Fieldwalking in Churton, supervised by Phllip Miles in 2006.
With many thanks to my friend Helen, who is shown second from the left in the very blurred image at the top of this 2006 article, for sending me a copy of this. Phillip Miles , for the Chester Archaeological Society, supervised a field-walking expedition to two of the fields behind Churton, just north of Farndon, and made some very significant discoveries.
Aerial survey and metal detecting had already identified some interesting features in the fields above and to the east of the River Dee (see photos below), thought to belong to Neolithic, Bronze Age and Romano-British periods. The fieldwork, carried out with permission from the landowner, confirmed that the land has a lot more prehistoric data to offer.
Although the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age in northeast Wales and the borders along the Dee are most noticeably represented in the landscape by burial and ceremonial monuments, the narrative of everyday working life in prehistory is embedded in the surface scatters of stone tools that remain in fields and on hillsides. These were the tools that people used every day in their subsistence strategies, and are the intimate toolkits of their livelihoods.
The analysis of the findings was underway at the time of the article, so no findings were reported, and it will be interesting to follow up on this to see what was concluded (if the analysis was published). It was also suggested in the article that there could be scope for future work in Churton, although it is unclear at the moment if this took place.
Possible Neolithic enclosure in the fields behind Churton
Possible barrow cemetery near Knowl Plantation to the west of Churton
I was in Llangollen today with the Chester Archaeological Society to visit the Church of St Collen, which is undergoing a major project of reinvention. More about that later. For now, here’s a video of the River Dee as it churned its way ferociously through Llangollen today. Truly impressive! By the time I returned home, crossing the Dee at Farndon-Holt, it had lost some of its energy, but was still an impressive sight.
Decorated ostrich egg, rebuilt from pieces from a grave in Naqada, Egypt. c.3600BC. Source: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Just for fun, I thought I’d sketch a very brief history of Easter eggs, their relationship to the Easter Bunny, and throw in a few Easter-themed culinary ideas at the same time.
In Britain we eat over 12 billion eggs annually, mainly the standardized brown hen’s variety (and standardization, of course, means that our eggs are graded and priced accordingly), but we also have the opportunity to enjoy those special breed varieties that produce smaller eggs with coloured, speckled shells. We also enjoy the much bigger and richer white-shelled duck eggs and the much smaller and more delicate quail eggs. We are a very eggy nation. So why did such an everyday item become such a fixture of a religious holiday?
The earliest known eggs were laid by dinosaurs. Today ostriches are the layers of the largest eggs. In the prehistoric savannahs of the eastern Sahara, before the deserts claimed the land at around 4500BC, ostrich eggs were valued for the dietary value, with high protein and fat content, and their shells were used to make beautiful bead bracelets and necklaces. A friend of mine was given one by his friends when his Sahara archaeology PhD was awarded. I have no idea how he cooked it!
A hen posing on the grass, 1447. Bibliothèque d’Amiens Métropole (Bibliothèque Louis Aragon), Ms. 399 (Livre des propriétés des choses), folio 145r. Source: The Medieval Bestiary.
Eggs were only seasonally available, laying during long periods of sunlight. Today artificial light permits year-round farming, but prior to modern farming methods, hens laid eggs between spring and late autumn. Winter was largely egg-free. The first eggs of spring were something to celebrate. Before the arrival of intensive farming with artificial lighting all year round, eggs were still prized rather than being taken pretty much for granted as we do in Britain today. Both chickens and hen eggs were much smaller. English chickens started increasing in size from the late Middle Ages and continued to do so throughout the post-medieval period. In the earlier Middle Ages, when payment could be made in products rather than coinage, eggs were an important contributor to livelihoods, supplementing purchase prices, salaries, taxes and loan repayments, and serving as offerings and gifts. For a wonderfully exotic Medieval stuffed eggs from the Mediterranean (with saffron, herbs and spices and curd cheese) see the recipe on the Lavender and Lovage blog.
1899 German postcard showing an osterhase couple carrying eggs. Source: The German Way
Although chicks are now associated with Easter, in the 1600s the Easter egg was connected not with chickens, ducks or quails, but with hares. The first recorded discussion of the egg-producing hare is in a medical essay by Johannes Richier published in Germany in 1682. The Osterhase, or Easter Hare, was a mythological hare from the Alsace region, producing and hiding colourful eggs for children to find. One might wonder why an egg-laying hare myth might emerge, and one interesting theory connects to the fact that the hare’s ability to conceive whilst pregnant (called “superfetation”). This was sometimes believed to be evidence of self-impregnation, which morphed into an association with the Virgin birth and was associated ideas of purity. Quite how this translates into the Easter egg tradition is probably anyone’s guess, but a plausible theory is recounted by the St Neot’s Museum: simple nests that hares make on open ground were confused with nests made by ground-nesting birds, leading to the belief that hares laid eggs. However the story initially emerged, it spread throughout Germany and in the 1700s made the hop to America with German migrants.
White House egg roll race in 1929. Source: Wikipedia
Visually similar in appearance to hares, rabbits are smaller, more prolific and more familiar. Breeding on a legendary scale, they were an obvious symbol of fertility. The spring egg and the German Osterhase eventually merged together to become the Easter Bunny, a rabbit whose role is to provide decorative eggs to children as symbols of renewal in spring.
In spite of superfetation an egg-laying Easter bunny did not dovetail particularly neatly into serious-minded Christian doctrine, but some traditions were difficult to ignore and more acceptable alternatives emerged, not least the association of the egg with the resurrection of Jesus. In this Christian legitimization of eggy celebrations, the shell of the egg is the tomb of Jesus and the chick within is Jesus awaiting resurrection.
It might seem a bit of a stretch to see how the religious interpretation could be translated into Easter egg hunts, in which eggs, sometimes painted in bright colours and sometimes wrapped in colourful paper, were hidden on a trail for children to find, but this was all part of a community celebration of Christ’s resurrection. In some parts of England the “pace egg” (from Paschal, another term for Easter) were hard-boiled eggs that could be given as gifts and used in games, such as Preston’s annual egg-rolling event, which is echoed in Washington DC where an White House annual egg roll is an unexpected side to presidential living. Closely related is the pace egg play, again still performed annually at some places in England.
I suppose that from egg rolling and pace egg plays it was a relatively small step in the new age of industrial advances and experimentation to replace an actual egg with a sweet pseudo-egg, and in Britain it was the Frys and Cadbury’s brands that led the charge, producing the first moulded chocolate eggs in the mid 1870s. The tradition of enclosing chocolate eggs in ribbons and decorative wrappings became a sure-fire winner on a national scale. Decorative and shiny foil was both ornamental and helped to keep the chocolate fresh, whilst glossy cardboard packaging propped up the awkward shape. Prototypes of the Cadbury’s Creme Egg began to appear in the 1960s, but the branded success story was first launched in 1971, one of those Marmite love-or-hate moments (hate, in my case – far too icky sweet!).
Polish Easter eggs. By Praktyczny Przewodnik. Source: Wikimedia Commons CC BY 2.0
In central and eastern Europe, real hard-boiled eggs continue to be an important part of the celebration, usually painted with traditional decorative themes, like the ones right. At the outbreak of the Russian war on Ukraine I wrote a short post about a traditional Ukrainian egg recipe (divine – фаршировані яйця). The egg cavity was stuffed with the yolk mashed up with mayonnaise, sour cream, as well as finely chopped chives or spring onions, and the whole lot was topped with a low-cost version of caviar and served on a bed of ramsons (wild garlic leaves), which you can find here. I finished up that post talking about my not entirely successful attempt at dying eggs in the blue and yellow colours of the Ukrainian flag (below).
Not being at all skilled at either confectionery or dessert cookery, and with few artistic skills at my fingertips, my own celebration of Easter below, using Churton honesty eggs, is a rather more mundane and sugar-depleted affair for Good Friday.
Eggs marbled by boiling, then randomly cracking the egg shell and then adding food dye to the water to create the marbled effect.
I offer three eggy ideas: 1) Doodle-decorated hard-boiled eggs done with the permanent markers that I use for writing on freezer bags, 2) a tortilla Española with wild garlic leaves (a traditional and eternally delectable Spanish dish), and finally 3) a sliced hard boiled egg on suitably egg-shaped avocado crushed with the rest of the egg with leaves of fresh lovage on toast (and served with Pimms, when it’s that time of year). Last year’s attempt to marble eggs is shown left. For a more sugary and much more beautiful option, Helen Anderson comes to the rescue with her lovely egg- and bunny-shaped biscuits, below. For a grown-up approach to the whole business than either Helen or I have offered, the BBC Food website suggests a seasonally-flavoured gin.
My egg doodles on hard-boiled hen eggs, below, were modeled not on eastern European examples, to which they bear a surprising if faint resemblance, but on the elaborate doodles that I have been producing since childhood (see right). It’s so much more difficult to do them on the surface of an egg, and let’s face it, I’m no Grayson Perry. I assumed that the trick with the hand-painted egg would be to find some way of holding it still whilst I drew on it. I first tried to use a cocktail stick poked firmly into the end of the hard-boiled egg, and then jammed into a ball of blue-tack (plasticine and variants thereof would work well too). The blue-tack was on a saucer so that I could turn the egg without getting my hands covered in still-wet ink. It was a monumental failure for the sort of detail that I was attempting so I gave up and picked up, the egg holding it in one hand and drawing with the other (and getting covered in indelible ink in the process). Here are my very crudely rendered attempts, but although they are pretty poor it was a lot of fun, even if a rather time-wasting pursuit 🙂
Seriously more successful are the shortbread biscuits that my friend Helen Anderson made with her grandchildren, using bright piped icing to create the decorative features. Love them! Really pretty, really bright and very celebratory. And I bet they were delicious too.
Lovely home-made Easter biscuits, courtesy of Helen Anderson who both made them and sent me the photos of the biscuits and the icing. Copyright Helen Anderson
The tortilla Española was an altogether less onerous challenge than my attempt to paint an egg. I love to cook this in the summer, indoors or outdoors, and it is just as good cold or warm as hot. Versatility, as well as flavour, is one of its most attractive virtues. For me, this is absolutely perfect when given the chance to cool down and relax slightly and be served warm, when the potatoes and onions retain the best of their flavours but have mellowed.
Tortilla Española
Tortilla Española (roughly pronounced torteelya espanyola) simply means Spanish Omelette, but somewhere between the Iberian peninsula and the British Isles the essence of this classic recipe has lost an awful lot in translation. The English Spanish Omelette is basically a Mediterranean vegetable frittata featuring capiscum (peppers), tomatoes and a variety of green things that might happen to be lying around, and often involves the addition of cheese, added to the eggs. There’s nothing wrong with a vegetable-stuffed frittata but it is not a tortilla Española.
The classic Spanish tortilla is minimalist, with only a few key ingredients, and a real favourite of mine from my teenage years in Barcelona. In the pure, Spanish version, it consists of eggs, onions, potatoes and, in some versions, garlic. It may sound a little dull, but it is nothing of the sort. In fact, it is pure deliciousness. The onions, which must be slowly cooked with a sprinkling of sugar to ensure caramelization, are moist. The potatoes retain a certain amount of structural integrity, but also retain moisture and have give; and the egg is the scrumptious mortar that binds it all together.
Ramsons (wild garlic) with some Easter-appropriate daffodils poking through, grown in a pot on my patio. They spread like crazy so are much best confined to a pot. They freeze well if you just want to chop them into cooking, like frozen spinach, retaining their flavour well.
Most happily, at this time of year, early-late March, when the wild garlic (ramson) arrives both in my garden and along the woodland footpath along the Dee just south of Aldford, I always add a chopped handful of the bright, glossy leaves, which accounts for the green in the above photo of my own tortilla. The purist in me always feel sinfully guilty when I do it, because it is a violation of a tried, trusted and validated tradition but the ramson flavour of mild garlic is utterly Spanish in character, and is absolutely terrific in the tortilla.
I have the recipe that Mum learned from a family friend in Andalucía, and which I always use at home, but it is very similar to the one on the excellent The Spanish Radish website, so if you fancy having a crack at an authentic version of it (which is worth the effort), here’s the link.
A bocadillo de tortilla looking seriously delectable. Source of image and recipe: The Spanish Radish
To serve it hot, warm or cold, there is nothing wrong with presenting it on a plate with a fork and nothing to distract. On the other hand, the tuck shop in the grounds of my school in Barcelona used to sell tons of them as bocadillos de tortilla, a type of Spanish baguette sandwich. Dozens of gourmet cafés throughout the city still offer this today (absolutely perfect with a seriously cold glass of white or rosé).
If you don’t fancy that, it is alternatively lovely served on a plate, hot or cold, with a fresh herb-filled salad. The usual British salad components of tomato, cucumber, lettuce, and spring onions can be much-improved by the addition of artichoke hearts (M&S due some divine baby ones in jars), olives, capers, some sliced chillis and perhaps some finely chopped preserved lemons, plus a handful of mixed herbs of your choice. When serving eggs I am particularly addicted to lovage, tarragon, chives, more ramsons and even coriander. Dill can also be a serious winner.
The photo of the eggs and avocado below more or less speaks for itself (I like mine with a sprinkling of red wine vinegar stirred in, lots of black pepper and a scattering of chilli flakes). You can also see my other eggy dishes on my very occasional series about cooking with Churton honesty eggs here.
Sliced eggs on crushed avocado with lovage – and a Pimms – last summer. It was enormous, seriously over-ambitious, and I abandoned my plans for a proper evening meal!
A home-made rhubarb gin is also a very seasonal drink option, such as the example on the BBC Food website by Annie Rigg:
Watercolour by Helen Anderson, painted from one she found, and used with permission. Gorgeous. Copyright Helen Anderson.
Beautifully coloured and speckled eggs of common garden birds . By Henrik Grönvold, from ‘British Birds’ by Kirkman & Jourdain, 1966. With thanks to Helen Anderson not only for sending me the image but for tracking down the source.
Thanks to Paul Roberts for his continued updates via the Focus newsletter (LibDems). Sincere apologies that this is a very battered copy, but hopefully it is still legible. Paul’s March 2024 newsletter draws attention to the proposal for a new housing site on Sibbersfield Lane, which would accommodate 287 houses. This would seriously increase the traffic and pollution along Sibbersfield Lane and Chester Road, and cause further risk on the junction with the A534. Paul raises other concerns too. You have until 16th March to comment.
Paul draws attention to various concerns with the proposal and provides the link for commenting on the plan. In case my dreadful copy makes this difficult to read, here’s the link: https://app.maptionnaire.com/q/9pn72k8ibb8a
In terms of usability, this online interface is really rather horrible. You first have to find the development on the interactive map, then zoom in on it and then click on it. Only then can you add a comment.
Thanks to the March 2024 Focus LibDem newsletter from Paul Roberts for the information that the operating hours of the no.5 bus service between Chester and Wrexham via Churton, Farndon and Holt have been extended. This is very welcome news.
From the “Farndon Ward Matters” newsletter (Cllr Adrian Waddelove). It looks as though we are stuck with the dreadful thing for the time being. See also the final paragraph about the proposed closure of Sandy Lane in Chester.
Copied from Farndon Ward Focus, the newsletter produced by Paul Roberts, Liberal Democrats:
I’ve had a look at the Chester and Cheshire West’s online planning portal, and the planning application number is 23/02584/LBC, for the “subdivision of existing dwelling to form one additional dwelling with associated internal and external works.” There is a general description on the Details tab, 20 documents on the Documents tab, and no feedback yet on the Comments tab. You can find the application at: https://pa.cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=RZHG4VTEI5Y00
After all the rain last night, which was truly torrential, I was somewhat surprised to wake up to bright sunshine and a topaz sky this morning. A treat for mid November. Planning to walk through the fields behind Churton towards Farndon, before turning right down Townfield Lane to the Dee, I decided that it was a moment for seriously waterproof footwear. Not walking boots but welly boots. It was a good instinct. The fields were sodden and marshy, the tracks muddy and mired due to tractors, and the picturesque but unadopted Townfield Lane was a series of lane-wide pools. The short section of footpath leading north from the lane along the river bank to the field next to the river was only just clear of the flood waters, which were moving fast and forming fascinating eddies.
I always like the Churton-to-Farndon fields following harvest, because of the linear stubble that draws the eye into the distance and focuses attention on individual trees that, at this time of year, are full of bright warm colours. The deep chestnut brown of the fields provides a beautiful foil for the silvery stubble, the blue skies and the autumnal leaves. The mirror-like reflections in the standing water were a pleasure in their own right. Today really was a water walk.
The biggest surprise was spotting a cormorant (or is it a shag?) at the very top of a tall tree by the side of the river (see photo at end of post). Cormorants and shags are right at home on the coastal estuaries of mid-Wales, and are frequent visitors to the Thames and its former docks in London, both places where I used to live, but I never did learn to tell the difference between them, and I have never seen one this far inland. It seemed right at home. …….. ………
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View from the Dee at the end of Townfield Lane across the fields to the Barnston Memorial.
It would have been good to turn this into a circular walk by continuing north along the side of the Dee and taking the footpath from the Dee straight through the plantation onto the track extending directly from Hob Lane in Churton, but the footpath back to Hob Lane through the plantation of trees is usually bad news in even averagely showery weather, with seriously thick, sometimes impassable mud, so I simply retraced my steps on this occasion. The circular walk is very much a summer activity after a period of very dry weather.
If you don’t like squelching through wet mud and soggy grass, or paddling through big areas of standing water, this is not a good walk following heavy rainfall, even on a beautiful day. On the other hand, it cast a very familiar local walk in an entirely new light. After heavy rainfall I would advise that this is not a walk for those with unwilling legs, although my father (he of a notably unwilling leg) had no problems with it in dry periods in the spring and summer. Today it was far too slippery and sludgy.
Working in the garden on an unexpectedly sunny October weekend, I found myself surrounded by bees and butterflies, and perfectly delightful it was too. All of the photos in this post were taken this weekend. Last year my flower planting strategy had failed to produce a sufficiently colourful and insect-supporting display during autumn, so right at the beginning of spring, with a lot on my plate at the time, I used every small gap in my days to plant autumn-flowering species. The great dollops of colour and the endless flow of butterflies and bees, assisted by a mild October, feel like a very generous reward for lugging around bags of compost and for feeding them my dad’s “magic mix” of three parts bonemeal to one part Q4 mycorrhizal. Now, when the summer species and particularly the buddleias have gone over, there is plenty to keep the flying insects fully sustained.
The autumn-flowering aster (also known as Michaelmass) daisies and Purpletop vervain (Verbena bonariensis) have been the real successes, growing fast and densely, bright domes of colour all over the garden, attracting huge numbers of bees and butterflies. The multi-coloured dahlias, yellow-petalled rudebeckias, purple-blue tradescantias and tall, elegant pink windflowers (Japanese anemones) are all still doing well. Ivy flowers, clusters of pale yellow pom-poms, are also popular with butterflies, bees and ladybirds. This cheerful floral mix is supplemented by lingering lupins, phlox and roses, which have done their fair share too. The succulent-leaved Hylotelephium, which we used to call ice plants when I was a child, are still in flower, but although they were smothered with butterflies and bees only a couple of weeks ago, they are now being ignored. —
Comma on Verbena bonariensis
I spotted two bright commas (Polygonia c-album), with their deeply indented lace-edged wings, a few fluttering large whites (Pieris brassicae, also known as cabbage whites), a small white (Pieris rapae) , and a luminous yellow brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni, which has been quite rare in the garden this year), and a single painted lady, but otherwise the butterfly scene was dominated by an astonishing number of red admirals (Vanessa atalanta) and small tortoisehells (Aglais urticae). Apart from the red admiral, the above-mentioned are native species. The red admirals were clustered mainly on the aster daisies, whilst the tortoiseshells were staying mainly on the Purpletop vervain (Verbena bonerensis).
Large white on Verbena bonariensis
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Brimstone, cunningly disguised as a yellow leaf, on a very late surviving phlox
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Red admiral on aster daisy
The red admiral (Vanessa atalanta) is one of a number of butterfly species that breed twice in a year. They are visitors to the British Isles, arriving in spring and throughout the summer. They breed here in the summer. They lay their eggs on young stinging nettles, the leaves of which provide sustenance for the caterpillar before it becomes a chrysalis and emerges, with damp wings that need spreading to dry, into a British summer. The caterpillar emerges from the egg on the upper side of the leaf, and binds its edges together with silk, consuming it from the inside out, before moving on to a fresh leaf. The butterfly can emerge at any time from May to October. I lost control of part of the garden earlier this year, under a bramley right at the back, and had a patch of stinging nettles that were taller than me, which is also shared with an unusual type of aster plant with stems that are also taller than me. I took up the nettles some weeks ago, but this is where the red admirals are clustering right now. Although I didn’t see any red admirals on fallen apples, these are usually very popular with the species, so it is a good idea to leave some if you have red admirals in your garden.
Small tortoiseshell on a barely visible Verbena bonariensis
The tortoiseshell is a native hibernating species that is also known from all over and further afield. Like the red admiral, the caterpillar is happy on stinging nettles, where the eggs are laid on the underside of leaves. They breed twice a year, emerging as early as March and again in August. They can usually be seen until October. This weekend Verbena bonarensis was the only plant in which they were showing any interest. It is not everyone’s idea of a good garden plant because a small purple head grows on a very tall stem, but I love it. It is easy to grow, and spreads itself like crazy, so you never really know where it is going to turn up next, although shaking a seed head in a general area usually works. Fortunately, they pull out very easily if they turn up where you don’t want them, and don’t mind being replanted elsewhere if you do it immediately and provide lots of water.
The bees, less discriminating than the butterflies, were taking advantage of any flower that showed its face, but were particularly in love with the aster daisies. I have never got to grips with the different types of bees, but there was an impressive mixture of the streamlined and the furry. The many hardy fuchsias, the Himalayan honeysuckle and the delicate salvia “hot-lips” are doing a great job providing colour and supporting the bees, but do not provide an accessible platform for the butterflies. Fuchsias, from south and central America were traditionally pollinated by hummingbirds, and we are a bit short of those around here, but the bees do a great job. There were a small handful of hover flies but the only wasp I saw was the submarine-sized monster trying to find somewhere to over-winter in my living room.
Bee upside down on Himalayan honeysuckle
Bumble bee on an aster daisy
As I was tidying up the patio plants, I noticed that there was an army of caterpillars eating their way through my nasturtium leaves (just a little annoying, because apart from ruining the aesthetics, I use the leaves in salad). They turn out to be from the Large White butterfly, and are apparently notorious for targetting nasturtium leaves, as well as cabbages. A tough time of year for them to be starting new lives. They spend the winter in chrysalis form, ready to emerge in the spring. Large whites are native, but their numbers can be supplemented by migrants from Europe.
October always has the feeling of impending doom about it, with the run-up to the clocks going back, the garden flowers dying off, and the arrival of dark mornings, dark evenings and cold, wet, windy winters with damp leaves rotting underfoot. I was truly not designed for a British winter. It has therefore been particularly uplifting to see the life still fizzing in the garden so late in the year, like a reprieve, with butterflies and bees adding movement and sound to complement the late season colour.
Red admiral on a tradescantia bloom
In this era of global warming, a British summer is a moveable feast and it will be interesting to see how butterfly species adapt either by tolerating new conditions or moving to new areas. The Butterfly Conservation organization has a number of programmes dedicated to the collection of such data from the general public in the hope of tracking some of these responses to environmental change. Red admirals, like other migrant species die in the winter. Traditionally Britain has simply been too cold for them to survive the winter frosts, but that may change, and we may see some news species heading northwards, but let’s hope that we don’t suffer too many losses.
For planting for flying insects, and extending seasons for their use at the beginning and end of the year, see Seabrook’s The Insect Garden (see Sources below for full details).
Red admiral, comma and ladybirds, all sharing the spoils of ivy flowers
Painted lady
Sources:
Books and papers
Carter, D. 1982. Butterflies and Moths in Britain and Europe. Pan Books in association with the British Museum
Holden, P. and Abbott, G. 2017 (2nd edition). RSPB Handbook of Garden Wildlife. Bloomsbury Publishing
Mansell, E. and Newman, L.H. 1968. The Complete British Butterflies in Colour. Ebury Press and Michael Joseph
Seabrook, M.J. 2020. The Insect Garden. The Best Plants for Bees and Bumblebees, Butterflies, Hoverflies and Other Insects. Northern Bee Books
This is the last in a 4-part series about the Late Neolithic – Early Bronze Age in northeast Wales, with special reference to Bryn y Ffynnon, Brymbo (where Brymbo Man and a very fine Beaker were located) and Bryn yr Ellyllon, Mold (where the gold Mold Cape/s and accompanying artefacts of bronze, copper and amber were found). The Introduction and an overview of how the two sites were found are in Part 1. Discussions of Bryn y Ffynnon and Bryn yr Ellyllon are in Part 2 and Part 3 respectively.
Left to right: The process of the reconstruction of the face of Brymbo Man from the Bryn y Ffynnon grave. Source: Wrexham Borough Museum. One of the geophysical surveys from the field in which Bryn yr Ellyllon was found. Source: Tim Young 2013. Screen-grab from British Museum video showing school children looking at the Mold cape. Source: British Museum video at the end of this post
This final part, Part 4, takes a closer look at some of the themes touched on in the previous discussions. I have not attempted to provide a summary of the Early Bronze Age, which is done very well in numerous books, a number of which are recommended in Final Comments, the rest listed in the Sources in Part 1. Here I have cherry-picked key issues that are relevant to discussions about the Early Bronze Age in northeast Wales.
Introduction to Part 4
Other types of site
The arrival of the Beaker phenomenon
Negotiating the role of the dead in the world of the living
Copper and gold in northeast Wales
Lost Data, Missing Data
Why do these sites and their associated ideas matter?
The Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, c.2900-1400BC, are usually discussed together due to their similarities. The Bryn yr Fynnon site that was found in Brymbo, and the Bryn yr Ellyllon site found near Mold both belong to this period, but each represents different approaches to the same tradition of burying the dead with or without barrows or cairns and in stone cists with grave goods. In northeast Wales the archaeological remnants that define aspects of Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age life are largely funerary, with very little in the way of settlement data, which provides a distinctly lop-sided view of livelihoods. There are only a small number of other site types in northeast Wales and these are very rare.
Other types of site
As explained in Part 1, so much data about the Late Neolithic – Early Bronze Age of northeast Wales comes from round barrows and cairns. Although they are easily dominant, they are not the only types of sites belonging to the period. A wide variety of site types are found in other parts of Britain, although funerary data dominates everywhere. There are isolated examples of some of these other types of site in northeast Wales.
Penbedw stone circle to the northwest of Mold, off the A541. Not open to the public. Source: Coflein
Stone circles are dotted throughout north Wales, but are concentrated mainly in the northwest and are rare in northeast Wales. Timber circles are now being recognized throughout Britain, but they are rare in Wales and none have so far been identified in northeast Wales. Timber rots in our damp climate, so stone circles are better represented but it is becoming clear that timber circles were just as prevalent, if not more so, in areas where wood was readily available. Dating of stone and timber circles is uncertain but they were built somewhere in the 3000-2000BC range, may be large or small and are thought to have served a ceremonial role.
Henges are rare throughout Wales. They consist of circular spaces contained by outer banks and inner ditches with entrances, and were sometimes used to enclose earlier sites like stone and timber circles. Dating is uncertain here too, but they span the period of somewhere around 2600-1750BC.
Settlements are only rarely identified and are usually very ephemeral, usually consisting of little more than scatters of domestic debris including pottery sherds, stone tools, small pits and some signs of hearths. Only very occasionally does an excavation produce signs of a structure, which are often circular or broadly oval.
Stone cists (stone-line graves) without round barrows or cairns are by no means unknown. Although in some cases the barrows and cairns have been removed in modern times, there is some evidence to suggest that in some cases the cist was never provided with a mound. Brymbo could fall into either category.
Round barrows without burials are also found. This implies that although the two sites discussed here have a funerary component, the barrow might have an important role of its own too, perhaps indicating territory, ancestral links with the landscape or an affinity with a broad set of ideas connected with how humans lived in and used the landscape, and built up relationships with the landscape and environment.
Cremation is the dominant funerary tradition in the latter part of the Early Bronze Age, from around 1850 to around 1500BC. Secondary depositions in earlier round barrows, such as the one in Bryn yr Ellyllon are common, but cremations may be unassociated with any enduring monument.
There are several other types of site in Britain during this period but so far none of them have been identified in northeast Wales.
The arrival and spread of the Beaker phenomenon
Map of findspots of, amongst other things, Beaker burials, showing how they were largely confined to lowland positions in northeast Wales. Source: Lynch 2000, fig. 3.2, p.86
The skeleton found in the Bryn y Ffynnon burial in Brymbo was interred with two objects. One was an undistinguished flint tool, lightly worked on both sides. The other object was a very fine Beaker, a style of pottery that was introduced from Europe and began to spread throughout Britain as part of a new tradition that initially included not merely a single burials under round barrows, but also came with distinctive, new types of grave good. This new funerary convention clearly represented very different ideas to those in the previous periods. The Brymbo Beaker itself was discussed in Part 2. The entire Beaker period is sometimes referred to as the Chalcolithic (copper-stone age).
As Frances Lynch’s 2020 map (right) demonstrates, Beaker sites cluster along the borders and coastal areas, but do not penetrate the inner areas of Wales, although Wales is smothered with round barrows and cairns, as shown on one of the maps in Part 1.
The earliest European Beakers and associated objects appeared in Britain during the Late Neolithic – Early Bronze Age and were very distinctively shaped and last between around 2500 and 2200BC. It is now generally agreed that Beakers mark the arrival of people from various parts of western Europe, who brought their own distinctive traditions with them. This European origin for the Beaker tradition has been researched by a number of multidisciplinary groups including the Beaker People Project and the Beakers and Bodies Project. These research projects have used conventional analysis supplemented by radiocarbon dating and by strontium and oxygen isotope analysis on human bones, the latter discussed briefly in Part 2, to help investigate the origins and spread of the Beaker phenomenon.
All known Beakers in Wales in 2000. The Brymbo Beaker is number 14 (Step 5). Source: Lynch 2000, fig.3.13, p.116-7, based on a 1972 scheme by Lanting and Van der Waals.
Why did these European visitors or migrants come to Britain? There are two popular arguments, which are not mutually exclusive. The first is that already peripatetic individuals, perhaps traders, were attracted by the news of the ceremonial centres of Wessex, such as Avebury and Stonehenge, which have no exact parallels in western Europe. On the other hand, it is possible that these vast monuments were a response to the incursion, rather than a reason for it. A second is that individuals came either to sell copper objects to indigenous groups, impressing them with the sharpness of blades and the durability of tools that could be recast when exhausted, or to search for new sources of copper.
Whatever motivated people to venture from Europe into Britain, bringing new burial approaches and ideas with them, the consensus is that the Beaker phenomenon spread through Britain after what archaeologist Stuart Needham refers to as the “Fission Horizon” at 2200BC. Perhaps these early metal users impressed indigenous people with both the utility and magic of early metalwork and different ways of conceptualizing life and death, and the transition from one to the other. The widespread dissemination through Britain produced geographical clusters such as those in northeast England and Scotland, but the new burial tradition became ubiquitous everywhere. As Beaker style burials found their way into new areas, communities demonstrated their own interpretations, cherry-picking what they wanted from the European tradition until it had become something adapted for local needs, preferences and beliefs.
The spread of the tradition is usually, although not exclusively, thought to have been by emulation rather than ongoing immigration. The reasons for the adoption and spread of these novel approaches to funerary practice and the ideas that produced them, is still poorly understood, but may have much to do with personal identity and how it is received by the dead, and conferred by the living. In northeast Wales burials were usually isolated or in pairs, rather than in the clusters that can be found elsewhere.
Negotiating the role of the dead in the world of the living
As prehistorian Richard Bradley points out, using a handful of remarkable graves containing exceptional artefacts cannot be taken as representative of the greater majority of sites that have either more modest grave goods or no objects at all, but although they are untypical, the burials at Brymbo and Mold illustrate a point about all funerary sites of the period, which is that no two round barrow burials is the same. Although there are recognizable similarities between most sites (such as round barrows or cairns, central stone-built cists, crouched skeletons, grave-goods and secondary burials), the objects accompanying the dead represent multiple ideas and choices. The perception of objects as mediators of human activity is well attested in all areas of modern, historical and prehistoric lives, and the selection of objects, or the absence of them, represents choices being made within broader funerary traditions. When a living person dies, they still have a presence and a role until they have undergone some sort of transformation process, to mark the change of status. A family, group or community may find itself trying to redefine itself in relation to the loss, even if they believe that the deceased is headed for an afterlife, and the objects deposited with the dead may have been part of that process.
Because of our own hierarchical society it is easy but not always wise to assume that the burial of a single person in a marked grave reflects a clearly delineated social role, such as king, queen, chieftain or priest. When a grave is accompanied by something as rich as the Mold cape, that can be a challenging idea, because it feels instinctively as though the cape and the person belong together, the one conferring status on the other, both reflecting the dead person’s position in life. On the other hand, what would it say about our own society if the Queen had been buried with the Crown Jewels? It would certainly suggest that something startling was happening within the royal family, the monarchy and the nation.
Tutankhamen. Photo by Jon Bodworth.
In Part 3, Bryn yr Ellyllon and the Mold cape were compared to the burial of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen, as an analogy. The burial of valuable objects may sometimes be more about disposing of earlier ideas than celebrating the them. The Tutankhamen burial illustrates how it is the living who bury the dead, and the living may have firm views on what aspects of the living world should be disposed of at the same time. A burial may reflect a lot of complicated ideas that may therefore have very little to do with an individual’s status in life, and the role of someone in death may be very different from the position or status, if any, that they held in life.
There are many different models of appropriate funerary behaviour. In the Medieval period, for example, Jewish communities often adhered to the Old Testament’s view that “the rich and poor meet together in death,” indicating that material goods were only valuable to the living, often resulting in few if any grave goods and minimalist grave markers.
In the case of the Late Neolithic – Early Bronze Age, although a specific burial rite and the objects interred with the dead represent conscious choice based on the meaning of that object both in terms of a living community and in terms of how that community re-positions itself after a death, it is very difficult to know whether it is the identity of the living or the dead or the relationship between the two that is being worked through.
None of this directly addresses the questions of what the Beaker meant in one grave, or why such a remarkable collection of items was buried in another, but it does suggest there are many ways of understanding what objects are doing in graves in prehistory. Whatever the value and meaning of the objects chosen to accompany the dead, both resided not in the material alone but in how the material had been modified and objectified to become embedded with ideas that were connected to the identity of the dead, or to the object’s role as a link between the living and the dead, and to the ideas of physical and spiritual transformation.
Copper, bronze and gold in northeast Wales
The Moel Arthur axehead hoard. Source: Frances Lynch, The Later Neolithic and Earlier Bronze Age in Prehistoric Wales, p. 101, figure 3.7
Because the copper mines of the Great Orme were referred to with reference to Bryn yr Ellyllon, and because the cape was made of gold, and other objects of copper and bronze were present in the grave, a brief overview of how metals were acquired in northeast Wales seems pertinent. The earliest known worked source of copper within easy reach of Wales is in southwest Ireland at Ross Island at around 2400BC, associated with European Beaker pottery, and possibly the result of one group’s prospecting activities. The earliest Bronze Age (often referred to as the Chalcolithic) is represented in northeast Wales mainly by finds of thick-butted flat axe heads with high copper content in non-funerary contexts, including those from Halkyn, Moel Arthur, Iscoed Park and Caerwys, dating to between 2500 and 2300BC some of which, such as the Moel Arthur hoard, were probably from Ireland. Later examples were made locally.
In northwest Wales the most important copper mine was Parys Mountain on Anglesey, which is better known for being worked extensively in the 18th and 19th centuries. On the western edge of northeast Wales, on the coast just west of Llandudno, were the Great Orme opencast and underground mines, radiocarbon dated to between 1700 and c.900BC, still operating several centuries after other copper mines in Britain had closed. There is an overlap here between the earliest phases of the Great Orme mine and Bryn yr Ellyllon, Mold. The opencast mines, where the copper was clearly identifiable green seams of the mineral malachite and relatively easy to access. The doleritized limestone and shales, surrounding the ore were soft and easily removed with bone tools. More resistant stone could be detached from outcrops by setting fires against the stone, causing it to crack it into manageable chunks. The fire-setting would have required large quantities of wood, and may have had an impact on the local environment.
Opencast mining was followed later by underground tunnelling of galleries for more difficult to reach seams, with galleries so narrow and low (some of which were no larger than 0.3m wide and 0.7m high) that it is thought that only child labour could have been used to work them. Tools from the Great Orme mines included hammer-stones and cattle bone tools (leg and rib bones used as pickaxes and shoulder blades as shovels) were found in their thousands, together with bronze fragments. The tunnelling probably coincided with advances in bronze, dependent on the knowledge of how tin could strengthen tools when added to copper (ideally with 10% tin to 90% copper). The tin was presumably sourced from Cornwall, although evidence remains elusive.
At the Great Orme there are no traces of a settlement or even a domestic refuse site, meaning that there are no clues available about how the mining activities fitted into other livelihood activities. It is not known, for example, whether specialized teams worked the early mines, or if all suitable members the community were leveraged. Nor is it known if this was, at least early on, a seasonal activity that was fitted in around other economic pursuits, or whether even when mining first began it was a year-round occupation. Later, as the mines went underground, the tunnelling alone would have been very labour-intensive, implying full-time operating, but at the time of the Bryn yr Ellyllon site, matters remain opaque.
Gold was not adopted until a requirement emerged for objects of beauty and prestige rather than everyday functionality. Gold is too soft to be of any practical use. Only stray items survive, presumably because terminally damaged items were melted down and worked into new objects. Several early examples are from Ireland and southwest England. Examples of Bronze Age goldwork from northeast Wales include the Mold cape(s), the Caergwrle bowl, and an object from Ysceifiog described as a waist tore. Gold could be found in mid and north Wales, and could be sourced from local streams in northeast Wales, with a possible source for the Mold cape gold mentioned in Part 3.
Lost Data, Missing Data
In the case of Bryn yr Ellyllon, by virtue of the fact that it was plundered rather than excavated, the site stands out as a one of Britain’s most hair-raising examples of how important formal, systematic excavation really is. The gold cape is lovely, but it is only part of a story that has so many missing components, including both skeletal remains and textiles that were mentioned in the contemporary correspondence but were not retained. It is agony to know that prior to 1833 the site was undisturbed and could have imparted so much valuable information about the Early Bronze Age in northeast Wales.
This issue is as relevant today as it was in 1833. Metal detectorists and archaeologists have been working much more efficiently together over the last two decades, and the Portable Antiquities Scheme works with the public to help map object findspots and identify potential sites, but damage to a site to locate objects may be irreversible. As the British Museum’s Neil MacGregor says
It’s why archaeologists get so agitated about illicit excavations today. For although precious finds will usually survive, the context which explains them will be lost, and it’s the context of the material -often financially worthless- that turns treasure into history.
It is even worse when formal excavations are not published. Even the most professionally conducted excavation is an act of destruction, and the precise recording of the site and subsequent publication are the only means by which the site can contribute to research. The site of Llong near Bryn yr Ellyllon, which produced a jet bead necklace, was the subject of an official excavation in the 1950s but was never published. This represents an unforgivable archaeological failing. it was left to Frances Lynch, some 30 years later in the 1980s, to try to pull together the essentials, but even given her excellent attempt to reconstruct the findings, the gaps are sad.
The Whitehorse Hill burial bracelet made of cattle hair and studded with tin. Source: Dartmoor National Park
Data is also lost thanks to the British climate and its destructive effects on perishable items, referred to by archaeologist Linda Hurcome as “the missing majority” on the grounds that by far the greater number of structures and objects in prehistory would have been made of perishable materials that decayed centuries ago. The textile at Bryn yr Ellyllon is one example, but a more vivid illustration is a burial on Dartmoor in Devon called Whitehorse Hill. At that site burnt bones were wrapped in a bear pelt and were accompanied by remnants of textile attached to calf skin, a basket, a cattle hair arm band and wooden studs.
Why do these sites and their associated ideas matter?
I started off asking why the burials containing Brymbo Man and the Mold Cape and their Early Bronze Age neighbours might matter. There are many answers to that question, and you may have a few of your own to add.
Recreating the past: adding to the bigger picture
Our knowledge of prehistory is fluid. The idea that the past is static is challenged every time a new site or object is found and explored in detail, and our understanding grows as new sites and objects contribute to the picture, and new research programmes examine whatever remains poorly understood and under-investigated. Sites and objects only really start to matter when they are put together with other sites dating to the same period to get to grips with the contemporary social and economic context, which can in turn be compared and contrasted with those of different periods to enable a better understanding of how change happens.
Neal Johnson’s useful visual timeline of the Early Metal Age, showing how bringing together excavated data can help archaeologists to understand when and how technological, economic and social changes occurred. Source: Neal Johnson 2017, p.7, fig.2 (in Sources at the end of Part 1). Click to enlarge and read clearly.
Change is one of the special domains of prehistoric archaeology, because prehistoric research deals in multiple decades and centuries rather than months and years. Archaeological research into livelihood management and change helps to offer ideas about what drives people to make changes in economic dimensions of their lives, and how this happens. It also helps us to understand how economic changes and the adoption of ideas, whether local innovations or arrivals from Ireland and Europe, can impact cultural changes (changes in the material record), which in turn reflect how people think, how they translate ideas and beliefs into new actions, monuments and objects. How these differ from one area to another, and across different topographical landscapes, is another line of inquiry, helping archaeologists to piece together regional identities.
Getting to know people who were rather like us
The separation of Britain from Europe at the end of the last Ice Age. Source: Richard Bradley 2019, p.10. fig1.5
Now that chronological frameworks for different regions in Britain are being refined it is possible to take up the challenge of learning how people lived their lives and expressed their ideas. Fully modern people, Homo sapiens sapiens, arrived in Europe some 40,000 years ago. When the ice melted following the last Ice Age completely severed Britain from the European mainland at around 6,500 BC. Although initially characterized by livelihoods based on hunting, foraging and fishing, with different phases marked by new tool technologies, the introduction of cereals and livestock that had originally been domesticated in the Near East provided British communities with additional means for differentiating themselves from their European neighbours. Even so, it is clear that by the Late Neolithic, cross-channel connections had been established and continued to be maintained throughout the Bronze Age and later prehistory.
Everyday lives during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age were confronted with hurdles far more difficult than ours to overcome with the unsophisticated technologies available, and people had very little in the way of medicinal resources to treat injuries and health problems. Lifespans were shorter, options more limited, and ideologies and beliefs were different, but families and communities had the same problem-solving abilities, tackled daunting decisions about risks and opportunities, and had their own traditions about how to behave under any given circumstances. The objects that they made and modified might be simple tools for specific tasks but they might also have important roles a heirlooms, in creating identity, building up memories and negotiating the difficulties of rites of passage, including death. The people who buried the individuals in Brymbo and Mold and their contemporaries are recognizable versions of ourselves, and they have left a rich legacy of their past presence both on and under the landscape.
Almost wherever you go in northeast Wales, you are sharing the landscape with the prehistoric people who worked the land, engaged in long-distance trade, designed and manufactured both beautiful and utilitarian objects and built round barrows and other monuments, a surprising number of which have withstood the ever expanding agricultural and urban dimensions of modern life. The round barrows are very easy to find, even in Wrexham itself. This makes for a rich experience, with round barrows providing a real sense of how Bronze Age family groups or communities put their stamp ubiquitously on the uplands and lowlands of northeast Wales. Sharing the past in the present is an opportunity to hear and respect the many hundreds of prehistoric voices can be heard if we take the time to listen. The fact that the past requires quite a lot of unravelling is just part of the ongoing enjoyment.
Connecting with the interested public
Brymbo’s Bryn y Ffynnon and its occupant have become more important than the sum of their parts by helping to explain prehistory to the public in the Wrexham County Borough Museum. Both adults and children may be interested in prehistory but find it very difficult to find a way of approaching it. By reconstructing the tomb in the museum itself, and by giving the partial skeleton a moniker, “Brymbo Man,” and commissioning a specialist to give him a face based on what remains of his cranium, the museum has used the grave to form a bridge between the present visitor and the past world of Beaker burials. Videos and information boards, and exhibits with contemporary objects help to bring the Early Bronze Age of northeast Wales to life. It really is terribly well done.
Screengrab from a British Museum video about the Mold Cape, shown at the end of this post.
The Mold Cape is also great PR for the Early Bronze Age in Wales. It is a huge draw for tourists worldwide in the British Museum, and the source of fascination for British school children, as shown in the video at the end of this post. A single piece of truly remarkable bling is not representative of this or any other period, but if it draws attention and results in questions to be asked, and children wanting to know more, it is doing a very good job for raising an awareness of prehistory and its complexities in the here and now.
Final Comments
Frances Lynch, writing in 2004, commented: “It is difficult to clothe the bones of prehistory in flesh and blood, to provide people with a picture of society to which they can relate,” and this is clearly the case here. By choosing two remarkable sites, a Beaker burial that is right on the edge of northeast Wales and the Mold cape assemblage, I have picked two sites that are anything but typical. However, I hope that these two sites, each containing different levels of data preservation and each exemplifying different archaeological problems, have gone some way to explaining how fascinating prehistoric sites can be, both individually and as representatives of a bigger picture.
Two palstave axehead moulds found by a metal detectorist on Conwy Mountain near the Great Orme, and declared Treasure. Now in the collection of the National Museum of Wales. Source: National Museum of Wales, via the BBC News website
Prehistory often feels elusive, intangible, and really quite difficult to grasp, but as archaeologists employ increasingly sophisticated survey, excavation and post-excavation methodologies and approaches, and bring more scientific techniques to bear, prehistoric livelihoods and worldviews become infinitely more accessible. Well-presented museum displays, television productions and publications aimed at wide audiences help to support the public, of all ages, as they begin to discover not only what remarkable objects survive from prehistory, but to understand how they may help to tell us about the surprising complexities incorporated into prehistoric livelihoods. These exist in a past that is distant, but in which people are still easy to recognize, and whose livelihoods, interests, hopes, concerns and losses may be readily identified with today.
Further reading
The full set of sources (books, academic papers and websites) that I have used for all four parts are listed at the end of Part 1. If you are interested in learning more about the Late Neolithic – Early Bronze Age in Wales, Frances Lynch’s chapter The Later Neolithic and Earlier Bronze Age in the 2000 book Prehistoric Wales by Frances Lynch, Stephen Aldhouse-Green and Jeffrey L. Davies is a very useful introduction. Steve Burrow’s 2011 book Shadowland, Wales 3000 – 1500BC about Welsh prehistory published by the National Museum of Wales includes good digestible accounts of the period. Neal Johnson’s 2017 academic monograph Early Bronze Age Round Barrows of the Anglo-Welsh Border has some very good background information but focuses on round barrow clusters that are rarely found in northeast Wales. For a comprehensive academic overview on Britain’s prehistory, Richard Bradley’s 2019 wide-ranging The Prehistory of Britain and Ireland provides an excellent foundation course. All can be found in Sources at the end of Part 1.
Visiting
Both sites have been destroyed, so neither can be visited in the field, which underlines the importance of publishing what remains of known sites. We are fortunate that in both cases the objects from the site were preserved and can be visited in museums.
The Brymbo cist and capstone, the skeleton found within the cist and the objects that accompanied the dead are preserved at the Wrexham County Borough Museum. The Mold cape and associated objects are now held in the British Museum in London, and the cape has a prominent position in Gallery 51. Details of both museums are as follows:
Wrexham County Borough Museum
The excellent Brymbo Man display in the Wrexham County Borough Museum is free of charge to visit, as is the rest of the permanent museum display. The display includes some really good videos and information about the reconstruction of the Brymbo Man head and face, together with a holographic representation of the head. There is plenty of parking in Wrexham, and the museum is a short walk from the bus station. Hot and cold drinks, and some great cakes, snacks and lunches are available in the museum’s very attractive conservatory café. See the Wrexham County Borough Museum website for visiting details: https://www.wrexhamheritage.wales
British Museum, London
The Mold Cape is in Gallery 51. The British Museum’s permanent galleries are free to enter. Parking is well nigh impossible. The nearest Underground station is a 10-15 minute walk away, but there are plenty of buses that go past the front and back doors, and in London there are always taxis. Within the museum, coffees and lunches are available in the cafés and the upstairs Great Court Restaurant (expensive but good, often with exhibition-themed special menus), and there are plenty of pubs, cafés and restaurants nearby. The further afield you go from the tourist hot-spots, of course, the lower the prices become 🙂 For visiting details see the British Museum website for more information. https://www.britishmuseum.org/
Based in Churton 
