Ancient Britain's Giant Pallisade Causeway - Flag Fen

Today, Carole and I decided to go to Flag Fen. Flag Fen is an open museum with replica Bronze Age and Iron Agedwellings. These abodes are inside compounds with goats and other things symbolic of the ancient Celtic Britons that lived in such places.

Upon first entering the grounds, I thought everything looked a little basic, but we did have great constructions of the Bronze Age hut from around 2,500 BC to 800 BC. Also the Iron Age hut of 700 BC to 43 AD when the Romans invaded.

Because I have written a novel about a fictional meeting between Boudicca of Iceni and Cartimandua ofBrigantes, I was especially interested in seeing the place. It full filled my anticipations for photographing, as expected, but there was this incredible bonus factor that I had not fore seen and was totally ignorant of. Because I was so focused on the replica Celtic dwellings, I might have missed the reason for Flag Fen Museum’s existence.

When Carole and I entered, the lady at the entrance complex asked if we might pay an extra £2 on top of the £5 entrance fee. This was for a guided tour which would commence at 11 pm. I just wanted to snap a few photos of the replica dwellings, but I felt compelled to offer an extra £2 for the tour. It was, after all, very cheap.  Wow! I was so pleased I did.

The significance of Flag Fen Museum was that it is built upon the sight of a gigantic wooden causeway that stretched for several miles. This wooden built palisade bridge went across bits of pasture and scattered lakes that rose and fell according to the seasons. The Fenlands is very flat with some of it below sea level. In these ancient times, British tribes, mainly Iceni, and what went before them sought their living upon this marshy expanse. This is the very place where I live today.

This wooden causeway was a superstructure of engineering in that time. The people or communities that lived in these times were very affluent with their herds of goats and other agricultural pastimes. The Fens gave them a great living where the difference of four feet of height to a land area could mean so much. You must also realise that these people lived this way of life with their treasured causeway for around 2,000 years. This wooden structure was maintained for that period of time. Therefore the wood would have been constantly attended too. This was engineering upon a scale that is equal to or in excess of Stonehenge for stone does not need the constant attention that the wooden causeways needed. This was constructed during the time of Mesopotamia and when Tutankhamun was alive. OK, this (Flag Fen) can’t compare with such civilizations but this Flag Fen was still exceptional for its place and time – prehistory people who had no written word.

In this time the Fens were more susceptible to the rise and flow of the tides and in winter huge meadows became lakes forming scattered islands, where the dwellers lived with their herds through winter, waiting for the summer when the waters receded and allowed for the flocks to graze on the pastures after the waters had gone. These islands were linked by wooden palisade causeways. The whole area was full of huge lakes and scattered islands linked by causeway bridges in the winter.

The Celtic people of this time used the ways of the Fenlands to fish, grow crops on higher fertile grounds and herd goats and sheep too. They did not do this on a small scale according to the guide showing us about. They did it on a huge scale. There were thousands upon thousands of goats and sheep and the fish and eel catching was on a huge trading scale. This industry went on from 2, 800 when the Beaker people brought the concept of smelting bronze to Ancient Britain until 40 AD when the Roman Empire destroyed the commerce and industry and replaced it with a new one. What I’m trying to say is that industry and commerce was thriving in the Fenlands and they traded with the known world from 2800 BC onwards.

This gigantic causeway that was used and maintained for 2,000 years would have been something to behold. Even in 700 BC when it was abandoned because of rising waters, the locals still used the causeway for ceremonial purposes. The stake and stumps protruding from the grounds are littered with broken swords and other broken artefacts. These broken relics were offering to the Gods. Often tools or weapons or jewellery was broken so that it would go into the afterlife as an offering to the Gods.

The causeway was again discovered and unveiled when a giant PowerStation was being built. The grounds men, digging the foundations, came across what was either the end or the beginning of this ancient superstructure where the joist foundations were discovered in the mud. Close by is a place called Much Farm where more artefacts linked to the causeway have been discovered. The surrounding Fens are a treasure trove and the museums have many things of domestic life for the Celtic Britons who lived here. They were a very vein people who like to look good. They wore make up and painted their bodies. The men had special girdles that they had to be able to fit into. This encouraged them to keep a fitness programme. During the Bronze Age they were not particularly warlike, though they would have had skirmishes, but by the Iron Age they did develop into a more warlike tribal community with land borders. These became the Iceni.

This discovery at the power station and that of a man investigating the man-made drainage dykes of a latter age, triggered off a sequence of events where archaeologists began to follow the giant palisade causeway’s line. People continue to find many artefacts

The Flag Fen palisade causeway went across a vast lake and over an island halfway. This island was the size of two football pitches.

Bird's eye view of Flag Fen palisade causeway

 

 

 

H.M.S. Jervis Bay - Heroic Final and Valiant Moment - MV San Demetrio.

The Merchant ship, H.M.S. Jervis Bay had been taken over by the Royal Navy at the outbreak of war in 1939. This ship had been hastily converted with vintage guns from 1898 - seven 6in guns and two 3in guns. She had become a convoy escort during the last few months prior to November 1940 when this brave ship would charge into legend with an act of supreme bravery.

The event took place on 5th November 1940. The Captain of H.M.S. Jervis Bay made a heroic decision and sacrifice to protect a convoy of merchant ships in the Atlantic Ocean. Captain Edward Fegan ordered the convoy, his ship was escorting, to scatter when they came up against the German pocket Battleship Admiral Scheer. What followed was an act of bravery by Captain Fegan and his crew that was remarkable because all knew that their converted armed merchant cruiser was outgunned against such a formidable enemy. The merchant convoy, escorted by H.M.S. Jervis Bay, held valuable cargo bound for Britain from Canada and USA. With the safety of this in mind; H.M.S. Jervis Bay charged at AdmiralScheer diverting the pocket Battleship's attention away from the thirty seven Merchant ships. The crew of Jervis Bay were under no illusions as to what would happen when their Captain ordered the attack against a superior German pocket Battleship.

The hastily converted Jervis Bay attacked with her inferior and out ranged guns, fighting against the 28 cm guns of Admiral Scheer. Never the less, the crew of Jervis Bay stubbornly attacked with their guns blazing away. They fought for twenty two minutes as their ship was blown and torn apart – reduced to a burning hulk. Captain Fegan was reported to have had his arm shattered and his bridge blown from under him, yet still he remained, trying to keep his guns firing. He went down with the ship.

The Admiral Scheer was able to sink five more of the Allied convoy's Merchant ships, before the rest could scatter.

As the flaming H.M.S. Jervis Bay sunk, sixty five survivors managed to abandon the ship. They were picked up by a neutral Swedish Ship. The other brave 190 crew perished with H.M.S. Jervis Bay as the vessel went down to the bottom of the Atlantic. 

The dreadful sacrifice was not lost on British people. The vital cargo of the Atlantic convoy was the nation's lifeline. At this time of 1940, Britain was fighting for survival and her fate rested upon a knife edge. These bold acts were common in the Battle of the Atlantic as Britain and her allies desperately tried to keep their war effort alive.

MV San Demetrio

MV San Demetrio

From this dreadful attack came another incident of remarkable bravery. MV San Demetrio was one of the Merchant ships attacked by Admiral Scheer after HMS Jervis Bay went down fighting. MV San Demetrio was full of aviation fuel. The German shells that struck her had caused crippling damage and the merchant ship was burning furiously. The crew were ordered to abandon ship as it would be only a matter of time before the flamable cargo ignited. As the lifeboats left the burning vessel the survivors probably expected further shells from the German pocket Battleship.

Her crew sat in lifeboats waiting and knowing the same fate would befall San Demetrio as had HMS Jervis Bay. They were bobbing up and down upon the waves, expecting the worse. But it never came.

Amazingly, the Admiral Scheer turned her attention upon other ships of the scattering convoy. Maybe the crew of the German ship thought other vessels deserved priority attention and the San Demetrio could burn and blow without further help from them. It made sense when other merchants could be sunk.

Later, the San Demetrio crew were able to return and board the stricken Merchant ship. What had been a raging inferno had suddenly abatied. They ran about the decks and managed to quench the various fires still burning aboard the vessel. To everyone’s amazement the stricken San Demetrio was still afloat and able to make way through the sea. 

The attentive crew painstakingly nursed the damaged vessel over the following days and managed to limp the stricken ship back to the UK. She received a rapturous welcome home and the story of this heroism was noted. A movie was made about the ship and its crew. It is called; "San Demetrio London."

Sadly, the San Demetrio would be sunk at a later stage in the Battle of the Atlantic by U-boat in 1942.

SKINHEAD Photos for the moonstomp spirit of 1969'

I was just eight years old in 1969, but I can remember the older kids of the neighbourhood looking like this and my cousin in the early 1970s. The people in the first photo above, would be around eighteen I would suppose. Today they would be touching sixty. That is scary. At school some of the youngsters had skinhead haircuts and the whole little culture liked reggae music that was refereed to as Ska. We all wanted Ben Sherman shirts and Doctor Martin boots with straight Levi jeans that had neat turn ups - also black crumby coats. I think in Britain, this faze metamorphosed out of the mods, though (no doubt) some would disagree. Sadly in later decades the Skinhead culture changed to a less desirable doctrine. However in 1969 there are much more pleasant memories with the moon stomp reggae dances. The world as changed so much since, though I never noticed on a day to day basis. These little retro Brit photos from above make me realize just how much Britain and the world has changed. It is a nice nostalgic trip from the memory of my childhood.