An Exploration of Meaning at the Rollright Stones

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An exploration of meaning at the Rollright Stones.

Exam number: 1322403

Date of submission: 2 nd April 2013

Supervisor: Dr Magda Midgley

Word Count: 11,999

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With thanks to Dr. Magda Midgley for her support and guidance, Lucie Robathan and Liz Potter for their editing suggestions and George Lambrick for answering all my questions.

Title page photograph: The King’s Men (English Heritage, 2013).

1322403 Contents Introduction ...... 4 An overview of archaeological evidence at the site of the Rollright Stones ...... 7 Chapter One...... 9 An archaeological narrative ...... 9 1.1 Early Antiquarianism...... 9 1.2 The beginnings of empiricism ...... 12 1.3 Stukeley: fanciful or pioneering? ...... 13 1.4 Evolutionary theory and emergence of prehistory...... 16 1.5 Processualism and Post- Processualism...... 18 1.6 Archaeology as one lens ...... 19 Chapter Two...... 20 An alternative lens: how folklore can further a holistic understanding of the Rollright Stones ...... 20 2.1 Folklore as an interpretative tool ...... 20 2.2 The Folklore of the Rollright Stones...... 22 2.3 How folklore can deepen understandings of past practice ...... 26 Chapter Three ...... 30 Heritage Management at the Rollright Stones...... 30 3.1 Heritage conceptualisation and strategy in Britain...... 31 3.2 The Heritage management strategy at the Rollright Stones ...... 35 3.3 The success of the heritage management strategy at the Rollright Stones...... 40 Conclusion...... 42 Bibliography ...... 44 Images...... 48

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Introduction

Along a Jurassic ridge in the Cotswolds, on either side of an ancient track way that connects the west of England to the east, lie three stone monuments arranged in such a way so as to bring to mind a thwarted king and his army. For the past six thousand years, humans have come to this place to congregate, to contemplate, to bury their dead and to initiate the living. The oldest of the monuments, the so-called Whispering Knights, is a dolmen burial chamber and is thought in popular folklore to represent a group of scheming knights, leaning their heads close together and plotting their leader’s downfall. The King’s more faithful army are found in the stones of the ceremonial circle named the King’s Men, which today acts as a venue for spiritual ceremonies, astronomy events and art exhibitions. Across the ancient track-way, now a busy road, the petrified king, a stone erected to mark a Bronze Age cemetery, is watched over by a modern wooden sculpture of a witch, representing the legendary sorceress who turned the king to stone. The King and his army are not the only traces of past human activity at the site. Archaeological fieldwork has uncovered evidence of continual site use up to the Iron Age. The site continues to be used today, both as a visitor attraction and as a venue which can be hired at the discretion of the Trust which runs it.

How a place has been thought about and experienced in the past is as important as how it is conceptualised in the present in any exploration of places as meaningful, as past meaning is constitutive of present meaning. I am pursuing this exploration not simply as an academic exercise, but in an attempt to deepen understanding of the Rollright Stones as a culturally significant place, an understanding which is integral to formulating appropriate conservation strategies (Thackray, 1999: 20). By developing a holistic understanding of how a place is meaningful to people, an understanding which necessarily must examine how ideas of the place have developed through time, a suitable heritage strategy can be developed which takes into account all systems of meaning.

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I hope to represent a matrix of human meaning rather than one homogenous ideology which can in some way be ‘read’ from the stones. Tilley asserted that all landscapes are value laden and political (1994:20). All interpretations of landscapes are also value laden and political and cannot be considered independently of their social and political context. This acknowledgement requires certain reflexivity on my own part and an acknowledgement of the specific academic context in which I am writing.

I have shaped my argument broadly within a phenomenological approach, in that I am most interested in “the understanding and description of things as they are experienced by the subject” (Tilley, 1994: 12). This kind of thinking falls within ‘post-processualism’, a paradigm developed in archaeological theory in the 1980s which has yet to be superseded by a clear replacement (Hodder, 1986; Shanks & Tilley, 1987). In some senses, I engage with tenets of post processualist thinking: I hope to employ a hermeneutic approach which prioritises understanding of how monuments are meaningful artefacts; an approach which is elucidated through a ‘story telling’ methodology, that is, narrating how the Rollright Stones can be seen to have been made meaningful in different ways (Kohl, 1993: 13). Post- processualism emphasises the importance of a critical understanding of the context within which knowledge is produced (Kohl, 1993: 13), an understanding which is integral to any exploration of how monuments are given meaning. However, I hope to ensure that I do not exclude post processualism itself from this critical analysis. Post-processualism casts itself as a demystification of processualist approaches’ representation of (Western) culturally constructed knowledge as scientific objectivism (Shanks & Tilley, 1987:118). However, this triumphalism of the present way of thinking over past approaches is not new; any paradigmatic shift necessarily maintains that the new way of thinking is more illuminatory than that which came before, as is evident from the consideration of the emergence of processualism as a ‘loss of innocence’ in archaeology (Clarke, 1973). I wish to apply post- processual ways of thinking to this exploration of meaning at the Rollright Stones, however, I aim to do this in a critical manner, remaining aware of how these ideas can enhance an understanding of monuments, but also of possible blind spots inherent in an interpretative approach.

I have separated my exploration into three broad sections. Firstly, by outlining a history of antiquarian and archaeological study of the Stones, I hope to elucidate how

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Rollright has been epistemologically constructed through time. By engaging with a historically chronological approach, it will be possible to make clear how all archaeological interpretations are socially and politically contextual and together form a specific way of conceptualising the past. Secondly, I shall examine how the folklore of the Rollright Stones offers an alternative lens through which we can further an understanding of how the Stones have been experienced in the past. I believe that the folklore is a useful methodology for analysing how meaning has been similarly conceptualised at the Stones through time and can contribute to understandings of how people experienced the stones in the past, as well as in the present; while it also offers a critique for the prioritisation of archaeological science in informing how sites should be interpreted. Thirdly, I shall examine how meaning is created at the site in the present day. This process is largely informed by the heritage management strategy, and by analysing this within the context of a broader heritage movement in Britain I hope to evaluate the way in which meaning creation is shaped today.

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An overview of archaeological evidence at the site of the Rollright Stones

The mapping and dating of this evidence is a result of the thorough archaeological report conducted on behalf of English Heritage in 1988 (Lambrick). This survey relied heavily upon scientific surveying techniques which allowed for a thorough chronology of the whole complex to be developed for the first time.

Dates: Lambrick, 1988.

Images: Whispering Knights (Turner, 2009); King’s Men (Charlesworth, 2009); King Stone (Grey, 2008).

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A note on dating: there is reliance upon relative dating in the interpretation of the megaliths. The Whispering Knights have been dated to the early Neolithic by identifying typological similarities with similar structures in Wales and Ireland, a theory supported by shards of early Neolithic pottery excavated close to the site. The King’s Men have similarly been dated purely through typological comparison. They resemble a ‘Cumbrian’ stone circle in character, of which similar examples can be found in the Lake District, eastern Ireland and Wales. This suggests the King’s Men were constructed in the later Neolithic, around a thousand years after the construction of the Whispering Knights (Rollright Trust, 2000: 8). Radiocarbon dates have been taken from cremations found close to the King Stone. If the assumption that the stone was erected as a marker for the cemetery is valid, these radiocarbon dates should accurately date the stone itself (Rollright Trust, 2000: 8).

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Chapter One

An archaeological narrative

By charting archaeological study of the Rollright Stones from first interpretation to the present day, I hope to show the cumulative way in which archaeological understandings of the stones have developed through time. By situating archaeological interpretations within their social and political context I wish to demonstrate that meaning attributed to the stones is always culturally constructed in the present. I have engaged with a chronological methodology in narrating the history of archaeological interpretation at the Rollright Stones, and by doing so, I hope to reflect the chronological manner in which archaeology itself orders time.

1.1 Early Antiquarianism

The first interpretation of the Rollright Stones in historical text appears in Camden’s Britannia of 1586 (1772). The accompanying illustration, which is first seen in the 1607 edition, is not, however, the first pictorial representation. Recent restoration by the British Museum of a tapestry from the Warwickshire home of Ralph Sheldon has revealed what is believed to be the first pictorial representation of the stones, thought to be produced in the 1590s (British Museum Blog, 2012). Due to the previously poor condition of this tapestry and the relatively small size of the embroidered stones, they had gone unnoticed until recent restoration work was completed.

Sheldon Tapestry Map, 1590s

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Another point to be noted is Camden’s mention of early excavations at Rollright (“Besides, a curious antiquary in these parts, making a diligent search, in the middle, for some remains which might lead us to the first design, and particularly for bones, found himself disappointed” (1772: 293)). Noted in the margin is: “Ralph Sheldon, esq”, added by later editor, Edmund Gibson (1772). Further investigation of the tapestry, and the potential uncovering of documents detailing Sheldon’s excavations at Rollright may reveal an earlier written account of the Stones, however, at the present time, Camden’s Britannia provides the first interpretation. Describing the site as “a single circle of stones without epistyles or architraves, and of no very regular figure” (Camden, 1772: 293), Camden draws the conclusion that the lack of Christian marks on the stones, or barrows which could indicate pagan worship, signifies that rather than marking a burial site, the Stones were erected as a victory monument. Camden tentatively assigns this victory to Rollo the Dane, on the basis of etymological similarities (1772: 293). Although Camden’s interpretation may now seem misguided, his approach was innovative, and his Britannia was the first volume of antiquarian work in which the author had visited and observed sites personally rather than relying on second hand interpretations.

Camden’s association of the Rollright Stones with Rollo the Dane came at a time when the world was thought to have begun in 4000BC and all its history was believed to be recorded in text, be that the Bible, classical histories, or myths and legends (Piggott, 1976: 4). The biblical flood acted as an unquestionable point of reference, and the earliest date to which any archaeological evidence could be attributed (Piggott, 1976:4). The first record of the Rollright Stones in the Tractatus de mirabilibus Britanniae of the fourteenth century makes clear the importance of historical records for interpretation. Not having made a connection to any previous historical record, myth, or legend, the anonymous cleric commented that “at what time this was done, or by what people, or for what memorial or significance, is unknown” (Anonymous, 13--, cited in Lambrick, 1988:5). Camden’s protagonist of Rollo the Dane is a character from legend, described in some texts as the son of King Arthur, and in others as the ancestor of William the Conqueror (Douglas, 1942).

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Trigger contextualises the antiquarian tendency to link prehistoric sites with Arthurian legend as reflective of the rise in patriotism, emanating from the new, thriving, middle classes in 16th Century England (1989:46). Myths and legends had shaped the perception of British history for centuries, but, as argued by Piggott “the accession of the Tudors gave to the legend an added propaganda value” (Piggott, 1976:33). This fascination with the importance of the nation’s past was institutionalised in the introduction of John Leland as the King’s Antiquary in 1533. Although Leland’s work was not explicitly nationalistic, his employment by the crown undermined the ability for value-free research. The eradication of the Society of Antiquaries in 1604 by James I, certainly suggests that antiquarianism was considered patriotic in its employment, as presumably the Scottish King resented the emphasis on a great English past, and feared this could undermine his power (Trigger, 1989:47). Within this context, Camden’s connection between Rollo the Dane and the erection of the Rollright Stones can be seen partly as a result of a time when patriotism and fascination with national heritage was thriving. However, perhaps most significantly, at this point there was no concept of prehistory, that is “the study of the history of a region prior to the earliest appearance of written records relating to it” (Trigger, 1989: 83) and so any interpretation of artefacts was reliant upon textual evidence. It was not until the nineteenth century that concepts of prehistory began to infiltrate archaeological interpretation, and vastly widen the time depth of analysis possible.

Camden, 1586

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1.2 The beginnings of empiricism

The Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century marked a movement towards an antiquarian approach founded in the methods of natural sciences, a field of study institutionalised within the academic tenets of the Royal Society (Piggott, 1976:20). However, despite the development of scientific archaeological methods, prior to the later establishment of prehistory as a framework within which archaeology could be interpreted, a tendency to draw upon historical texts for interpretation perpetuated. Dr Plot’s account of the Rollright Stones (1677) contains some empirical findings, for example descriptions of the numbers and size of the stones (1677: 202); however, it does rely heavily on Camden’s theories of a century previously, and in this way, does not represent a methodological transfer from antiquarianism to an approach which emphasises objective natural science. Like Camden, Plot imagines the Stones as a victory monument erected for Rollo the Dane, but draws on local folklore as opposed to etymology: “the King of them…might erect this Monument in memory of the Fact; the great single stone for the intended King, the five stones by themselves for his principal Captains, and the round for the mixt multitude slain in the Battle, which somewhat agreeable to the tradition concerning them” (Plot, 1677:338). Aubrey gives no interpretation in his brief account of the Rollright Stones written in 1698 (1980), relying instead on empiricism and classification in his descriptive approach, methods which situate him firmly within the academic style of the Royal Society (Piggott, 1976:17). Although these approaches represent a greater engagement with scientific methods, they remain antiquarian in that emphasis remains upon recording monuments rather than conducting a scientific analysis of past processes at the site (Johnson, 1997:237).

Sherratt has formulated a framework, the “European Cultural Dialectic” which charters the change in emphasis between enlightenment and romantic approaches throughout the history of archaeological thought (1996). This is a useful context in which to situate various theorists as it allows for clear comparisons between different approaches and encourages an appreciation of both the ways in which social and political context can affect academic thought and the cyclical nature of epistemology through time. While Enlightenment approaches prioritise the “comparativist and scientific, privileging rational

1322403 thought and offering deterministic models” (Sherratt, 1996: 140), Romantic ways of thinking remain “contextualist and relativist, emphasising feeling and experience and offering not abstract structures but sensitive interpretations of perceptible phenomena” (Sherratt, 1996: 140). The social context of the Enlightenment can be appreciated in the empirical methods of Plot and Aubrey. However, in Plot’s interpretation, Romantic tendencies persist, as can be noted from his association between the Rollright Stones and King Rollo (1677). Just as with Camden, this interpretation betrays an aspiration to create a link between physical monuments and a national past.

1.3 Stukeley: fanciful or pioneering?

Stukeley’s interpretation of the Rollright Stones introduced two new elements which offered a more astute understanding of the site: firstly, he dates the Stones as pre-Roman (1743: 10), a theory which was never again questioned; secondly, he identifies barrows which surround the site and makes a record of these (1743: 13). However, Stukeley’s preoccupation with the druidical origin of monuments has been considered as marking a diminishment of the methods of empiricism and observation advocated by the Royal Society, and a renewed focus on a more ‘Romantic’ strain of thinking. His most significant account of the Rollright Stones published in his 1743 Abury , comes after what Piggott has termed “his own lamentable lapse from scholarship” (1976:21), where theories of Druid origins infiltrate all observation. Stukeley believed the King’s Men to be “the temple of the Druids of the first kind” (1743:10) and the King Stone to be the remains of “the sepulchre of the arch druid founder” (1743:13). For evidence, he uses etymological analysis, just as Camden did, linking the name Rollendrich to the term Rholdrwyg , which means druid’s circle (Stukeley, 1743:11). Piggott suggests that the saturation of Stukeley’s work with druidical origin, a theory which now seems fantastical and certainly invalid, goes towards discrediting his intellectual clout (1976: 21). However, more recent works on Stukeley have emphasised the extent of his scientific background and complement of varied knowledge and skills as reflective of the progressive nature of his antiquarianism (Haycock, 2002: 6). In Lambrick’s historical review of the Stones, he fits Stukeley into his teleological narrative as the founder of “the most far reaching development of fieldwork and survey” (1988:8), and rationalises his fixation on Druidism as “based on sound reasoning” (1988:12). Indeed, Stukeley’s fieldwork, in method,

1322403 does unarguably mark an innovative move forward from antiquarianism by focusing on stratigraphy, rather than just relic finding (Piggott, 1950: 11). Stukeley’s illustrations have also been considered innovative, in that they are the first of their kind to present monuments within the context of a broader landscape. Haycock associates this tendency with eighteenth century garden landscaping tastes, which prioritised sweeping vistas and “whereby any physical construction existed only as part of a broader conceptual frame” (1999: 71). Indeed, when comparing Stukeley’s illustration of the Rollright Stones (1743) with that of Plot (1677), a greater appreciation of the surrounding landscape views beyond the field boundary can be noted in Stukeley’s work. Considering monuments within their surroundings is an approach which has now come back into vogue within the phenomenological paradigm (Tilley, 1994); a pattern which calls to mind the cyclical nature of interpretative trends.

Plot, 1677

Stukeley, 1743

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Considered within the context of a period when the Romantic Movement was beginning to emerge in reaction to the strict empirical limits of Enlightenment thinking, Stukeley’s account of the Rollright Stones can be seen to display many elements of the Romanticism of the era, suggesting that Stukeley may be considered as a precursive figure to the Romantic period. This idea supports theories of Stukeley as innovative in his way of thinking (Lambrick, 1988; Haycock, 2002). His poetic language , “corroded like worm-eaten wood, by the harsh jaws of time” (1743:10), echoes both the style and fascination with ruins of the Romantic poets ( for example, “Round the decay/ Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare” (Shelley, 1818)), as well as the Romantic ideal of innocence and youth: compare Stukeley’s “ hither, on a certain day of the year, the young men and maidens customarily meet, and make merry with cakes and ale” (1743:13) with Blake’s words forty six years later, “``Such, such were the joys /When we all, girls & boys,/In our youth time were seen /On the Echoing Green'' (1887). The French Revolution, at the end of the eighteenth century, which changed intellectual thought irreparably, produced the phrase which summarised the key tenets of the resistance movement: ‘liberté, égalité, fraternité’ . The Druids, who were widely considered as trailblazers in seeking freedom from tyrannical Roman rule (Piggott, 1950:125) embodied these qualities. Inscribing the British landscape with such cultural connotations was prophetic in terms of how European society was about to change; but, considering that Britain in general regarded revolutionary developments in France with horror (Emsley, 2000: 76); Stukeley’s romantic interpretation would have stood outside mainstream British culture of the time. This concept of Stukeley as an independent, precursive and innovative thinker is further supported by his early adoption of a diffusionist line of thought. He refers to temples and altars, of which evidence can be found in the Bible (“Joshua let the stones in a circular form, like the ancient temples” (Stukeley, 1743:11)), and establishes these as an early type of the Stones seen at Rollright: “These works of ours prove it, which are but little later in time, and made in imitation of theirs” (Stukeley, 1743:11). This concept of the spread of ideas across the globe rose to prominence in the nineteenth century as diffusionist explanations for social change took hold.

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1.4 Evolutionary theory and emergence of prehistory

Several highly influential publications of the nineteenth century irrevocably changed the ways in which archaeologists thought about the past. Darwin’s 1859 work On the Origin of Species (1998) which ushered in evolutionary theory in combination with Lyell’s 1830-1833 work on the uniformitarian nature of the geological record (Trigger, 1989: 93) and collapsed the biblically inspired framework in which all archaeology had previously been interpreted. Archaeological methods in this period also underwent a dramatic change. The development and application of the three age system by Thomsen and Worsaae in the mid nineteenth century, although slow in being accepted in England, was highly influential in promoting both the methodology of striation and stratification in archaeological study and a greater appreciation of artefacts over historical records as sources of understanding about the past (Trigger, 1989: 82). Although Worsaae himself did not dispute a biblical chronology (Trigger, 1989: 82), the culmination of a collection of progressive and innovative works on the study of history published in the nineteenth century swelled the scope of time in which monuments such as Rollright could be interpreted.

Evans uses a neat typological method to date the Rollright Stones to the early Iron Age (1895). Due to mineralogical similarities between the Stones at Rollright, and those at nearby Stanton Harcourt, as well as evidence of disk barrows at Stanton Harcourt, believed to be similar to those noted by Stukeley at Rollright, Evans assumed the two sites to be contemporaneous (1895:17). The fragments of flint found at Stanton Harcourt are of a type associated with the early Iron Age (1895, 17), and so Evans came to the conclusion that the Rollright Stones were of a similar period. Although Evans’ theory dates the Stones much later than believed today, his method marks the first example of inductive archaeological reasoning at the site. Beesley uses typological methods to a different conclusion: comparing the Stones at Rollright to sepulchral monuments across Europe (1854: 70). Beesley dates the Stones to an even later date than Evans, associating them with a long period of time ranging from the Celts to the Anglo Saxons (1854:71). Although neither theory has stood the test of time the nineteenth century archaeologists at Rollright are innovative in their approach of typological comparison.

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The Victorian and Edwardian period marked the beginning on the Rollright Stones as a public site of interest, somewhere to be visited not only by young men and maidens making merry, or itinerant antiquarians, but also by the leisure class. This is evident not only by the accounts of the archaeological societies, whose minutes make up the majority of published accounts of the Stones during this period (Archaeological Society of North Oxfordshire, 1855), but also by the inclusion in the schedule of the first Ancient Monuments Act in 1882 (Lambrick, 1988:1) and the appearance of publications associated with an increase in visitor numbers (for example, Taunt’s guide of 1907, which, engages with tourist marketing techniques by calling the Stones the ‘Stonehenge of Oxfordshire’). As travel became more accessible, the British landscape became a commodification which could be exploited for financial gain, and there was increasing interest in the Rollright Stones from local authorities, with the first detailed survey completed by the Office of Works in 1920 (Lambrick, 1988:21).

Taunt, 1904

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1.5 Processualism and Post- Processualism

Archaeological investigation continued at the Rollright Stones through the two world wars, with notable contributions from Ravenhill (1926) and Burl (1976). The most complete study to date was published by the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England towards the end of the twentieth century (Lambrick, 1988). There had been no excavation at Rollright since Ralph Sheldon’s apparently fruitless attempts at finding human remains in the sixteenth century. The project which Lambrick details largely used survey methods, with some selective excavation (Lambrick, 1988:1). This survey represents the first fully scientific investigation of the Rollright Stones and in doing this differs dramatically from previous approaches. Lambrick engages with environmental archaeology, conducting a variety of analyses into the biological and chemical makeup of the finds at Rollright, as well as the surrounding landscape. Economic prehistory was developed by Clark and Higgs at Cambridge in the 1970s and 1980s (Evans & O’Connor, 1999:5) and is a theory which Lambrick engaged with at Rollright. This approach draws from the disciplines of geography and biology, which demonstrates the increasingly fluid inter disciplinary barriers developing in the late twentieth century. Economic prehistory examines how resources available at a site have changed over time, a factor Lambrick measures through charcoal analysis and pollen dating (Lambrick, 1988:132). For the first time a chronology of site activity was developed (1988: 1) and placed within the context of a sequence of environmental change (Lambrick, 1988: 131). If these methods are to be identified as modern, we can identify a movement towards postmodern approaches in the last few decades, by comparing Lambrick’s report to that of Chare (2011). Chare adopts a phenomenological approach, which examines the physical experience of the Stones in a holistic manner, giving equal if not greater emphasis to the senses of taste and touch. This approach strongly engages with ideas of the body as the key mediator of experience and places the onus upon the subjective experience of being at the Rollright Stones. This emphasis on the subjective encourages a synthesis between the natural and cultural, as the Stones are understood as encultured through the experiences of the natural body.

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1.6 Archaeology as one lens

In this narrative of the various historical accounts of the Rollright Stones, the changing nature of archaeological interpretations through time can be observed: the study of the Rollright Stones provides a microcosm for greater intellectual and theoretical change within archaeology in Britain. The ways in which the Rollright Stones have been studied in the last five centuries have changed dramatically, always in response to the larger intellectual and social context. These different approaches cannot be considered independently: each subsequent paradigm has been born out of a previous tradition, and often echoes in theory can be observed across centuries. Sherratt’s “European Cultural Dialectic” (1996) provides a useful framework for structuring different archaeological trends as it allows for a retrospective consideration of the tension between Romantic and Enlightenment approaches and how these two strands of thinking have developed in response to each other over the past centuries. Most significantly, this framework promotes a highly contextual consideration of the trajectory of archaeological thought which highlights the socially, culturally and politically constructed nature of each new paradigm. Although all these interpretations of the Rollright Stones have been organised under the umbrella term of an ‘archaeological’ system of meaning each different interpretation represents a specific, value laden, lens through which the Rollright Stones have been thought about. A unifying thread of all these interpretations is their conception of time as chronological and regular; a framework stretching into the past upon which ancient monuments such as the Rollright Stones can be pinned. In the next chapter, I shall attempt to show that this is not the only way in which the past is conceptualised. By examining an alternative lens of interpretation I hope to add another dimension to this exploration of how the Rollright Stones are imbued with meaning.

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Chapter Two

An alternative lens: how folklore can further a holistic understanding of the Rollright Stones

Having considered how the Rollright Stones have been thought about as an archaeologically significant site over the past centuries, I now hope to demonstrate how considering folklore as a source of ethnographic knowledge can contribute to a deep understanding of how the Stones have been experienced through time.

2.1 Folklore as an interpretative tool

The archaeological approaches to the Rollright Stones as discussed in Chapter One represent a specific cultural history of the site. However, this archaeological cultural history does not represent the full extent of ways in which the site has been imagined. The cultural history of the Rollright Stones is not univocal and limited to recordings of antiquarians and archaeologists. Rather, the cultural history of the monument is constituted of different, interconnected, interpretative lenses, which represent different “systems of meaning” (Layton, 1999: 26). In this chapter I hope to examine folklore as an alternative lens through which the past is given meaning at the Rollright Stones. Traditionally, folklore has pertained to any social phenomena considered below ‘high culture’, but more recent discussions have extended the breadth of definition so that “all material culture, social customs and artistic performances associated with a group of people” (Gazin-Schwartz & Holtorf, 1999:6) (or in this case ‘a group of stones’) are included. In terms of archaeological sites, folklore represents meaningful past behaviour which is residual in the present. Darvill (cited in Reid, 2012) notes that while we recognise folklore in other cultures as ethnography, we appear to be unwilling to grant our own folklore such significance. This tendency restricts our understandings of the past; it is important to engage with folklore as ethnographic evidence of meaningful practice in order to ensure our conceptions of meaning at historically significant sites are nuanced and time sensitive.

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Archaeology and folklore should not be considered distinct and polar frameworks of thinking about the past, but rather complementary and connected modes of understanding. Antiquarians and archaeologists have often drawn attention to the folklore associated with the Rollright Stones. Stukeley’s antiquarian observations on Rollright (1743) and the druidical associations he inferred have come themselves to represent an example of folklore. Despite there being no archaeological evidence for druid activity at Rollright, Stukeley’s druidic association has endured through the centuries and Rollright is considered a significant and meaningful monument by the modern pagan community today (the extent of this can be elicited from the fact that 80% of donations for the upkeep of the site are received from pagans (Rollright Trust, 2000: 20)). To suggest that archaeology and folklore are mutually exclusive ways of viewing the past implies that one is true and the other false. This outlook is founded within a distinctively rational and modernist intellectual framework. To use this framework would undermine the value of folklore as a system of meaning, by failing to see beyond the truth or falsity of its content. Our understandings of the past are made up of so many disparate “systems of meaning” (Layton, 1999: 26) (of which archaeology and folklore are two), that we cannot hope to locate one historical truth (McNeil, 1986: 8). Instead, we should set aside a quest for a single truth and instead consider archaeology and folklore to be mutually constituted present systems of understanding the past. Layton highlights one advantage of adopting a folklore-centred approach as offering a critique for the epistemology of archaeology and “a cause for reflection on the politics of academic knowledge” (Layton, 1999: 32). Archaeology is also subjective, and an awareness of this subjectivity is brought to the forefront of any study when combining the interpretative lenses of archaeology and folklore.

‘Cultural Memory’ describes “the collective understandings, or constructions, of the distant past, as they are held by people in a given social and historical context” (Holtorf, 1996:125). Places, such as megaliths, are significant in constructing and continuing cultural memory as they give memory a concrete point of reference as well as outliving the life span of individuals (Assmann, 1999: 282). Collective understandings of the past are promoted by two concepts: memory culture and history culture. Memory culture consists of the reconstruction of cultural identity of past generations through reference to cultural mnemonics (Holtorf, 1996: 119); whereas history culture encourages a creation of collective

1322403 identity and historic consciousness of ones place in the present. In terms of memory culture and the Rollright Stones, the site of the Stones in combination with the accompanying folklore practices represent a cultural mnemonic, through which past identities are constantly reconstructed and perpetuated in the present. By adopting this approach, folklore can then considered as the tool necessary for building “a corridor of time” (Green, 1999: 61), through which we can understand how past people experienced the Rollright Stones. This argument presupposes that the way in which we view the past is consistent with how past generations viewed the past, that is, that cultural memory is a universal and timeless phenomenon. Green maintains this view and uses archaeological evidence to suggest that the past was thought about meaningfully and symbolically in prehistoric Wales and that a discourse between present and past is not a modern phenomenon (Green, 1999: 48). If we accept that the past was thought about in the past in the same way that the past is thought about in the present, folklore can be seen as a valuable source of an ethnographic parallel of prehistoric thought in the past (Layton, 1999: 32).

2.2 The Folklore of the Rollright Stones

Seven long strides thou shalt take

And if Long Compton thou can see

King of England thou shalt be.

Stick, stock, stone

As King of England I shall be known!

As Long Compton thou canst not see

King of England thou shalt not be.

Rise up stick, and stand still, stone

For King of England thou shalt be none;

Thou and thy men hoar stones shall be

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And I myself an eldern tree.

(This is the version Evans was able to “hear from the country people” (1895: 19))

David Gosling’s 2012 sculpture looms over the King Stone (Lacey, 2013).

By “sifting” (Layton, 1999: 26) the folklore associated with the Rollright Stones, we can attempt to understand the ways in which they have been imagined through time. The seductive power of Rollright as a ritually significant site is evident from the longevity of the archaeological record: the Iron Age cemetery, for example, suggests a renewed veneration of the site as ritually significant in the medieval period (Reid, 2012). I shall draw on the content of the folklore at Rollright to suggest why the site was seen as so significant and how social and personal identity was created and reaffirmed at the site. By setting this analysis within the framework of cultural memory, we can tentatively conclude that this way of understanding the Stones extends backwards through time and has been constantly reconstructed through the repetition of the folklore, which acts as a cultural mnemonic.

The Rollright folklore which, due to its appearance in academic and popular literature and presence on information boards at the site itself, seems to have most permeated the public consciousness, is the story of how the Stones came to be arranged as

1322403 they are. The story goes that a king was travelling through the land with a group of knights and soldiers. As he reached the ridge where the Stones are now found, a witch met him and told him that if he should see the village of Long Compton, he would become king of England. The king took seven steps, but before he could see the village, the witch rose up before him and blocked his view. Thwarted in his attempts to become King of England, he was turned to stone by the witch. A similar fate befell his soldiers, who now stand a little behind him as the King’s Men; and a group of knights, who had been conspiring his downfall at some distance, and are now known as the Whispering Knights. As for the witch, she turned herself into an elder tree. Belief in this story in the past is emphasised in early interpretation of the Stones. Stukeley notes that “This story the country people for some miles around are very fond of, and take it very ill if anyone doubts of it: nay, they are in danger of being stoned for their unbelief” (1743:13).

Here I outline key themes of the story of the King turned to stone and associated traditions which accompany the tale, along with similar manifestations of these themes in other folklore, in particularly that tied with other megalithic sites in Britain.

Theme At Rollright Elsewhere Number Seven The King took seven steps Seven is a powerful number towards the witch (Evans, due to its association with 1895: 19). the calendric system and human life course (Simpson & Roud, 2000: 316). Inability to count Stones It is impossible to count the A similar phenomenon is King’s Men twice and get the known at Aylesford, where same result the megalith is known as (Evans, 1895: 26). ‘The Countless Stones’ (Evans, 1895: 26). Metamorphosis A king and his army were all Merry Maidens: petrified for turned to stone by a witch. dancing on the Sabbath; The king was unable to be False Men, North Uist:

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victorious because he could petrified for deserting wives; not see a local landmark. Robber’s Stone, Anglesey: (Evans, 1895: 19). punishment for stealing church property (Grinsell, 1976: 59). Stones are fixed in place One of the Whispering Cefn Carn Cafall, a stone Knights was removed to be which is said to bear the used as a bridge. Moving the hoof mark of King Arthur’s stone to the stream proved horse, will return to original incredibly difficult and the spot if moved. (Grinsell, harness of the horses pulling 1976: 60). it broke under the strain. Every morning for three consecutive days the stone was found moved back to the bank of the stream. It was decided it should go back to its original position and it took only one horse to pull it uphill, despite it having taken many more than that to bring it down (Evans, 1895: 27). Witch/ Elder tree The witch turned herself into Elder trees were often an elder tree. The tree has associated with witches and been known to bleed when were avoided as firewood or cut, at which point the spell for making furniture. was briefly broken and the However, the tree was also King Stone moved slightly considered a protection for (Evans, 1895:20). fairies against witches, and their flowers as curative

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(Briggs, 1974: 121). Midnight/midsummer The Stones come alive when Stonehenge is known as the the Long Compton clock ‘Giants’ Dance’ (Evans, 1895: strikes midnight and drink 31). from a local stream (Grinsell, 1976: 147), they are also known to join hands and dance (Evans, 1895: 25). On midsummer eve the elder tree is cut and bleeds (Evans, 1895: 20). The future king One day the Stones will There is a Breton belief that come alive and the king will King Arthur remains alive on claim his rightful throne. the Isle of Avalon, ready to (Evans, 1895: 19). return (Ashe& Lacy, 1998: 308). This legend is tied to the Rollright Stones in Penelope Lively’s The Whispering Knights (1971).

2.3 How folklore can deepen understandings of past practice

Much of the folklore associated with the Rollright Stones is obviously not unique to the site, but instead tends to pervade the mythical tradition of megaliths across Britain. Stories such as the difficulty of removing the Stones or the association of the elder trees around the Stones with witches clothe ancient sites with a protection founded on fear of the supernatural. Aspects of numerology, such as the seven steps taken by the King and the magic of midnight and midsummer, strengthen ideas of ‘otherworldliness’ and enhance the public imagination of megaliths as special places. However, I suggest that the metamorphosis element of the Rollright story lies at the core of the associated folklore, and other elements seek to enhance the meaning created by the metamorphosis story, rather

1322403 than to dispute it. The king turned to stone is interesting in its uniqueness. Examples of metamorphosis in folklore at other megalithic sites in Britain generally relate to a punishment for ungodly behaviour, a folkloric tradition which Grinsell believes emerged from a specific social and cultural context: “there seems little doubt that pulpit oratory from the seventeenth century onwards played the major part in producing these legends” (1976:56). At Rollright, this pattern is broken. Rather than being turned to stone as a punishment for impiety, the king and his men were rendered static due to the witch’s interference in their completion of a specific ritual of initiation.

The idea of the Rollright Stones as a boundary point and locus of liminal activity pervades the folklore story and is inherent in the topographical positioning of the Stones. The Stones are located on a ridge, which represents the border between Oxfordshire and Warwickshire and a watershed between the rivers Severn and Thames (Lambrick, 1988:1). The road which divides the King’s Men and The Whispering Knights from the King’s Stone is thought to be of “great antiquity...form[ing] part of the Jurassic Way linking the east Midlands with the south-west” (Lambrick, 1988: 1). As a result of this positioning: “The whole region is emphatically a border district” (Evans, 1895:9). On a symbolic level, the site in folklore represents the ritual space at which kingship should be granted. In order to cross from one status position to another, the king figure was required to physically move forward and see a specific point. However, the initiation ritual was unsuccessful as a result of the witch’s interference which impeded the fulfilment of the necessary conditions of the ritual; so that now the king and his men remain in a liminal state, static in stone until the ritual can be completed. The site therefore represents both a physical and symbolic liminal space, that is, a place of “the ambiguous state of being between states of being” (Barfield, 1997: 288). Liminality is frequently associated with rites of passage, which are often highly ritualised events, deeply significant in creating a sense of self and personal and social identity. The King’s Men are used today as a venue for pagan rites of passage ceremonies, in particular for initiations into a specific group and for weddings (Rollright Trust, 2000: 20). It may be that this practice is not specific to the last century; rather, the elements of folklore which have passed through the centuries suggest that ideas of liminality and initiation have been associated with the Stones for a far longer period of time.

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Caught in this liminal state, the Rollright Stones symbolically represent an eternal ritualised space. Ritualization is a strategy which seeks to produce a ritualised body, which in turn holds a ‘sense’ of ritual (Bell, 1992: 98). This sense of ritual enables a scheme of classification which designates the ritualised space and time as special and different to that of the everyday. At the Rollright Stones, the ritualization process which marks the space as special is two-fold: ritual bodies are produced through the ritual telling of a ritual . The story of the metamorphosis of the king and his men symbolises a paused ritual, stuck in a liminal stage. However, we do not experience this first hand, but rather through the reciprocation of folklore. It is the telling of folklore which produces ritualised agents, pervaded with a sense of ritual and able to mark the space as special and distinct from the constraints of time and science which define everyday life.

This idea of the Rollright Stones as occupying a position outside of everyday life lies at the core of its folklore. Positioning this idea within the framework of cultural memory, we can speculate that the people in the past thought about the Stones in a similar fashion: as a place marked as outside the normal constraints of time and space by its significance as a ritualised place. The folklore of the site continues to pervade popular culture references to the Stones. For example, in 1978 an episode of Doctor Who, The Stones of Blood (BBC) was filmed at the site, featuring Stones coming to life and attacking local inhabitants. There is also a rather scathing statement made about druidical theories, as the ‘Doctor’ mentions his acquaintance John Aubrey, who he claims invented the druids as a joke (BBC, 1978)! Penelope Lively’s 1987 children’s novel The Whispering Knights tells the story of three children who raise the witch (re-cast as Morgan le Fay) and then join with the Stones to vanquish her. The story reconstitutes the Stones as outside of the normal rules of time: the children unwittingly travel back to a prehistoric era (“[the Stones] seemed to have grown a little, and their outlines were sharper and bore suggestions of the axe” (Lively, 1971: 145), where they meet their modern day neighbour Miss Hepplewhite (“The face was young…it carried with it also a total strangeness, a suggestion of something very old and far away” (Lively, 1971: 145). The presence of the folklore in modern popular culture is a reminder that folklore is a lens through which the Stones continue to be given meaning in the present, rather than purely a way in which past people understood the past.

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Through a folkloric lens of interpretation there is a sense of the past as close at hand rather than distant, as the rules of times are conceived as irregular. By engaging with a framework of cultural memory and understanding folklore as a source of ethnographic knowledge, it is possible to establish a more thorough understanding of how the site has been understood through time, as opposed to only in the distant past, which is where the onus of archaeological study tends to lie. Archaeological evidence at Rollright supports ideas of the site as ritually important to a many different groups of people over a long period of time. By analysing the associated folklore of sites we can deepen understandings of how and why the site of Rollright has proved so seductive a place for creating social and personal identity for several millennia while simultaneously offering a critique of the epistemology of archaeology.

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Chapter Three

Heritage Management at the Rollright Stones

Having examined how the Rollright Stones are conceptualised firstly as an object of archaeological academic interest and secondly as a landscape of folklore and legend, I shall now examine how the ways in which the site is managed shape the ways in which it is understood. Management of historic monuments is often situated within a discourse of ‘heritage’. Just like archaeology and folklore, heritage represents a lens through which the past is conceived and should not be undervalued. As argued by Lowenthal, “the lure of heritage now outpaces other modes of retrieval” (1998: 3). Through examining the current heritage strategy implemented at Rollright, it will be possible to assess to what extent this management shapes the way in which the Stones are given meaning. The way in which the site is managed effects all people who experience the Stones, whether they are tourists, archaeologists or pagan worshippers, and so a thorough analysis of the management strategy is vital to any approach which aims to assess how a monument is imbued with meaning. The success of the heritage management strategy can be evaluated in terms of its success in protecting the monument from degradation; how its philosophy stands in terms of current discourse on management of historic monuments, and the quality of visitor experience as reflected in visitor satisfaction.

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3.1 Heritage conceptualisation and strategy in Britain.

‘Heritage’ is a heterogeneous and vague term which pertains to a perceived national possession, that which “a past generation has preserved and handed onto the present” (Hewison, 1989: 16). It is a notion which can be applied so broadly, that Lord Charteris, the then Chairman of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, defined the concept as “anything you want” (cited by Hewison, 1989: 15). For the most part, heritage as a concept is marked by dichotomies and disputed voices. As a ‘possession’, heritage does not belong to a homogenous proprietor; indeed, what one group may consider their heritage in a landscape may clash with the ways in which other land users conceptualise the same site. A unifying tenet of all applications of heritage is that, although it focuses on preserving and managing the past, it is a product of present academic and institutional discourse and ways of thinking. Therefore, heritage as a concept and a strategy is more reflective of the ways in which we consider the past in the present, than of the past itself.

The concept of heritage is used to inform methods of management of ancient monuments in Britain. This discourse centres on ideas of protection of archaeological or historically significant sites from degradation, so that we can hold on to our national past. The concept of protecting ancient monuments in response to recognition that they represent something important associated with the past is not new. Passive and organic heritage management schemes (that is, methods not associated with an institution) can be recognised in, for example, the folklore associated with the Rollright Stones; the tales of witches and fairies which became associated with the Stones have a purpose, in that they clothe the Stones with an aura of the otherworldly which deflects potential vandals and looters. On the other hand though, folklore and the supernatural simultaneously intrigues as it frightens, as is evident from the tendency in the past for passers-by to chip off pieces of stone for good luck (Lambrick, 1988: 13). This early application of heritage protection reflects the difficulty of balancing management strategies upon the oxymoron which marks ideas of heritage: protecting sites for the public.

The nineteenth century marked the transition from local and organic heritage strategies (for example, oral folklore traditions) to institutionalised regulatory frameworks which advocated top down approaches to heritage management. In 1882, Sir John Lubbock

1322403 helped to push through the Ancient Monuments Act, which covered twenty one sites (Rollright included) and ensured that ancient monuments could not be destroyed by their owners without governmental permission (Baker, 1983: 41). This first legislative framework was followed by subsequent Ancient Monument Acts in the following decades which similarly focused on the protection of ancient monuments from any threat (Baker, 1983: 42). A tension between protecting monuments from degradation, while simultaneously providing these monuments as a national gift for the public is evident from the terminology of the first monument acts, and continues to mark heritage strategies today. Under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act of 1979, which aims to ensure that no changes are made to ancient monuments without government consent, ancient monuments are defined as “any scheduled monument or any other monument which in the opinion of the Secretary of State is of public interest by reason of the historic, architectural, traditional, artistic or archaeological interest attaching to it” (Rumble, 1986: 1). This underlying principle of protecting the monument from change for the public is incongruous, because the public themselves represent a threat to ancient monuments. The balance between ensuring monuments are not destroyed, while also ensuring they are accessible for public appreciation is the key challenge for successful management strategies of ancient sites.

In the last thirty years, the onus of the heritage industry has moved from that of protection and resource management to a preoccupation with integration on different levels (although, of course, protection of ancient monuments is still fastidiously ensured). Recent discourse on heritage management advocates a holistic approach which ensures archaeological sites are considered as part of a larger landscape. This policy can be seen as necessary when considered in relation to Stonehenge, a site marked by division rather than integration in recent years, where the enclosure of the stone circle in barbed wire resulted in the disengagement of the site from its surrounding landscape (Lowenthal, 1998: 28). The idea that relevant institutions, such as English Heritage and Natural England (formerly, the Countryside Commission), must collaborate in policy making is at the core of post- processual heritage theory (Fairclough: 1995: 18). Historic Landscape Characterisation is a chief methodology to have come out of the intergrationalist philosophy and hinges on phenomenological principles which prioritise a focus on how landscapes are interpreted and perceived. It aims to establish the character of landscapes through examining how they are

1322403 perceived in the present; a perception which necessarily is in part based upon the history of site use, as earlier meaning imbued in sites remains residual in present landscapes (Clark, Darlington & Fairclough, 2004: 6).

These recent policies represent a more sensitive approach to managing ancient monuments and a reaction to accusations that the most significant threat to ancient monuments today is internal, in the form of the Heritage Industry itself (Hewison, 1989: 18). In the 1980s, the Heritage Industry rapidly expanded and became far more active in the management of ancient monuments. The rise of the heritage industry has been considered in response to various social and cultural phenomenon; Hewison views ‘heritage’ as an attempt to escape social and political decline for a safer and happier ‘past’ (1987) . Fundamentally, analyses such as this show that the concept of heritage is not value free, but rather, is situated within a specific way of thinking about the landscape.

Stonehenge, Britain’s most visited ancient monument, has provided material for many polemics on the ways in which the Heritage Industry has shown poor management of ancient monuments, most significantly in the management of the site in the 1980s. These critiques have helped to structure guidelines for how ancient monuments should be managed for the public, and these ideas are present in discourse surrounding the more recent, integrated approach (Fairclough, 1995). The main points of critique of the management of Stonehenge, which I would argue are now given particular attention in current management strategies, in particular, that of the Rollright Stones, are: commodification of the Stones into a marketable product to be consumed; an English Heritage “mummification” (Bender, 1998: 28) of the site so that it no longer represents an active landscape; the separation the management creates between the monument and the surrounding landscape and issues of accessibility which privilege certain groups of people. These critiques all highlight how the English Heritage management of Stonehenge promotes a “socially empty view of the past in line with modern conservative sensibilities” (Bender, 1998: 131) which fails to allow for all visitors to create their own interpretations of the monument. By fencing in Stonehenge and charging considerable entrance fees, English Heritage can be seen to have appreciated the economic value of certain archaeological sites, and the substantial number of visitors who visit Stonehenge annually certainly prove the site to be a valuable resource for both the local and national economy. However, this has

1322403 led to the inevitable commodification of the site and privileging of access to certain groups of people (i.e. those who can afford the entrance fee). The fencing off also creates a division between the historical monument and its surrounding physical landscape and subsequently a reification of a culture/ nature distinction. This is at odds with the ways in which recent approaches suggest people understand landscape, that is, as a place (rather than simply a space) where personal and cultural identity is created in reaction to physical manifestations of nature (Tilley, 1994). By separating the monument from its surroundings, various issues of accessibility have arisen, which were manifested most notably and violently at the Battle of Beanfield in 1985 (Bender, 1998: 114). The wish to use Stonehenge as a ‘living site’ is at odds with the desire of English Heritage to preserve the monument as a static memorial to the past, and the tension between these two ways of conceptualising the site came to a violent and acrimonious head. These issues at Stonehenge have undoubtedly changed the consensus regarding how sites should be ‘correctly managed’. Having outlined a brief history of heritage management in Britain, as well as the most extreme and controversial issues which have marred recent public esteem of the heritage industry, I shall now situate the management plan at Rollright within this discursive context and assess the ways in which it shapes how visitors experience the site.

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Stonehenge, as viewed from behind the ticket barrier (Lacey, 2013).

3.2 The heritage management strategy at the Rollright Stones

The history of heritage management at the Rollright Stones “can be seen as a transition from passive care, through positive protection, to the beginnings of a more flexible and wider ranging approach of active management more in line with modern ideas” (Lambrick, 1986: 109). In this sense, site management through the years at Rollright can be seen to have closely followed the general trend of British ancient monument management outlined above.

Information board adjacent to layby (Lacey, Honesty box and entrance fee information 2013). (Lacey, 2013).

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Currently, the Rollright Stones are protected under a deed of guardianship, which means the site comes under the jurisdiction of the state (in effect, English Heritage) who also have a statutory duty of care for the Stones (Lambrick, 2013: personal communication). The Rollright Trust, a charity established in 1997, currently owns the King’s Men stone circle and the Whispering Knights dolmen and leases the land around these monuments, as well as the King Stone, from three different landowners (Lambrick, 2013: personal communication). Despite being protected by a deed of guardianship, all funding for the upkeep of the Rollright Stones is provided by the Rollright Trust, although English Heritage have funded repair projects in cases of severe vandalism. The Trust have chosen not to pursue extra funding for the day to day costs required to maintain the Stones because the use of the funding provided would be restricted in what it could be spent on and the current income from entrance fees, hiring costs and donations is currently sufficient (Lambrick, 2013: personal communication). Natural England have been involved through their commitment to a local agri-environmental scheme which has had a role in determining certain rights of way around the Stones (Lambrick, 2013: personal communication), however, association has been minimal. The institutional structure at Rollright does not currently reflect the ‘integrated approach’ advocated by Fairclough (1995) which brings together English Heritage and Natural England, as the site is largely managed on a local level. However, this is not a negative situation, indeed, it may be that a less state controlled instructional structure would benefit the management of the Stones, as the current Trust are well informed and committed to long term protection and management of the Stones, yet struggle to fully achieve this under strict state guardianship (Lambrick, 2013: personal communication).

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The current management strategy is based upon two key principles. Firstly, that the physical preservation of the site is ensured; secondly, that it guarantees that the site “has meaningful use in today's society, including, but not just as an historical and archaeological site” (Lambrick, 2013: personal communication). A detailed

King’s Men information board (Lacey, 2013). The King’s Men Stone Circle (Lacey, 2013).

conservation plan drawn up in 2000 clearly outlines how this can be achieved and further notes added in 2010 show significant progress has been made, for example, the purchase of the King’s Men and the Whispering Knights by the Trust. Within a framework of national heritage management, the Rollright Trust’s strategy has proved innovative and forward thinking, as its management philosophy which prioritises accessibility for all and integration of different value systems predates the similar strategy currently advocated by English Heritage. This is suggestive of the significance of local heritage practices in informing official discourse; a factor which should not be ignored in evaluation of the appropriate agency which should be granted to local heritage organisations.

1322403 Whispering Knights information board ( Lacey , 2013). Coins thrown onto hollow of Whispering Knights (Lacey, 2013).

The most effective way to communicate how the management strategy manifests itself in the visitor experience is to reflexively describe how it feels to be a visitor at the Stones. I visited the Stones several times over the summer of 2012, although having lived within ten miles of the site for my whole life, I had visited previously on a sporadic basis. As an archaeology student, my interest was largely academic, although for the purposes of research I was eager to note all aspects of the site (access, information boards, fencing etc.); however, unlike others, I felt no spiritual connection to the Stones and could not admit to any pagan inclinations. Perhaps most significantly, I was not visiting the Stones for leisure purposes as such and I undertook each visit alone, which, as according to a visitor survey conducted in 2008 at which almost all visitors arrived as part of a social group (le Roux, 2008: 11), makes me an anomaly. The Stones flank a busy road, however, sign posting is minimal and it would not be difficult to drive past the layby designated for parking. The Trust has deliberately avoided erecting brown tourist signs, in an attempt to avoid excessive visitor wear (Lambrick, 2013: personal communication). A gate next to the layby leads onto a path which is bordered by an information board providing information about the archaeology of the Stones and some basic regulations for using the site. There is a semi-permanent notice informing visitors of the entrance fees, however, there are no members of staff to collect money; instead, fees are collected via an honesty box. Two further information boards are situated on the site, which separately provide information on the archaeology and associated folklore of the King’s Men and the Whispering Knights respectively. The King’s Men are situated to the right of the path. Visitors are able to touch the Stones as they are not fenced off. A path has been trodden around the grass of the inside of the circle which encourages a circular tour around the Stones. A permanent path has been laid between the King’s Men and the Whispering Knights, which lie a few hundred metres to the south east. This dolmen has been encircled by an iron fence. A collection of coins lie in the shallow puddle created by an indentation in one of the Stones, suggesting that some visitors consider these Stones to be some sort of ‘wishing well’. Across the road from the parking spaces available in the lay by, a gate leads to the field containing the King Stone. No marked path is laid from the gate to the Stone, so visitors can move freely through the field. The Stone is encircled by an iron fence. A sculpture representing the Rollright Witch (David

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Gosling, 2012) has been arranged in close proximity to the stone and it evocatively brings to mind the folklore of the Stones. The lack of permanent staff or building structures at the Stones allows for a peaceful and reflective experience. The situation of the Stones is aesthetically striking, as sweeping pastoral views can be appreciated to both the north and south. Because fencing around the Stones is minimal, the visitor is not strictly guided in the way in which they explore the Stones; rather a sense of discovering the Stones within the context of a broader landscape is encouraged.

From a personal point of view, I found the site of the Rollright Stones to be sensitively managed in such a way that the Stones are made accessible to visitors to be used and interpreted as they so wish. A visitor survey conducted in 2008 suggests that this view is shared by the majority of visitors, with 89% of those questioned agreeing that the management strategy is “about right as it is” (le Roux, 2008: 8). Indeed, le Roux notes that several of those questioned applauded the “typically English and under stated” nature of management (2008: 8) which suggests that the management strategy, as well as the Stones themselves, are considered to be a piece of heritage which informs national identity and should be preserved in its own right.

View from the King Stone to the north ( Lacey , 2013).

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3.3 The success of the heritage management strategy at the Rollright Stones.

Just like archaeology and folklore, ‘heritage’ is a lens through which the past landscapes are given meaning. This system of meaning, although broad and heterogeneous as an idea, hinges on a conception of the past as something of value which must be protected for the national public. Heritage as a way of viewing the past is manifested in practice through heritage management schemes. As a result of this, ‘heritage’ as a way of conceptualising the past comes to encapsulate other systems of meaning (such as archaeology and folklore) as, in creating management strategies, it organises and priorities the different values which different groups of people give to historic sites. This process is necessarily political and can be problematic, as can be seen from the popular public opinion of the heritage industry as damaging in itself which resulted from highly publicised bad management decisions of the 1980s, most significantly, at Stonehenge. The management strategy at Rollright is successful because it does not attempt to promote certain ways of thinking about the Stones as more valuable than others. Instead, it is built upon a philosophy which aims to allow the site to continue to be meaningful to a heterogeneous audience who represent many different value systems. This is successfully achieved perhaps as a result of the broad range of interests represented on the board of trustees, ranging from archaeology and ecology to pagan beliefs (Rollright Trust, 2013 [online]).

I believe the most significant success of the management strategy is that it allows Rollright to continue to be a site of living practice. As a result, the Rollright Stones continue to be a site at which meaning can be created, as well as a sight for tourists to visit. The Trust encourages the Stones to be used in a broad variety of ways: for personal and communal celebrations, drama productions, art exhibitions, astronomy events and as a film making venue (The Rollright Trust, 2000: 20). This plethora of different site uses is made possible by the fact that the Trust do not benefit from any significant economic gain in allowing the Stones to be used as a venue for various activities (excepting indirect surges in entrance fees such as during the Anish Kapoor exhibition in 2003 (Lambrick, 2013: personal communication). As a result, choices about who can and cannot use the site can be considered as equally significant, irrespectively of potential financial gain. The balance between promoting the Stones as a site of activity and protecting the archaeology is

1322403 maintained by a code of conduct which must be observed by all site users, and ultimately represents a contractual agreement (Rollright Trust, 2000).

Significantly, the currently successful management plan is possible at Rollright only because the site generates a relatively low footfall (around 30,000 visitors are estimated to visit annually (Rollright Trust, 2000: 18) compared to over one million at Stonehenge (English Heritage, 2013)), which is partly a result of decisions made by the Trust to deliberately avoid attracting a great visitor number by, for example, not erecting brown attraction signs. Although the public are encouraged in visiting the site, the Trust is not actively promoting the site to new visitors, and by not doing this, manages to balance protecting the site for the public. However, approach is not an option at many other heritage sites. The challenge for heritage managers is to try and adapt the positive elements of management at sites such as Rollright (for example, maintaining the monument as a living site and taking a non-dictatorial approach to information provided) and adapt them accordingly at more highly visited sites where there is demand for more facilities and information. A starting point for this challenge would be to use the Rollright Trust’s philosophy of integrating different value systems as a foundation for any strategies. In practice, this would materialise by, for example, accounting for a variety of different interpretative voices on information boards and a focus on the importance of accessibility to monuments.

In conclusion, the heritage management strategy at Rollright is a successful example of an intergrationalist approach, which is in line with national models promoted in recent heritage discourse (Fairclough, 1995). The way in which the site is both used and interpreted by and to the public integrates a plethora of different systems of meaning. On an institutional level, there is integration between local and national institutional bodies, although the local trust is almost completely autonomous in the control of the day to day running of the site. Any management problems are situated in this institutional relationship, rather than the heritage ideology of the trust, as the deed of guardianship limits the ownership rights of the Trust while simultaneously not granting the state full ownership rights. This significantly curtails the agency of the Trust to make improvements at the site in line with their well-informed management strategy.

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Conclusion

I have attempted to examine the different ways in which the Rollright Stones have been imbued with meaning through time by examining different lenses through which the past is construed.

Theoretically, I have strongly engaged with post-processualist thinking. In my approach I have shared as a basic premise its key tenet: that artefacts are meaningful and not simply a cultural response to the environment (Johnson, 1999: 101). The critical focus of post- processualism highlights the culturally constructed nature of knowledge production and this promotes the importance of a multi-vocal narrative in any interpretative work; a theory which I have taken as the basis for my methodology. However, I have remained wary of granting theoretical supremacy to this interpretative paradigm and I recognise that it carries its own inherent weaknesses. While myself engaging with a critical understanding of the contextual nature of knowledge production, I do continue to appreciate scientific developments in archaeology as progressive in enhancing understanding of the past, and have treated them as ‘objective’ in my chronology of the site (see page 7).

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In practice, I have engaged with ideas of multi-vocality in an attempt to construct a holistic appreciation of how humans have both epistemologically and phenomenologically experienced the Rollright Stones and how these different interpretations are translated into strategies of shaping perceptions of the past for the future. I have examined the content of the meaning that is created at the Rollright Stones through these different interpretative lenses. From an archaeological perspective, the Stones represent a site of various human activities at different points in time, as well as, more recently, a location at which archaeologists can situate scientific analyses of past environments. Through folklore, the Stones are understood within the same temporal context and as a ritually significant site, clothed in an aura of otherworldliness. Under the gaze of a heritage lens, the Stones are given value as a national possession and a culturally significant place which must be both provided to the public and simultaneously protected from them.

These three different lenses are useful in building a holistic picture of what the Rollright Stones have meant, and continue to mean, to different people. However, as each interpretative lens represents a different way of understanding the past, I feel their epistemological potential also lies in their ability to act as a more general framework for understanding how meaning is created at ancient monuments. While through a folkloric lens, time is seen as malleable, a subjective framework for experience which can form a ‘corridor’ by which the past can suddenly seem near; the interpretive lens of archaeology has a chronological, regular and objective conception of time, whereby the past is set at a designated distance from the present. Through a heritage lens, the past is fetishized as a possession, which encourages forward looking interpretation, whereby the focus is on the ancient monument in the future. Integrating these three ways of seeing the past can produce an analytic framework which operates in a similar way to Braudel’s conception of three simultaneous rhythms of history (Johnson, 1999: 1887), through which a multi-faceted and diachronic understanding of meaningful experience at an ancient monument can be constructed. By exploring meaning at monuments through this framework, one can hope to understand how humans create meaning at monuments as multifaceted individuals who experience past in a variety of ways at any one given time.

By using this framework to understand meaning at the Rollright Stones, the site can be appreciated as a meaningful place for a multitude of people over several millennia in

1322403 time. Their significance is not located in the past; rather, the Stones have endured as a site of living practice. Meaning created in the present, in relation to the past, will continue into the future.

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Images

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Lacey, A., 2013. Coins thrown onto hollow of Whispering Knights [image]. Jpeg file.

Lacey, A., 2013. David Gosling’s 2012 sculpture looms over the King Stone [image]. Jpeg file.

Lacey, A., 2013. Honesty box and entrance fee information [image]. Jpeg file.

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Lacey, A., 2013. Information board adjacent to lay-by [image]. Jpeg file.

Lacey, A., 2013. King’s Men information board [image]. Jpeg file .

Lacey, A., 2013. The King’s Men Stone Circle [image]. Jpeg file.

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