Light up the Hill 2014

Wincobank hill...probably the best view in Sheffield!!

It’s that time of year again when the nights are

drawing in, the leaves are falling off the trees and

the weather takes its turn for the worst but it’s not

all bad news as it’s also the time when we run our

annual event of the Light up the Hill lantern walk.

For those of you who are not familiar with the

event, it’s when we escort groups of children and

their parents up onto Wincobank Hill with the

lanterns they make to experience a memorable night

of awe and wonder, a chance to see the twinkling of

lights and stars as well as parts of our magnificent

city from one of the greatest vantage points in

Sheffield!

Once at the top there is a tale of bygone times when

this land was very different, a time of wolves and

threats of armies from foreign lands, a time when

the people here had to build fortifications and use

the resources around them to make into weapons

for protection.

There were no such things as mortice locks or the

police to call upon, just men in all weathers on

watch, with swords and spears of iron they drew out

of the rocks, to ensure your safety while you slept.

The children themselves are what make this event

as they themselves make the lanterns that see them

through the dark meandering paths of woodland on

Wincobank Hill. Hinde House School with the

Roots of Iron team and Wincobank Youth Group

(based at Upper Wincobank Chapel) along with

Anna-Mercedes Wear, a community artist, have all

been very busy.

Come and join us!! This annual event is getting stronger year on year

and it offers kids the opportunity to do something

they would not normally do in a group safely so they

can experience and appreciate their locality as it is at

night, a night of atmosphere and local historical

events that they won’t forget.

Below are some links on Youtube of previous events

and links to some of the groups on Facebook.

On Youtube--http://tinyurl.com/mfz7rzf

On facebook-- http://tinyurl.com/lkgusv8

Roots of Iron--http://tinyurl.com/m8olj3p

and the most importantly the Friends

https://www.wincobankhill.btck.co.uk

Join the Wincobank lantern procession

If you enjoy the procession then do consider coming

to join us. All details can be found on our website

(see above) but you can just come along to our

monthly meetings held at the chapel. Out

membership includes a wide span of ages, from

teenagers to senior citizens and considered to be one

of the most active friends groups in South Yorkshire

(if not the world!). We are always keen to embrace

new members and the skills they bring with them,

whether it is making tea, gardening or land

surveying!

Join us for a light fantastic on the hill!

The Newsletter of the Friends of Wincobank Hill Issue 3 Donations welcome Autumn 2014

The Newsletter of the Friends of Wincobank Hill Issue 3 Autumn 2014

A visit to Caerau On Shared Ground 16th-19

th July 2014

An pop-up interpretation panel at Caerau

As Friends of Wincobank Hill we were intrigued by

the On Shared Ground initiative which aims to link

communities that have shared interests in urban

hillforts. We knew that very few hillforts have

survived in urban areas for obvious reasons and felt a

link with the similarly placed sites in Cardiff and

Aberdeen. We had met with some of the people from

Caerau, near Cardiff, when they came to Wincobank.

We hope sometime to have the opportunity to visit the

Aberdeen hill fort.

We have long been fascinated by ancient sites, for

differing reasons. The link with our long-ago ancestors

and the ways they expressed and satisfied their human

needs and desires and the search for knowledge and

understanding about the world and their own place in

it, sheds light on our own condition.

Earthworks at Caerau

We found obvious similarities between Wincobank

and Caerau. Immediately noticeable was the lack of

local awareness, [no-one we asked could tell us how to

get there], and the sound of a nearby busy road, ours

being the M1- theirs the A4232. The physical locations

of both hill forts are similar being on 'Hog Back'

sandstone formations. Both hill forts overlook rivers,

rivers: Caerau has the River Ely and Wincobank has

the mighty Don! Both leading eventually to the sea

and navigable in earlier times.

The finds from the two archaeological digs at

Caerau, dated from the Neolithic age to the present

day and opened our eyes to the possible long history

of settlement on the wider reaches of Wincobank

Hill. We should remember that Wincobank Hill has

produced evidence of Mesolithic flints and Bronze

Age barrows (burial mounds) as well as the Iron

Age hillfort. Much of this evidence is now, sadly,

probably lost through urban development and the

covering up by council rubbish dumps, making

allotments and playing fields over what old maps

indicated was an “Ancient Settlement”. People have

living memory of cottages and of Wincobank Hall –

a meeting place for famous activists in the anti-

slavery and social reform movement: as valuable a

history as any other.

The range of ceramic finds from Caerau

It was of great interest to actually witness the

finding of relics from the past and to realise the

significance of different layers and colours of soil

through talking to the archaeology students on the

dig, and to see the involvement of local

schoolchildren. We were able to handle some recent

finds, a piece of a pottery bowl from the Neolithic

period and an axe head, and to marvel at the careful

decoration on a household pot from the first century

BC. Arrowheads and flint scrapers from the

Neolithic and Bronze Ages are constantly turning

up plus a medieval arrowhead and a lead musket

ball from c.1700AD. In addition to finds, new

features were also discovered, whilst we were there.

A new stone- based road was uncovered that looked

as though it was leading along one edge of the site

towards the church or possibly a strengthening of

the outer edge of the hill fort. The evidence of

Caerau being an ancient sacred site include a recent

find of a small lead curse roll only found in Roman

temples and the medieval church, used up till the

1970's. This is typical of how people have regarded

the significance of high places since the earliest of

times. Although our chapel does not fulfil these

criteria, not being placed on the top of the hill, it is

highly likely that were we able to look for it, evidence

of this kind of activity would be found.

Between earthworks and church-a metalled road??

The evidence of Caerau being an ancient sacred site

include a recent find of a small lead curse roll only

found in Roman temples and the medieval church,

used up till the 1970's. This is typical of how people

have regarded the significance of high places since the

earliest of times. Although our chapel does not fulfil

these criteria, not being placed on the top of the hill, it

is highly likely that were we able to look for it,

evidence of this kind of activity would be found.

An impressive fragment of an Iron Age pot from Caerau.

Joseph Hunter, a Sheffield archaeologist, ' gave an

account of round 'tumuli' situated close to the hill fort

at Wincobank until the late 18th

century. These features

resembled 'barrows 'that Hunter had observed at other

sites and comprised 'two or three round tumuli....near

the summit, and therefore near the great earthwork'.

[Gatty 1869,24].

We visited Tinkins wood and St. Lythan's

chambered tombs built c.3,700BC Situated within

a few miles of the Caerau site. Here, for the first

time, we came across two sturdy metal devices

that enclosed recorded information about the

tombs that could be accessed through turning a

handle This seemed an interesting and weather-

proof way of communicating with visitors.

Nearby megalithic sites

As a look-out post, a defensible space, a statement

of ownership, a focal gathering place for the

community and a site of luminal significance, both

hill forts are superbly placed. They were a

supremely important for these reasons in the past

and their value should be recognised giving the

areas around a meaning for the widest community

that they may have been felt to lack. Friends of

Wincobank Hill have joined with the On Shared

Ground project in recording local people's

memories and feelings about the hill.

FOWH member Ken Allen overseas finds sieving.

This will be a valuable and up-to-date resource for

conserving its long, fascinating history and perhaps

helping people's perception of these spaces to evolve

constructively. Involving the local schools in the

ways that we at Wincobank are doing, and what we

saw at Caerau on our visit, may be a means of

ensuring that there will be no further erosion of the

integrity of these sites by highlighting their

significance within the community and beyond.

Authors : Hilary Allen and Ken Allen

The Tour de France

at Wincobank Hill On Sunday 6

th July 2014 the world’s elite cyclists

raced up Jenkin Road to the delight of an estimated

20,000 spectators who lined the route.

Spectators watching as the cyclists come out of the steepest

section on the entire route.

On Wincobank Common the Friends welcomed

visitors into the “Iron Age Village” area to see an

imaginative reconstruction of Queen Cartimandua’s

roundhouse created by children from six local schools

with help from Heeley City Farm. You could try your

hand at pottery, wood turning, weaving– and in

honour of the world’s greatest cycling event it was

possible to fan the heat in an Iron Age smelting

furnace by bicycle power courtesy of a collaboration

between The University of Sheffield, SCC Woodlands

and the HLF funded project-Roots of Iron.

Those who didnt make the Peloton helped make iron in Le Tour

de Steel!

On the circular monument to Queen Cartimandua our

Wincobank re-enactment group told the story of her

historic decision to turn Caractacus over to the

Romans.

Elsewhere on the hill, artist Paul Evans worked with

local children, University students, and groups to

prepare a piece of landscape art that brought together

elements of the Iron Age, the Hill and the cycling

theme. It was a very successful installation and

attracted constant stream of admirers over the

weekend. If you venture on to the common today

you can still see the traces of the installation

although it is of course best viewed from the air.

Art and Politics-Paul Evans talks through the installation to

David Blunkett MP

Its not Christmas yet ....BUT...

The friends will be holding their Xmas social on

FoWH Christmas Social – Thursday 4th December

2014. Do bring yourself and offers of food for our

“Bring and Share”. The social will take place at the

chapel from 6.30pm.

POETS CORNER The newsletter is always keen to attract letters and

poems and other thought. This issue we have a short

one for the lantern procession.

A trail of twinkling lights The marching of small feet

All meander through the woods to a drummers beat.

Byron Cowling

Newsletter submissions are welcome at any time, but deadlines

for each issue are 1st Nov and 1

st May each year.

Contributions can be sent in any format (hand-written, typed,

email, floppy disk, CD-ROM, etc).

Newsletter Editor: Byron Cowling testpass@hotmail.com

Dept of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S1 4ET