[Stones] Longman of Wilmington Abuse

[littlestone]

Well, following on from Mark's little rant this morning (don't worry Mark, it was still early and you probably hadn't had your coffee fix ;-) I've taken his advice, dug around a bit and discovered a few things that may be of interest.

1710 is the year of the first known drawing of the Longman (not the year when he was discovered - whenever that was). "The 1710 drawing shows facial features which have been lost. The feet were originally facing away from each other, their current orientation apparently being due to a re-cutting of the feet area because of obliteration..."* There are also other features such as a rake, scythe and the figure of a cockerel which have been noted but which are no longer visible. "Wilmington's church... was constructed on a small hill above the sunken road which passes through Wilmington, giving the impression it was built on an old pagan site. An ancient yew stands in the churchyard, 23 feet round and perhaps older than the church itself..."*

As to the Longman's original age, "...a much mooted and disagreed upon point, some fragments of red Roman tile found sprinkled within the outline, a comparison with fragments of the red brick sometimes used to repair the giant showed it was definitely not these. As well as this find, it is noted in the Eastbourne Gazette of April 29th 1874 that during the restoration with the yellow bricks, fragments of 'Roman Brick' were discovered. Why these fragments are there is not clear but they were found well above the base of the trench indicating the trench was initially dug well before the Roman period and had not been properly scoured after it. It is possible the tile fragments are some attempt by the Romans to stamp out whatever cult that they had come across in the area by defiling the image and marking it for the Romans or perhaps the Romanised British using Roman materials to mark out their idol, but we can only speculate on such matters, though we can be fairly sure from the position of the fragments and the lack of other Roman features other than roads in the area, that the giant was not Roman in origin."*

The Neolithic finds on Windover Hill (on which the Longman is on the south face) does not prove a prehistoric date for the figure but, "The downs were used for transportation of tin from Cornwall via Wessex and as such was a very important and no doubt busy thoroughfare. It has been suggested that the Giant was drawn by Phoenician traders as there is a resemblance between the giant and a Phoenician figure holding two pillars of a temple. Whatever the origin, the area has sites from Neolithic times onwards. Flint was mined on the hill in the Neolithic period and the filled in mine shafts can still be seen. These mines were identified early this century by Dr. Curwen but were only confirmed by excavation in 1971. A flint axe head similar to one found at Coombe Hill was found near to Windover Hill. Other large open cast mines above and to the giant's left are Edwardian. There is a Celtic field system (lynchets) just to the southwest with 3 round barrows (tumuli) in its midst, this is probably not Wilma's Farmstead as Wilma is a Saxon name and unlike the earlier Celts, the Saxons settled on the plains rather than the hills, pillaging the hilltop farmsteads as they moved west to the fort of Anderida at Pevensey."*

All this is fascinating stuff, and personally I'm leaning towards the opinion that the Longman is pre-Roman, though considerably bashed about since that period. The point of this thread however is the abuse (call it inappropriate use if you like) of an ancient monument for cheap commercial gain. It's happened before (on the Uffington White Horse, on the bank and ditch at Avebury and more recently with Sony's violent computer game set in Manchester Cathedral) and it sets a dangerous (from a conservation point of view) and misinformed (from a religious point of view) precedent.

But, on a lighter note, I hear that all the women who took part in Trinny and Susannah's recent romp on the Longman have subsequently fallen pregnant.** That'll teach 'em not to mess with the old one ;-)

* http://www.hows.org.uk/personal/hillfigs/mirror/wilmington.htm

** http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s1i21535


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