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| How the planned winery might look at night - disturbing more than the nocturnal wildlife...? |
I recently wrote about the pre-history of Cuxton and the
Bronze Age burial site discovered at Barrow Hill in Upper Bush. I first found
out about the details of the latter in September 2021, whilst wading through
the planning application documentation associated with the Vineyard Farms
proposed vinicultural theme park. I had long been intrigued by the name of
“Barrow Hill” and was pleased (but not surprised) to learn that an ancient burial
site in the area was a reality rather than a local myth. The hint is in the
name, of course...
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| Google Maps view of Barrow Hill, 2018... |
It transpired that Vineyard Farms had commissioned an archaeological study of
the area as a result of some aerial photographs that had shown the outlines of
mysterious circular structures etched into the hillside. A subsequent study dig
unearthed some human remains, flint tools and pottery fragments, dating from
around 2000 BC.
In a promotional video released early in their planning application campaign (and
still
available to view on their otherwise moribund “Kentish Wine Vault” website),Vineyard
Farms CEO Gary Smith acknowledged the existence of these remains with a
grudging snigger (see the 9 minute point in the video) saying that the company wanted to "celebrate Medway and Kent's heritage" (amongst some other things that, two years later, seem a wee bit hollow).
Indeed, VF’s “celebration”
of part of our local heritage (when they are not
actively reinventing it) will be to dig up a Bronze Age cemetery and fill it
with concrete in order to build its vainglorious winery.
In fairness, the studies suggest that the Barrow Hill site is no Sutton Hoo
(although I suspect construction would not be halted even if it turned out to
be so). Whilst there are many, many reasons why Vineyard Farms’ vainglorious
winery should not be built there, the finding of a few ancient remains is probably
not one of them.
Given the number of historic finds in the Cuxton area, it almost seems to be very difficult to stick a shovel in the ground
in the Cuxton area and
not find historical artefacts, be
they Palaeolithic hand-axes, Neolithic flint tools, Iron Age relics, Roman pottery,
building materials and burials or Anglo-Saxon graves. That hasn’t stopped
Cuxton being transformed by building works in the past hundred years or so and
doubtless nor will it do so in the future. If we place too high a value on
every piece of history we find in the ground, we would never be able to build
anything. It is a judgement call, although in the case of the Bronze Age site
at Upper Bush, it is arguable that
insufficient evidence has been gathered to
make that judgement.
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| Archaeologist unearthing a Bronze Age inhumation on Barrow Hill... |
I personally find the thought of disturbing and then destroying ancient graves, well, disturbing -
especially for something as trivial and unnecessary as a rich man’s vinicultural
Xanadu. It just doesn’t seem right. The dead should be left in peace unless
there are very good reasons not to, even if that peace has gone on for 4000
years. I can’t quite understand why I think this way, as I do not regard myself
as particularly religious or prone to mysticism. “Respect for the dead” is just
part of the way I was brought up, I suppose. I certainly have no time for tales
of ghosts, shades of the long-dead (maleficent or otherwise) nor any other sort
of spiritualistic, supernatural nonsense.
Finding out about the Bronze Age burial site on Barrow Hill did make me
reconsider some memories of a rather strange experience I had there back in
2015, however.
At night, Bush Valley, with Barrow Hill sheltering its north-eastern flank,
currently offers some of the darkest skies available in our otherwise urbanised
environment of North Kent. It is one of the few local places that you can (for
example) appreciate the silvery, starry arc of the Milky Way in summer, a sight
normally washed out by urban and industrial light pollution. These wonderful
dark skies are one of the many things that will be destroyed by the advent of
the winery building, which will undoubtedly be lit up like a year-round Christmas
tree for the benefit of its late-evening posh restaurant customers and throughout
the night for its own “security” (something we know Vineyard Farms
take very seriously indeed…).
Astrophotography is a hobby of mine and on one clear, dark February evening in
2015, I set off to Barrow Hill in an attempt to photograph a phenomenon known
as the “zodiacal light”. This is a very faint silvery glow that, at certain
times of the year (and only from very dark skies) can be seen stretching up
from the night-time horizon. It is thought to be caused by sunlight reflected off
of dust from the planet Mars that has spread out along the path of its orbit.
Vineyard Farms even include a (somewhat exaggerated) picture of the zodiacal light in their
promotional planning documentation, oblivious of the irony that the light
pollution from their massive, lit-up winery on Barrow Hill at night will
completely obliterate any chance you would have of ever seeing it from there!
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| From the VF Design and Access Statement, Part 1, p 28. |
As the zodiacal light is quite faint, I decided in advance that I would need to
take a series of long photographic exposures, probably around the 60-90 second
mark. To prevent the stars in the final picture from “trailing” (due to the
rotation of the earth during the long exposure time), I had mounted the camera
on a battery-driven drive that could compensate for the speed of the sky’s
rotation (about 15 degrees per hour).
I drove out to Upper Bush at around 6.30 in the evening, leaving my car by the
old Bush Farm buildings. Normally I would walk from home to Upper Bush, but the
camera, tripod, clock drive and battery/lantern pack add up to a fair bit of weight
and so I took the lazy option. I had decided to set up right on top of Barrow
Hill, overlooking the valley towards the western horizon. Even that in itself
was a fair slog from the farm, carrying my equipment.
Once on top of the hill, I got set up. The sun had set about an hour or so
beforehand and brilliant Venus was just starting to approach the western
horizon. Away to the south, the constellations of Orion and his retinue were
glittering high in the sky in the rapidly fading twilight. Over to the
north-west, the Milky Way could even be glimpsed, a sure sign that the sky was promisingly
free from clouds or haze.
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| Sunset over Bush Valley from Barrow Hill.... |
To make sure the camera drive tracked the sky properly, I had to line it up
with the pole star. This involves squinting through a little telescope built
into the drive unit, and adjusting the drive mount’s direction and elevation
until the pole star can be seen in the middle of it. To help with this, there
is a reticule in the telescope that can be lit up with a tiny LED so that you
can see it against the dark sky (hopefully with Polaris, the pole star,
somewhere in the view).
This LED wouldn’t light up however. This was strange, as I had only just
recently fitted a new battery to it. Nevertheless, I managed to get a good
alignment and carried on.
The telescope drive has a handset associated with it, that allows you set the
time and to automatically point the camera at a specific star if you so wish.
Normally, the handset “remembers” the time, but on this occasion, it wouldn’t.
Not a problem, as you can set that manually via the handset key-pad. However,
when I checked my watch by torchlight, that had also stopped! My watch is a
solar-powered, self-charging one, which I had worn daily for several years and
which had been supremely accurate and reliable. Its sudden failure didn’t
matter too much in terms of the exercise in hand however, so I guessed the time
to be around 7.30 pm, programmed that in to the handset and carried on.
I soon got the camera to point towards the western horizon and started taking
60 second exposures. Annoyingly, I noticed that the sky seemed to be darkening,
although it was a strange sort of darkness. Normally, any hint of haze or cloud
gives the sky a yellowish tinge due to reflected town light, but this just
seemed as if the stars themselves were getting dimmer.
Then the camera back screen started flashing up a “Low Battery” alarm. I was
now getting seriously fed up, as I had only just recharged that battery this
afternoon. And the sky was getting dimmer, almost grey, but also weirdly
darker. It was now getting difficult to see the horizon, or indeed even the
surrounding hillside. And although it was a cold February night, it also seemed
to be getting warm and humid. The chilly wind had completely ceased and a thin,
damp, cloying mist started to develop. A total silence had also descended on
the hillside, with the faint background noise of the distant M2 now completely
absent.
Finally, the hand-set on the camera beeped and the drive stopped. In the total
silence, the “beep” seemed startlingly loud. Low battery.
I am not of a nervous disposition, at least as far as night-time heebie-jeebies
are concerned. As a very experienced astrophotographer, I am well used to
spending very dark, late nights alone, and for long times in remote places.
Night-time noises, such as the rustlings of hedgehogs or the occasional nocturnal
comings and goings or unearthly screeches of foxes, owls or badgers, can startle
but never frighten me.
But I was beginning to get seriously spooked. By now, I could not see or hear
anything up on Barrow Hill and I was starting to panic a little bit. I felt as
if I was going deaf and blind. The cloying humidity and mist was even making it
difficult to breathe. I started to wonder if I was having some sort of “medical
episode”.
I picked up my lantern/battery pack but the built-in torchlight was dead. In
desperation, I got out my mobile phone, just for some light. That too, was
dead.
I abandoned my equipment and blundered blindly down the hillside. Towards the
bottom of Barrow Hill, the mist began to clear and I could see stars again.
Looking back up towards where I had been, I could see no trace of the mist that
had appeared to surround me.
I went back to my car for a breather and pulled myself together. This was not
the witching hour. I could see the headlights of the occasional car going along
Warren Road. Civilisation was alive and well, and close by. It could only have
been around 9.00pm at the absolute latest, after all.
The clock on the dashboard said 00.30. That could not be possible.
I got out and looked up at the night sky, now shining with cold, hard, starlit
transparency. Orion had sunk down to the western horizon. Leo was high in the
southern sky. It was indeed past midnight. I had somehow lost three hours. Had
I passed out?
”I am not scared I am not scared I am not scared” I repeated to myself.
I got a torch out of the glove box. That was working fine. Right, I am now feeling
just fine and I am going back up the hill to collect my equipment. There will
be no fuss, no bother.
There wasn’t. There was a chilly breeze. The night sky was crystal clear and
the light of the stars was beginning to be reflected off of a silvery dusting
of frost forming on the muddy, frozen field. And on the western horizon, was
that a trace of the zodiacal light?
I picked up my useless collection of still-electrically-dead equipment, walked
back to the car, loaded up and went home.
My other half was a bit tetchy, as I had told her I would be in by ten. “Why
didn’t you ring me?” she asked. I pointedly put my ‘phone on charge. The battery
was completely flat but subsequently charged up just fine.
Ditto my power pack and lantern. Ditto my wristwatch. Ditto the camera battery.
The little non-rechargeable button battery in my polar alignment unit was
completely dead, as was the 3V lithium battery mounted on the circuit board of
my drive unit handset (hence its inability to remember the time). Five minutes
with a soldering iron and a new battery, and everything was working again.
I have had absolutely no trouble with any of that equipment since then. I have
also been back to Bush Valley and Barrow Hill at night on several subsequent
occasions. But not on my own…
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| View from Barrow Hill - during the day, winter 2022... |
So I found the subsequent discovery of an ancient Bronze Age burial pit on
Barrow Hill to be quite intriguing.
Do I think that the ghosts of long-dead Bronze Age chieftains were responsible
for sucking the life out of my astronomy electronics? Of course not.
Do I think that some weird supernatural event caused me to lose three hours?
No.
I think I might have flaked out due to my hill-climbing,
lugging-heavy-equipment-type exertions and that I was a bit unlucky on the
battery front. Damp has got into my sensitive astro-electronics in the past,
but I must admit I have never had a total, across-the-board failure like that
one. It would be so easy to pin a series of unusual events on some weird,
supernatural shenanigans and I don’t intend to start that superstitious nonsense
at my age. But I would be lying if I said I could totally ignore the tiny,
credulous bit of me that says otherwise…
The one thing that really stuck in my mind about that evening was the feeling of stifling uneasiness. Curiously, the only other time I can ever remember feeling anything even remotely
like that was when I visited Dode Church a
few years back. I think that place has a slightly creepy vibe,
even in broad daylight. It’s not the sort of place I would ordinarily imagine young folk
getting married in somehow, but they do, in droves, and they all seem to be quite
happy ever after about it.
So it’s really just me...
As for Barrow Hill, I think it should be left alone, for lots of reasons.
So, Vineyard Farms, when you finally get your way and you get to build your billionaire’s
stately pleasure dome up there, you only have yourselves to blame if your wine
goes sour, your electrics play up or your staff or customers freak out.
I will only smile and say “been there, done that…”
