s home, where he was staying for three weeks while his son had a break, we were met with the terrible accusations that our patient had been ‘thrown in the workhouse’. The home had been built on the site of the small local workhouse.
We need to remember that these places were appalling. Only the elderly were afforded a modicum of respect, as not even the workhouse guardians could blame them for being old.
Helena McGinty, Málaga, Spain
Edible Archaeology
This is my amazing 50th birthday cake, made by my sister-in-law Lesley Peate, and her partner Simon Lock. It is Time Team-inspired – specifically Series 8, Episode 3, when a sword was found lying on top of barbed wire – and this collection of sword, helmet, sherds, and coins is just as mad as that Welsh site. I can report that I dug several exploratory trenches, all of them producing delicious sponge layers.
Claire Peate, Falmouth
CA ONLINE: What you shared with us this month
Kenny Brophy @urbanprehisto
Caption competition! OK, so we can all agree the ‘joke’ on this cartoon from @CurrentArchae 68 (August 1979) is ‘of its time’. Can you come up with a better punchline? Winner will get a Cochno Stone comic book!
Dr Toby Driver @Toby_Driver1
‘They were originally meant to run to Amesbury but funding has been cut.’
Andrew Thompson @Thommo_online
‘It’s the latest 12 stone model. With Doggerland gone, we don’t need to use that European 24-hour rock.’
Steve Hawkins @darkhawk71 ‘
Damnit, we forgot to account for British summer time…’
Enrichment Through Archaeology @enricharch
‘No, no, no – you’ve got entirely the wrong stone. I wanted some of that Purbeck Marble, not this local nonsense!’
Bob Hester @vamagus
‘This bad boy? One careful owner, imported from Wales, only 500 miles on the clock. You could take it away today for a down payment of 3 flint hand-axes and half a dozen shells.’
Write to us at: CA Letters, Current Publishing, Office 120, 295 Chiswick High Road, London, W4 4HH, or by email to: letters@archaeology.co.uk For publication: 300 words max; letters may be edited.
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