If the museum was telling the truth, Cheddar Man was a mesolithic hunter-gatherer who was laid to rest in Gough’s Cave, Cheddar, about 10,000 years ago. This would have been just as we were coming out of the last ice age. The weather for the recent CYHA trip to Cheddar Hostel was considerably milder, but sandwiched between storms Gerrit and Henk it was pretty blowy and muddy underfoot. Regardless, we managed to get out every day to do something. We had sunny views over the gorge itself – the biggest inland cliffs in the UK, we walked to ancient hillforts, to the highest point in Somerset, and visited cathedrals and museums. As usual the catering was a highlight, with gorgeous meals from Sarah, Nick, Jim, Colin and George. Apparently, there was evidence that Cheddar Man may have been driven to cannibalism, I can only think that Sainsburys must have closed unexpectedly early that day. We spent New Year’s Eve in the Bath Arms pub enjoying the local ales, but the pub closed at 11pm so that the staff could get back to their own celebrations. Not to be phased, we headed back to The Barton hostel for our own bubbly to toast in the New Year. A younger crowd had rented the main hostel and we could hear their karaoke party echoing across the car park. At the time it made us feel like old fogeys, but there was no sign of them when we were packing up to leave the next morning, so I’m guessing heavy hangover! A special old fogey mention goes to Colin, who managed to sleep through the whole thing.
Ali
Somerset Hillforts
Around the time of the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age, hill forts started popping up across Europe. There are more than 3000 hill forts recorded in the British Isles, mostly towards the south and west. On our trip to Cheddar we encountered two of these: Worlebury fort overlooking Weston-super-Mare, and Dolebury Warren out near Beacon Batch. As the name implies, hillforts are defended places, surrounded by one or more circuits of banks and ditches, and generally placed on hilltops, ridges, spurs or promontories. The Somerset ones stand out as the banks were made of quarried limestone. Many of them continued to be used well into the Roman period and some sites were later re-used as castle sites due to their strategic positions. Weird facts include that the main entrance of a hillfort generally faces east, and, if there is a second entrance, it nearly always faces west, regardless of the natural topography – north and south facing entrances are very rare. No one knows why, so this presumably reflects Iron Age beliefs. After a couple of thousand years of weathering the banks were still pretty impressive, but originally they would have been up to 11m high. There were numerous storage pits for food, but it wasn’t clear where the water would have come from.
Latest Culture Club News
We hope some of you may be able to join us for some or all of our future "culture club" meetings. Meetings are usually held on the third Monday of each month, at 8pm for approx 1 hour. Get in touch for the Zoom link.
- 15th January - Jaqueline - YouTube Video on Russian Art: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEFRwgSGk6c
- 12th February - Cress - (Note change of date) Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- 16th and 17th March - Colin - visit to Wentworth Woodhouse
- 15th April - John M - Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert.