Issue 98

January / February 2008

Contents

news

Major new galleries open in Cardiff

Popular scheme threatened: culture change needed

Cultural icon: Phil Harding or Jonathan Ross?

Roman governor in Scotland

Bones of our forefathers

Secrets of Silbury poet revealed

Medieval archaeology comes of age

In Brief & Phase 2

features

Drapers Gardens
First insights into striking discoveries from Roman London

Detecting the past
Let the rally begin: we consider new detecting developments

First iron age furnaces
Rachael Hall describes extraordinary remains from Corby

on the web

Recommended websites
Fringe archaeology, and a new website from Heathrow.

letters

Views and responses

CBA correspondent

Campaigns, comment and communications from the CBA
Lynne Walker reports on the CBA's recent historic building casework

ISSN 1357-4442

Editor Mike Pitts

news

A Victorian time capsule and Emmeline Fisher's poem on Silbury Hill

by Mike Pitts

As described in the January/February 2008 issue of British Archaeology, a manuscript poem buried inside Silbury Hill in 1849 was written by a relative of William Wordsworth, Emmeline Fisher (1825–1864). The poem has never been transcribed before, and an apparently revised version has only once been printed, in the Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine in 1854, without comment. Until the time capsule in which it had been placed was found during the BBC excavations in the 1960s, it was not known the manuscript had been buried inside Silbury. Details of this capsule have not previously been published.

The time capsule

The capsule was recovered during the excavation of the tunnel into Silbury Hill directed by Richard Atkinson for the BBC in 1968–69. When it reached the centre of the hill, this excavation largely consisted of the reopening of the earlier 1849 tunnel, where a ceramic container was found; it appears to have been broken but its current location is not known. A note by Lance Vatcher, the excavation supervisor, says the "stoneware vessel" was "placed under N side of circular gallery" (manuscript in the Alexander Keiller Museum, Avebury). This curved extension was at the far end of the 1849 tunnel.

BBC archive film records the opening of the jar while still inside the tunnel. Atkinson briefly noted its discovery "…during the recording of material for the final television broadcast", and listed some of its contents (Atkinson 1978, 169). According to Michael Dames, it was found on the last day of tunnel excavation on August 9, 1969 (Dames 1976, 37).

While the vessel is missing, it would appear that its contents are all in Avebury museum. A manuscript note by Nicholas Thomas records his handing "Documents passed from RJCA [Atkinson] to NT, to Avebury 25/V/93", with a list. The implication would seem to be that Atkinson retained the written and printed matter for possible help in analysing his and the 1849 excavation, while the non-manuscript material went straight to the museum. In the event his excavations were published after his death by Alasdair Whittle (1997).

With the "sealed stoneware jar" (Atkinson 1978, 169) labelled number one, a provisional listing of its contents as now preserved in the Alexander Keiller Museum is as follows. Description of items 11–22 are mostly based on Thomas's list. Though the 1849 tunnel was, at least nominally, excavated by John Merewether, all the internal information is consistent with the jar having been deposited (on September 25 1849) by Richard Falkner, a local antiquarian whose name is preserved in Falkner's Circle, a small stone ring east of the West Kennet Avenue, now marked by a lone megalith in a hedge.

2. Lead plaque inscribed with stamped letters filled with white paste: "The Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland caused this tunnel to be excavated AD 1849..." (see photo in British Archaeology)
3. Smaller engraved glass plate
4–6. Three coins separately wrapped in white paper and sealed with red wax (all seals show an F), inscribed "Farthing Victoria", "Halfpenny Victoria" and "Penny Victoria" (see photo in British Archaeology)
7. Complete copy of Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette September 20 1849, folded in white paper and sealed with red wax (seal unclear, apparently lettering around figure)
8. Dietrichsen and Hannay's Royal Almanack for 1849, signed "Richard Falkner, Devizes", folded in half lengthways, wrapped in brown paper and sealed with red wax (seal shows classical head profile)
9. Bible Society poster for meeting in Devizes August 29 1849
10. Large plan drawings of Silbury, annotated "Deposited at the centre of Silbury Hill 25th September 1849 [signed] Richard Falkner"
11. Poem by Emmeline Fisher in envelope sealed with red wax (seal shows classical draped female figure) (see photos in British Archaeology)
12. Newspaper cutting Silbury Hill, Devizes Gazette
13. Newspaper cutting letter Silbury Hill from RF [Richard Falkner] to editor Aug 20, Devizes Gazette
14. Newspaper cutting in two pieces, inscribed July 26 1849, re meeting at Salisbury
15. Longer newspaper cutting including letter from RF dated July 31, and report on Salisbury meeting
16. Longhand account of tunnel by Richard Falkner. Attached to fourth side, extracts from Stukeley, Hoare and a copied extract from Douglas
17. Pages on Avebury extracted from the National Encyclopaedia
18. Copy of printed appeal for funds with list of subscribers, dated from Avebury Aug 4 1849. Longhand additions by Falkner include his address at St John St, Devizes
19. Notice of Salisbury meeting of the Archaeological Institute, July 28
20. Ditto, details of programme July 24–31 1849
21. Longhand copy of Blandford's survey of Silbury Hill, with annotation by Falkner. Deposited at the centre of Silbury Hill 25th September 1849
22. Falkner's visiting card, annotated "Deposited at the centre of Silbury Hill by... Devizes 25 Sept 1849"

Emmeline Fisher

Emmeline's mother was Wordsworth's first cousin. When asked to write a new national anthem for Victoria's coronation, he passed the request to "Emmie", "an inspired Creature" then aged 12, who dashed off five verses. The queen sent Emmeline a writing set, but the anthem was not used (Hinxman 1994). Wordsworth later wrote that "her productions from the age of eight to twelve were not less than astonishing" (Grosart 1876, WW to professor Reed July 1 1845).

Born in Poulshot, Wiltshire, Fisher continued to write and publish poetry throughout her life. She published a book of verse in 1856 under her married name of Emmeline Hinxman. She died aged 39, three days after the birth of her fourth child, Violet, who did not survive. They were buried together in the village of Barford St Martin, Wiltshire.

The poem as left inside Silbury Hill on September 25, 1849

[1. On the front of the envelope, which was sealed with red wax - a photograph of the seal is printed in British Archaeology]

Lines on the Opening of Silbury Hill, written by Miss Emmeline Fisher, Daughter of The Reverend William Fisher, Canon of Salisbury and Rector of Poulshot in Wiltshire August 1849.

[2. The poem as written on a single sheet of paper]

Suggested by the opening made in Silbury Hill, Aug 3rd 1849

Bones of our wild forefathers, O forgive,
If now we pierce the chambers of your rest,
And open your dark pillows to the eye
Of the irreverent Day! Hark, as we move,
Runs no stern whisper through the narrow vault?
Flickers no shape across our torch-light pale,
With backward beckoning arm? No, all is still.
O that it were not! O that sound or sign,
Vision, or legend, or the eagle glance
Of science, could call back thy history lost,
Green Pyramid of the plains, from far-ebbed Time!
O that the winds which kiss thy flowery turf
Could utter how they first beheld thee rise;
When in his toil the jealous Savage paused,
Drew deep his chest, pushed back his yellow hair,
And scanned the growing hill with reverent gaze, -
Or haply, how they gave their fitful pipe
To join the chant prolonged o'er warriors cold. -
Or how the Druid's mystic robe they swelled;
Or from thy blackened brow on wailing wing
The solemn sacrificial ashes bore,
To strew them where now smiles the yellow corn,
Or where the peasant treads the Churchward path.

The poem as printed in the Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine in 1854 (volume 1, page 302)

[Differences from the manuscript version are in red]

LINES,
Suggested by the opening made in Silbury Hill, by the Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, August 3rd, 1849.

Bones of our wild forefathers, O forgive,
If now we pierce the chambers of your rest,
And open your dark pillows to the eye
Of the irreverent day! Hark, as we move,
Runs no stern whisper down the narrow vault?
Flickers no shape across our torch-light pale,
With backward beckoning am? No, all is still.
O that it were not! O that sound or sign,
Vision[,] or legend, or the eagle glance
Of science, could call back thy history lost,
Green pyramid of the plains, from far-ebbed time!
O that the winds, which kiss thy flowery sward
Could tell of thee! Could say how once they fanned
The jealous savage, as he paused awhile,
Drew deep his chest, pushed back his raven hair,
And scanned the growing hill with reverent eye.
Or haply, how they gave their fitful pipe
To join the chaunt prolonged o'er warriors cold -
Or how the Druid[']s mystic robe they swelled;
Or from thy blackened brow on wailing wing
The solemn sacrificial ashes bore,
To strew them where now smiles the yellow corn,
Or where the peasant treads the churchward path.

EMMELINE FISHER.

Robert Southey

A poem to Silbury had earlier been published by Robert Southey (1774–1843). It is one of eight proposed inscriptions to be erected at historic or memorable sites - much in the spirit of 1994 Turner-prize winner Jeremy Deller.

The inscriptions occur in a book titled Poems, published in 1797:

Inscriptions

The three Utilitise of Poetry: the praise of Virtue and Goodness, the Memory of things remarkable, and to invigorate the affections. Welsh Triad.

Inscription 01 - For a TABLET at GODSTOW NUNNERY
Inscription 02 - For a COLUMN at NEWBURY
Inscription 03 - For a CAVERN that overlooks the River AVON
Inscription 04 - For The Apartment In CHEPSTOW-CASTLE where HENRY MARTEN the Regicide was imprisoned Thirty Years
Inscription 05 - For a MONUMENT at SILBURY-HILL
Inscription 06 - For a MONUMENT in the NEW FOREST
Inscription 07 - For a TABLET on the Banks of a Stream
Inscription 08 - For the CENOTAPH at ERMENONVILLE

Inscription 05 - For a MONUMENT at SILBURY-HILL

This mound in some remote and dateless day
Rear'd o'er a Chieftain of the Age of Hills,
May here detain thee Traveller! from thy road
Not idly lingering. In his narrow house
Some Warrior sleeps below: his gallant deeds
Haply at many a solemn festival
The Bard has harp'd, but perish'd is the song
Of praise, as o'er these bleak and barren downs
The wind that passes and is heard no more.
Go Traveller on thy way, and contemplate
Glory's brief pageant, and remember then
That one good deed was never wrought in vain.

(Footnote 1: The Northern Nations distinguished the two periods when the bodies of the dead were consumed by fire, and when they were buried beneath the tumuli so common in this country, by the Age of Fire and the Age of Hills.)

I would like to thank Ros Cleal, curator of the Alexander Keiller Museum, Avebury, for help with research. Rosaline Masson apparently published an article about Emmeline Fisher, titled "An 'Inspired Little Creature' and the Poet Wordsworth", in or before 1910, but I have not yet been able to find it. Hinxman's article can also be found in typescript, with additional photocopied pages and notes, in Salisbury public library.

Bibliography

Atkinson, R 1978. Silbury Hill. In Sutcliffe, R (ed) Chronicle (BBC, London), 159–73.

Dames, M 1976. The Silbury Treasure. Thames & Hudson, London.

Grosart, AB 1876. The Prose Works of William Wordsworth. Edward Moxon, London.

Hinxman, E [nee Fisher]. 1856. Book of Poems. Longman, London.

Hinxman, N 1994. Emmeline Fisher, a forgotten Wiltshire poet: her links with William Wordsworth and the national anthem. Hatcher Review 37, 16–30

Whittle, A 1997. Sacred Mound, Holy Rings. Silbury Hill & the West Kennet Palisade Enclosures: a Later Neolithic Complex in North Wiltshire. Oxbow, Oxford.

External link

Hidden poem by Wordsworth's niece published from 'Guardian Unlimited'.

The government might begin by properly funding one of the great historic identifiers of the British Isles: not Stratford's Olympics, but Salisbury's Stonehenge.
Tristram Hunt after the launch of History Matters, Guardian.

CBA web:

British Archaeology

CBA Briefing

Fieldwork
Conferences
Noticeboard
Courses & lectures
CBA Network
Grants & awards

CBA homepage