Archaeologia Hookland: the archaeology of a lost County in England | Tue Dec 17 14:00:00 | Room 826
Have you ever been to Hookland? This lost county, located somewhere in England, has a fine collection of megaliths, standing stones and barrows, but their cataloguing has never been satisfactorily completed, and deeper physical investigations have generally ended badly. In other words, Hookland provides a rare opportunity and starting point to explore notions of archaeology in relation to places of the imagination.The county even has its own museum, The Hookland Museum of Curiosities, which contains (reputedly) only objects found in the County under all manner of circumstances; no comprehensive inventory exists. Yet archaeological interest in this County has increased in recent years, prompted by curious entries in the The Phoenix Guide to England, and the discovery of a complete run of the journal Archaeologia Hookland found in the Ashmolean by author and folklorist C.L. Nolan.
For those intimate with Hookland, we offer the opportunity to explore and celebrate its archaeology, both in terms of its ancient and more recent past (from the Toad Stone to the pylon’s hum), but also the dark history of surveys, excavations, curses and wyrd discoveries that litter the pages of Archaeologia Hookland. For others, we encourage proposals for papers, talks and creative contributions on the themes of folk horror archaeology, the archaeology of lost and fictional places, and all things landscape punk.
Session timetable |
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14:00 | Session organisersIntroduction |
14:05 | David Southwell, HooklandThe barrow is never empty – ghost soil excavations in HooklandAn introduction to Hookland as the lost county of England and an exploration of the importance of archaeology to it and within it. |
14:20 | Christopher Josiffe, Independent researcherHookland antiquary, Edgar SnellThe noted Hookland antiquary, Edgar Snell (1821-1863), is renowned both for his thorough excavation work at various prehistoric and Dark Age sites in the county, some of which were written up in Curiosita Hooklandia(the journal of the Hookland Antiquarian Society and Field Club), and for his unfortunate mental state towards the end of his career, which saw him confined at his family home in the care of a private nurse. Illustrations apparently depicting crude pictogram-like symbols, were found in Snell’s journals after his death. He regularly spent Midsummer & Midwinter nights out on King Arthur’s Court, Coreham's Neolithic henge earthwork; it was later said that these nocturnal visits had turned his head “queerer than a one-legged hare.” |
14:35 | James Mansfield, University of ReadingA fantasy of the lay-byWhat might we learn from inventive approaches to lesser-known areas of material culture? Artist James Mansfield has created a variety of possible worlds in which small details and mundane locations are celebrated as being as important as major archaeological attractions. Taking inspiration from a Scottish lay-by, he has written two texts which excavate the possibilities of the site and also begin to expose the concepts behind his own speculative practice. He will discuss his approach and how it might in fact be considered as a form of latter-day Romanticism. |
14:50 | Lee Ravitz, Independent researcherLure of the past, Lordly Hole, Intertextuality and ImpostureLordly Hole in Barrowcross has played host to many unusual occurrences in the past millennium, and was the subject of Derrick Shales’ ‘Lure of the Past’ pilot episode for Hookland Associated TeleVision (1971) that resulted in a hospitalization and electronic wiping of many tapes. It is featured in Vol. 9 of Archaelogia Hookland for a specific reason, however: in reference to the 1739 excavation of the remains of the barrow by Drs. Creevey and Willings, at the behest of Lord Montside, and the resulting controversy – initially concerning the alleged discovery of the remains termed the ‘Barrowcross Dawn Man’, and latterly, the apparent murder of Creevey by Willings. |
15:05 | BREAK |
15:35 | Katy Whitaker, Historic EnglandThe Toadstones of England![]() |
15:45 | Sophie Cathcart, University of Glasgow; Kenny Brophy, University of GlasgowSpooky stone circles and sinister standing stones: megalith exploitation movies 1957-1990A recurring trope of folk horror films (and TV shows) of the 1950s to the 1980s was the inclusion of megaliths, usually in the form of stone circles and standing stones. These monuments were a bizarre mash-up of the real and imaginary, from the actual Stonehenge in Night of the Demon (1957) and Halloween 3(1985) to the fake trilithon monuments of Hammer’s The Viking Queen (1967). Presumably included to add a spooky, primal, rural, ancient dimension to the ongoing folk horror (and urban wyrd) proceedings, these megaliths rarely accorded to anything found in archaeological textbooks. In this paper, we will present results of the screen-archaeological analysis of over a dozen films and shows that feature such monuments, considering their materiality, form and location, and the rites carried out within them. Our dataset runs from Night of the Demon to Troll 2 (1990). We will argue that a series of wyrd and spooky stereotypes were at play here (of course!) and suggest some reasons for the recurring folk horror exploitation of standing stones and stone circles. |
16:00 | Martyn Barber, Historic England“People of our own blood” – the archaeology of folk horror/the folk horror of archaeologyThe past is ever-present in folk horror, although the nature of that presence varies considerably from one tale to the next, its meaning often vague, its origins elusive. This vagueness can be essential to establishing a growing sense of unease, but is also probably a sound tactical idea – after all, little dates faster than a detailed and authoritative-sounding archaeological interpretation. However, this vagueness cannot completely shake off all trace of the very modern foundations of the ostensibly pre-Christian knowledge, traditions and belief systems often presented as surviving into and acting on the present. In this paper, I’d like to explore some problems with the use of archaeology in folk horror by comparing and contrasting the prehistory and politics of two imaginary landscapes – Midsomer County and pre-Roman ‘Wessex’. |
16:15 | David Petts, Durham University“Will you search through the loamy earth for me?”: Towards a Psychogeography of Danebury (Essex)Climb through the briar and bramble with me to the small town of Danebury, which may or may not stand in rolling countryside in north-west Essex. This paper explores the historic and social environment of this small patch of England, looking at what lies above, and below, the surface. Like any landscape it has a complex archaeological record: a standing stone, a Roman burial, Anglo-Saxon metalwork (including a spectacular 9th century aestel of typical Wessex workmanship), a picturesque round towered church and a WWII crash site – there are even stories of a missing early medieval ship burial somewhere in the area. It’s not just the ancient embedded past that is of interest- it’s also a landscape of transient encounters between people, things and animals. Mundane places, parish halls, gazebos, pub tables, trees and fields all assume an importance in mediating the present and the past. But most important are the people who explore and love this landscape: metal detector(ists), archaeologists, friends, enemies, partners, family, the living and the dead. |
16:30 | Ian Parker Heath, Enrichment Through ArchaeologyWicker's New World - sacrificing yourself for fun!In 2018 Alton Towers theme park opened a new ride, The Wicker Man. This paper considers what factors informed the development of the ride, the imagery associated with it and how it might be experienced by the un/knowing victims. |
16:40 | Dr. Katy Soar, University of Winchester“The place of the treasure-house of them that dwell below”: barrows in folklore and folk horrorArchaeological monuments and landscapes have long loomed large in the popular imagination, creating as they do impressions of deep temporality, of lingering hint of things deeper and more ancient than ourselves,which often translates into a sense of unease, or eeriness, if not outright fear. |
16:55 | Rebecca Davies, University of PlymouthMarshwood Vale Forest – a land apart. Oral history of a Hookland royal forestBased on her many experiences of a Hookland childhood, Fortean scholar Rebecca Davies BSc will explore this poorly documented Royal forest, its archaeology, flora, and fauna. |
17:05 | Session organisersDiscussion |
17:30 | END |