Two Talks and some Boats

I went to two excellent talks today, one at Blakeney on the history of the Whitehall area and the second at Cley on Seahenge and her Sister. Whilst at Blakeney I walked down to the harbour to take a quick photo for a blip. What you can't tell from the photo is that it was extremely windy and I was braced against one of the poles so I wasn't blown in the water!!!




I've added some of the key facts from the talks for those interested.

Whitehall:
- At least Saxon
- Was the largest Royal complex in the World
- The Horse Guards clock is black on the number two, the time King Charles I was executed
- Horse Guards was a 'sports centre' in the time of Henry VIII with real tennis courts etc and traces of this are still there
- Downing Street is Crown Property and used by the Prime Minister as her real title is First Lord of the Treasury (it's on the letterbox)
- The door you see to the left of No.10 isn't for No.11 as that's the next one along, No. 10 is three houses joined together.
- The No.10 door is really the original back entrance to the building. 

Seahenge & her Sister:
- Remains of two Bronze age circles made from oak posts were discovered on Holme beach in Norfolk in 1998.
- Seahenge was excavated and preserved and half is in Lynn museum and the other half in storage. Holme II was left in situ.
- Built in saltmarshes (now a beach), which is why some of the timbers remain as the conditions preserved the wood. 
- Evidence of 300 wood henges have been found in the UK, only 3 of which have surviving timber and 2 of those were at Holme.
- Scientific tests show that the trees for both sites were felled in the Spring or Summer of 2049 BC.
- It's the only pre-history site in the UK where two monuments were built at the same time.
- The centre of seahenge had an upturned tree root and the centre of her larger sister had 2 logs with depressions (to support something?).
- From the remains it's estimated that the oak timbers stood 2m out of the marsh and the largest is 13.2m in diameter, twice as big as seahenge.
- The entrance to seahenge was in the South West. Is it significant that this aligns to the mid-winter sunset?
- Holme is a place where the sun can be seen to rise and set over the water. In some cultures water signifies death and land signifies life with the saltmarsh signifying the passage between the two. Therefore were the henges built to help the soul of a high status person move on?