Hi all,

Thought I'd give you a quick update on Thornborough.

The initial planning meeting to discuss the Ladybridge quarry application has been postponed until Tarmac submit their archaeological assessment of the site.

It's not unusual that they wanted the council to decide on the application withuot knowing what sort of archaeology will be on the site and it took a lot of pressure from us to get this delay.

That means there is still time to send a letter of objection regarding the quarry application - you can access our letter writing kit here:

http://www.heritageaction.org/?page=campaigns_thornborough_objectionkit

The petition (electronic and written) is sitting at around 10,000 signatures. So far North Yorkshire County Council have received more objections than for any other proposed development ever.

A large number of archaeology societies and institutions from all over the country have come out in support of our campaign, many have invited us to appear at conferences or give talks.

English Heritage and the UK government have also come out against further quarrying in the area - specifically including Ladybridge.

However, this campaign still has a long way to go - spin and missinformation not only come out of Tarmac, but also the County Council, who have misled the public on several occasions in order to undermine our campaign.

Our latest action will take place this Friday and Saturday to Manchester Museum will be given special "Heritage Sweets" by Heritage Action and be reminded that the Buried Treasure exhibition is in part funded by the large scale destruction of one of Britain's most important ancient sites.

This will be done in cooperation with the Manchester Museum, who had no idea Anglo American or Tarmac were involved in the destruction of Thornborough until we brought it to their attention. We will be encouraging people to attend the exhibition, we just want to show them the horrendous double standards of Anglo American and Tarmac.

Just to remind you, the Thornborough henges is a large monument complex that includes three super henges and at least one cursus. Tarmac own most of the land in the area including two of the henges and the cursus.

In 2002 they announced proposals to quarry every bit of the monument complex that is not specifically scheduled. They proposed two phases to this operation and the planning application for the first stage of this was submitted in July last year. Tarmac have confirmed they wish to have Thornborough made a Preferred Area for gravel extraction (quarrying in the area currently, whilst being allowed, is contrary to council policy).

Monument complexes such as Thornborough are much more than just the bigger structures that are still visible - like Stonehenge for example, the henge was surrounded by other archaeological features such as barrows, ritual sites and settlements.

Tarmac aim to remove the vast majority of the land that holds the archaeology of this massive complex - destroying the archaeology (with minimal recording), effectively turning the henges into islands surrounded by bog, marsh and lakes. The setting of the henges, possibly within five meters of the henges, will be completely destroyed.

We are confident that Ladybridge contains very important archaeology - the continuation of one of two Neolithic settlements destroyed by the current Nosterfield quarry. This settlement, despite being the "largest concentration of Neolithic artefacts so far found in the north of England" has not been the subject of any Tarmac press announcements and was not found by a 2% evaluation performed in 1994. As a result the site was excavated with the absolute bare minimum of mitigation - a simple watching brief that was completely overwhelmed by the amount of archaeology discovered.

For Ladybridge Tarmac have proposed and NYCChave accepted an evaluation strategy that will strip slightly less than 2% of the Ladybridge site.

I'd suggest this is not a concerted attempt to prove us wrong, but a way of ensuring insufficient analysis of the archaeology is performed - if you don't look hard enough, you won't find anything, if you don't find anything the council and English Heritage will not be able to protect the site.

You're in the Northern Echo today, George!

http://www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/the_north_east/news/NEWS10.html

The Echo links seem to go to completely different articles every day!

Yes, Can't find it at all today, here's the text:

CAMPAIGNERS fighting further quarrying near a site of historical interest
will demonstrate at a museum at the weekend.

Members of Heritage Action, angry at plans by Tarmac Northern to extend its
Nosterfield Quarry, close to Thornborough Henges, near Masham, North
Yorkshire, will protest outside the Buried Treasures exhibition, staged at
Manchester Museum.

They are unhappy at Tarmac Northern's sponsorship of the event.

Heritage Action spokesman George Chaplin said: "This is a marvellous
exhibition and we hope as many people as possible will see it, but we want
them to also reflect on who is sponsoring it and why.

"Tarmac Northern are applying to quarry the surroundings of Thornborough
Henges, in North Yorkshire, and the buried archaeology there is treasure as
well.

"We find Tarmac's behaviour breathtakingly hypocritical."

Tarmac chief executive officer Robbie Robertson said he was saddened and
surprised that Heritage Action should want to picket the exhibition.

"Careful investigation, recovery and recording of artefacts is an on-going
feature of our quarrying operations," he said.

"Through working with professional archaeologists, we believe that we have
added significantly to knowledge and understanding at Nosterfield and other
sites across the UK.

"At Nosterfield alone, we have spent in excess of £400,000 on detailed
archaeological work covering more than 100 acres of land."

He said this included intensive field work, geophysical surveys, trial
excavations, sieving and sampling, radio carbon dating and logging of all
finds on a website that people could view.

Very interesting little article about Thornborough in this months Private Eye. Rotten Boroughs section.

I don't think I'd better quote any of it here though as Channel Four's legal department might be watching

Private Eye.
It does not sound good for Thornborough, but presumably the County Archaeologist knows more than we and is justified?

quote:

Originally posted by archae_logical:
Private Eye.
It does not sound good for Thornborough, but presumably the County Archaeologist knows more than we and is justified?

Cough,cough,backhander,splutter,splutter,cough
I'm not very well you know, i saw two Dr's just this afternoon
Hang on dont you need 2 to certify someone ???

Will you update us, George, after the planning outcome is known? Today is crucial, I believe

Monument quarry plans thrown out

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/north_yorkshire/4734994.stm

Well done George. Lets hope Tarmac don't appeal against the decision, and drag the case on !

It's pretty clear they will.

But did you see George on t'telly! Well done, George. The PR was good - though a spiteful little piece in the Times Business section needs a response I'd have thought.

Thanks for the kind words.

Obviously the battle is not over. In many ways it has started all over again for we need to capitalise on this national coverage - we need as many people as possible to send comments to the press, radio stations, magazines etc.

This might help:

On the day Tarmac refused to let go of their Thornboro sheckles, it was announced that parent company Ango American had made an EXTRA half billion pound profit (that's fifty Thornboroughs) for doing nothing, purely because of the rise in commodity prices...

I have. You might have a look at Co's site too and enlist some more help - there are keen supporters in there as here.

Except when winning is going to involve getting people to understand the great potential of such a marvelous and enormous landscape feature.

And also because ultimately politics will be involved. There is also the wider issues that this is helping to publicise.

Maybe its time to start discussing Valleta and archarological "reserves".

quote:

The determination of a planning appeal is a quasi jucicial process. Politics does not play a part.

The testimony of EH will be of central importance, particularly with regard to the definition of "setting". The EH Commission have directed EH to develop an intellectually viable definition of setting for Thornborough. I'd hope, since they're starting from virtually nothing, that they'd not do this in isolation but would take account of opinions from a very wide swathe of the informed public, professional and otherwise.

This is a planning application that has impact on nationally important archaeology, ultimately, it can be pulled in by Gov for review.

Mind Roger, I'm surprised you are not all for wider public participation in heritage issues.

George

I'm no expert, but I'm lead to believe its a posibility.

In running campaigns or just running them down?

Hi Roger, do you have/know any case recommondations that I can do a bit of reading on.

First choise would be minerals, second something like large industry?

Thanks Roger.

From "Knaresborough Today"...



Plan for henges under fire from quarry firm
THE row over the Thornborough Henges continues after English Heritage outlined its views for a 'management zone' around the prehistoric site.
The national conservation group believes that an area about threequarters of a mile around the henges near Ripon should be included in a protected 'management zone'.

The zone would include Nosterfield Nature Reserve and village, half of Ladybridge Farm, areas which have already been quarried and down to the edge of the River Ure. The zone skirts around the edge of Thornborough village and West Tanfield.

English Heritage say that farmers whose land falls inside the zone should be entitled to subsidies if they agree not to farm the land.

Their proposals – which were outlined at a public meeting at West Tanfield last week – came in response to North Yorkshire County Council's draft management plan for the future of the henges.
10 March 2006

I wonder if you'll be going to the event in September George ?

I might be Tet...