Megalithic service stations?

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Re: Megalithic service stations?

Postby hvered » 5:49 pm

I went to the same primary school as Kenneth More's daughter who needless to say got the star part in Alice in Wonderland. {I was the walrus. Still, better than being an oyster.}

Lewis Carroll seems to typify a long and somewhat ambivalent line of literary parsons.

"Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk. Laces for a lady; letters for a spy, Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by!" It seems that churches were useful for more than praying in.
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Re: Megalithic service stations?

Postby macausland » 6:08 pm

That scene with the oysters and bread and butter always made me feel hungry and fancy an oyster or two.

When I finally tasted one I was cured of that. Winkles and mussels are my lot these days.

I've never tried Walrus though. I think the Inuit find them tasty.
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Re: Megalithic service stations?

Postby Mick Harper » 6:39 pm

I once wrote a book with a woman who went to school with Kenneth More's daughter. Small world.
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Re: Megalithic service stations?

Postby Boreades » 7:07 pm

Mick Harper wrote:I once wrote a book with a woman who went to school with Kenneth More's daughter. Small world.


Is she called Alice?
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Re: Megalithic service stations?

Postby hvered » 12:51 pm

Boreades wrote: Somewhere recently I read an article on Romans arriving in some part of the Middle East. IIRC, they were amazed by boatloads of the locals waiting and watching out to sea, for when balls of pitch or tar would float to the surface. Followed by a mad scramble to see who got to it first and laid claim to it. As it was a highly valued material.

I've been looking at a former tidal island called St Michael at Vale in northern Guernsey which used to be separated from the rest of the island by a shallow channel called Braye du Valle. The word brai in French means pitch or tar.

P.S. The tiny village of Bray in Berkshire was once an important ferry crossing though its St Michael's church seems unnecessarily grand. What I found more curious is the manner of its access -- the website says There is ample free parking in Causeway Car Park opposite the High Street entrance, which suggests it was on an eyot or island.
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Re: Megalithic service stations?

Postby Mick Harper » 1:26 pm

At the western end of the Braye du Valle is St Michel du Valle (ex-monastery) and at the other end is Le Chateau de St Michel (castle). You can almost make out the situation from this map of 1746. The Braye was filled in in 1806.

Image
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Re: Megalithic service stations?

Postby Boreades » 4:42 pm

hvered wrote:I've been looking at a former tidal island called St Michael at Vale in northern Guernsey which used to be separated from the rest of the island by a shallow channel called Braye du Valle. The word brai in French means pitch or tar.


A megalithic oil terminal?
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Re: Megalithic service stations?

Postby hvered » 5:58 pm

The website says a mooring ring on the church was used by people coming to services by boat, which is reminiscent of house fronts alongside Venice's canals.

St Michael's seems ideally placed for loading and unloading though a strange location for a church one might think; the other, southern end of the Braye channel is marked by St Sampson's, the harbour named for the saint is still there.
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Re: Megalithic service stations?

Postby hvered » 9:38 am

The map I was using is more detailed

Image

The St Michael island, overlooked by the St Michael church, was at the northern entrance to the channel which hasn't existed since 1806.

Funnily enough there was a Coast programme last night with a section on Guernsey privateers who benefited greatly from the Napoleonic War. Presumably the Braye was filled in to prevent French ships getting through but why was such a useful waterway not reopened after 1815?
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Re: Megalithic service stations?

Postby hvered » 9:07 am

Boreades wrote: A megalithic oil terminal?

The largest onshore oil field is at the southern end of Poole Harbour, within a pine forest on Wytch Heath.

Brownsea Island at the entrance to the harbour used to be called Branksea. Brank or branks was a (Scottish?) term for bridle as in scold's bridle to curb women's tongues which makes me wonder if Branksea Island was built to curb marine 'scolding'.

There may be a 'bran' connection. Next to Branksea Castle and the ferry landing-place is a large lagoon where "hundreds of cormorants" can be seen

Image

I'll shut up now.
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