Rodmarton Long Barrow, Gloucestershire

Following the recent news that Rodmarton Long Barrow has become the latest Neolithic monument in Gloucestershire to suffer vandalism (Uley Long Barrow's internal gallery was closed and later restored by English Heritage last year), I decided to grab my camera and notebook, and to head over to check out how the site is doing.

Some context

Rodmarton Long Barrow sits within a landscape of gentle, rolling Cotswold slopes. It does not crest a high point in the landscape as the nearby Uley and Nympsfield long barrows do. These two were constructed upon the very edge of the Cotswold escarpment, where they are easily seen from the lowlands below: between the escarpment and river Severn.

Excavations in 1863, 1939, and further investigation in 1988 following the falling of two of the site's beech trees, have revealed three side chambers, and a 'false portal' entrance and forecourt (as at Belas Knap Long Barrow).
So far, thirteen skeletons have been recovered from the barrow's stone-lined chambers, as well as leaf-shaped arrowheads.

The barrow is aligned north-east~south-west, with the broader and taller end to the north-east.

The barrow today

The barrow, or its remnants, are in a fairly ruinous state. Clearly, the most significant crime of vandalism visited upon the site happened at the hands of the Victorian antiquaries, who conducted some pretty aggressive excavations here, leaving a scarred and pocketed monument behind them. The English Heritage information board generously describes this in terms of being 'crudely examined'.

At the broader, north-eastern end can be found the now-exposed remains of the barrow's 'false portal' and forecourt. Though exposed, the stones are in a good condition and, unlike at Uley Long Barrow, have not been engraved or marked with soot.

Today, the barrow shares the site with several beech trees and with a relatively modern Cotswold stone wall - perhaps once used to bound the barrow from the field in which it sits, before English Heritage extended the site's boundary to protect its edges.

Recent damage

Fortunately, the only recent damage appears to have been to the (modern) Cotswold stone walling set into the edge of the barrow; though the previously visible and accessible northern chamber appears to have been filled in and turfed over, so perhaps there was some damage to the site here also.

Further reading

Saville, A. 1989 'Rodmarton Long Barrow, Gloucestershire' - a free PDF of the account of Saville's investigation of the site, following the falling of two substantial beech trees on the barrow, can be found here.

Field, D. 2006 Earthen Long Barrows - view on Amazon.co.uk

Smith, M. & Brickley M. 2009 People of the Long Barrows: Life, Death and Burial in the Earlier Neolithic - view on Amazon.co.uk

The English Heritage webpage for Rodmarton Long Barrow can be found here.

Further details on the archaeology of the site can be found in Tim Darvill's summary on the excellent Digital Digging website, here.



(Declaration of interest: I curate the publishing list for the titles above for which I have provided Amazon links.)

Acknowledgements

The photographs above are my own, though the aerial shot is from Google Earth and the plan of the barrow comes from Saville's 'Rodmarton Long Barrow, Gloucestershire' report.

Medieval Glastonbury: A Digital Historical Walking Tour

Medieval Glastonbury

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm very pleased to announce that my first digital historical walking tour, Medieval Glastonbury, has gone live via the Rama app.

Here's the Facebook page.

And here's a review from Medieval Archives. 

All feedback very much appreciated!

Notes from the Newsstand

One striking aspect to the products on offer from Apple's Newsstand is the number of titles with very poor reviews - with reviewers not merely unimpressed, but often furious!

In fact, it's far easier to list the well-received titles than it is their less-popular brothers and sisters.

One standout winner appears to be The Guardian.

A quick read through of the various titles' reviews reveals a pattern of dissatisfaction, often based on the lack of a free trial or, at least, a discount first purchase price.

Clearly the potential market for these digital editions, though keen and open to the idea of moving their news and magazine purchases from print to tablet, want a cheap taster of what's on offer before laying out full-whack for a subscription.

A notable complaint from users is that some editions are more expensive than the print versions - a bizarre surprise to customers now used to at least a small discount on their ebook purchases, if not a significant one.

Another is that some editions appear to be, or are, merely PDFs and not easy to navigate (especially on the iPhone).

It's easy to see how The Guardian have won over their subscribers: a generous free trial period (82 free issues) plus an impressive iPad-optimised interface (both intuitive and great-looking).

My own experience of Newsstand is one of embarrassing economical u-turn: having decided prior to the release of Apple's iOS 5 update that paid-for news is a luxury I cannot possibly justify, I'm now resigned to the inevitable paid-for subscription come January.

We'll have to wait to see how many free-trials are converted into paid subscriptions come the New Year, though I suspect that the paper's generosity will be rewarded.

Clearly, readers want their paid-for content to reflect the fact that this is new (and stylish) technology, and they want their opportunity to get hooked on it to be paid for by the publisher - surely the least they can do!



@tomvivian is the archaeology & ancient history editor at The History Press in the UK.

Top Five Free History Apps

With Apple's App Store and the Android Market have come a world of curiosities for those who love their history. Good free history apps have been a little slow in arriving on the scene, but finally there’s enough to justify a blog post counting down the top five.

All five are available from Apple’s App Store and one is available from both the App Store and the Android Market. Best of all, they’re all free!

 

5. History: Maps of the World

  

In at five is ‘History: Maps of the World’. This app's been around for a while now and has notched up a decent mass of users mainly, I suspect, because of the surprisingly high entertainment value to be gleaned from an hour spent zooming in and out of high-res historical maps of far away places. The developer's also produced a series of other historical map apps, grouped by region, so be sure to check them out if you enjoy this one.

Highlights include ‘France Under Louis XI’, 'The South Pole 1894’, ‘Revolutionary Paris’ and ‘Wytfliet’s Map of the Southern Continent, 1597’.

View in iTunes

  

4. British Library: 19th Century Books

Stepping things up a notch in the 'scans of historical documents' category is the British Library's own '19th Century Books'. Unbeknown to the casual passers-by on the Euston Road, the British Library's team has been carefully scanning and processing thousands of pages of their literary gems for presentation in this, and their other, apps. Their fantastic work has meant that iOS device users can now view incredible rare and first editions of works such as The Sacred Places of Scotland by Roderick Lawson, M. Jones' The Story of Captain Cooke's Three Voyages Round the World (1870), and The Green Mountain Boys: A Story of the American War of Independence by Eliza Pollard (1896).

The content is neatly categorised under headings like 'History of Travel' and 'History of the Americas', and is based on the 'freemium' model whereby a limited, though rich, selection of content is available free while the full (and ever-expanding) catalogue is available to subscription users.

Note that these are not OCR scans of the text but full, high-resolution facsimiles of beautiful books, complete with plates, scribbled dedications and various stamps on the fly papers.

View in iTunes

3. Museum of London: Street Museum

The Museum of London's Street Museum app is a simple idea beautifully executed. On opening the app the user is presented with a map of London, courtesy of Google. An array of red pins punctuate the map which, when touched, open an image from the Museum's archives, often revealing a striking insight into the past life of the area. A short passage of text accompanies each image to give a little context and draw the reader's attention to details of particular note.

There’s a lot of social history here, so if you’re interested in the ordinary lives of people from times-gone-by then this is an app you should definitely check out. From the human tragedy of The Crawlers of Short’s Gardens (c.1877), to the Tony-Hancockesque day-dreamers of the Patisserie Valerie on Old Compton Street (c.1955), and the dapper gents of St Clement Danes (c.1930), this app really brings London’s past to life. 

Projects like Street Museum show what great things can come about through creative partnership – in this case the MoL and its treasure-trove archive, with Google's powerful mapping technology – and also that history can transform the way you think and feel about the places you thought you already knew.

Note: Though designed foremost for smaller devices, Street Museum works perfectly well on the iPad's larger screen, though you'll need a 3G enabled iPad to get the most out of the app's geolocation service.

View in Andriod Market

View in iTunes

2. Rama

If the Museum of London’s offering gives you a taste for exploring history on foot, then Rama should be your next port-of-call. The concept is straight-forward: the app offers a large selection of walking tours on a diverse array of places and themes.

The tours take the form of a pin-pointed Google map (as with Street Museum) with images and text accompanying the waypoints. As the reader makes their way from point to point they are presented with elegantly written text and intriguing images, guiding them back in time to the realm of history they have chosen.

This is truly an app for a global audience and presents tours as diverse as ‘Rediscovering Luxor’, ‘Lincoln’s Washington’, ‘Artistic Paris 1900s’, ‘Discovering Pompeii’ and ‘Victorian Manchester’.

Though the Rama app is free to download, most of the tours are charged for (typically $0.99 to $2.99) though some are available for free, including the excellent ‘New Orleans in 1937’.

View in iTunes

 1. Street Museum: Londinium

 

At number one is Londinium, again from the Museum of London – though this time they’ve teamed up with the History Channel to produce an app on Roman London.

The app opens with a (skippable) intro, casting the reader back to the very beginnings of London and leading you through the city’s evolution from shanty frontier to crowded metropolis.

Though similar in concept to the first Street Museum, Londinium incorporates loads of extra interactive features, making it unquestionably the top history app of 2011. Exploring the map of Roman London is not simply a matter of touching the pin-points – the user is given the opportunity to really engage with the history and archaeology through which we understand the city’s Roman past.

From excavating Roman artefacts and watching reconstructions, to walking a tour of Roman London, this app has a lot to offer those interested in Roman history and archaeology.

View in iTunes

@tomvivian is the archaeology & ancient history editor at The History Press in the UK.