Graves & Moats

October 25, 2007
Ashley and I decided to do something together today. It has been awhile since we've had a day out, so seeing as we both haven't been to Grimes Graves before, it was our destination for the day! Oh, and I learned that Grimes is pronounced like "Grimms" ... you learn something new once a month! ;)


HISTORY LESSON 1: Grimes Graves is a grassy lunar landscape of over 400 shafts, pits, quarries and spoil dumps, they were first named Grim’s Graves – meaning the pagan god Grim’s quarries, or ‘the Devil’s holes’ – by the Anglo- Saxons. It was not until one of them was excavated in 1870 that they were found to be flint mines dug over 5,000 years ago, during the later Neolithic and early Bronze Ages. Flint from here was used in the Napoleonic wars and even the Revolutionary war - rude.

The day was a typical autumn English day, a bit rainy but manageable. We donned our hard hats and descended 30 feet into an abandoned shaft. We luckily went on a day when the British schools were not in session (I can only imagine how busy it would have been) so we had the shaft area to ourselves. Guess what!? I finally figured out how to use the timer on my camera (thanks to Ashley)! I was all cocky and took a picture of us down in the shaft.

On the way back home, we went to Weeting Castle, which (incidentally) was the first "castle" we went to when we were here back in '96.

HISTORY LESSON 2: Weeting Castle is not a castle but a fortified manor house. It had a large open hall and an attached two-story chamber block. There's a domed brick ice house (which I hadn't seen until this trip - rude) and the moat was added in the 14th century. The place is thought to be abandoned in 1390.

It was really nice to spend time with my friend, doing the thing I love most (looking at history)! When I arrived home, low-and-behold, I find tissue not in the tissue box. Gabby obviously was mad at me for leaving her and decided to take it out on the tissues - rude.