Thanks Cara! I didn't think I was very interested in the Iron Age (as I said in a previous video, it always seems like Britain was just sitting around waiting for the Romans to invade) but I took a shine to Cassivellaunus, or Caswallawn as he's referred to in the Triads (and probably closer to his real name, given that he presumably would have spoken a form of Welsh). He seemed like a bit of a character! Plus it helped that the Devil's Dyke was such an evocative spot.
Delightful video Tweedy. There is something about ancient earthworks that I find quite enchanting. The scale of the works is stunning considering they were all created by manual labour. Close to where I live are the Bartlow Hills...Romano British burial mounds, The Wandlebury Ring near Cambridge and another Devil's Dyke which straddles Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. When I worked in central London I too had real problems with the Plane trees. They drop a large round seed pod which bursts on contact and/or by people crushing them underfoot. Inside the pod there fibrous strands almost like wool which cause severe irritation if breathed in or if they get in your eyes on a windy day. Since I retired to the country, I have no problems.
Your videos are always make me smile 😊 … ‘I’m here to see a ditch of course’ haha of course! Nice seeing the bluebells and learning about the history of the site. Nice place to visit.
I did start off thinking I was going to do a sensible walking past the camera shot but it just seems so ridiculous when you're doing it and I can't take it seriously!
There's no better way to wake up with my coffee on a Sunday morning than watching an English gentleman dancing by the camera in a ditch wearing a tweed suit. 😂 As always I absolutely found this both entertaining as well as interesting. I would totally stealth camp there for a night, I think the atmosphere there would be awesome under the stars on a summer night. Cheers Tweedy! 🎩🍻
Thanks Jamie! Yes in the back of my mind I was pondering whether it might be suitable for a stealthy wild camp. Not much flat ground though, other than the path itself and it was very close to houses at one end at least. It had a really nice atmosphere to it while I was there though, so it was quite tempting somehow.
Haaa, you mentioned "Tribute, not the beer from Cornwall" well I am drinking that very beer as I watch this:) There's lots of Dykes associated with the Devil and lots of Ditches associated with Grim.. A lovely walk and the backlit beech leaves look wonderful. Regarding Richard IIIrds My Kingdom for a horse reminds me of a time 28 years ago when my daughter (a baby back then ) was crying for her soother and I would exclaim "My Kingdom for a Dummy". A horse would be too much of a mouthful..|
That reminds me of when I was walking the Wessex Ridgeway, and one day passed through Heytesbury and later Corton. I thought being in more rural parts of Wiltshire I might have an opportunity to try beer from some of the traditional Wiltshire brewers - Wadworth, Arkell's etc. As it turned out though in both pubs the only ales were Cornish! I have no objection to Cornish beers, but, you know, when in Rome etc. Yes I've been to at least one other Devil's Dyke (in the South Downs), not to mention a Devil's Punchbowl, a Devil's Pulpit, a Devil's Cauldron, a Devil's Kitchen... I touched on this odd naming convention indirectly in a recent video on the South Dorset Ridgeway - where there's similarly the "Hell Stone". My theory is just that this is a catch-all for anything considered to have been built in the pre-Christian era of Britain, therefore by heathens and/or actual unearthly creatures.
The historical content of this video is off the charts, Tweedy. If this trajectory continues you'll have a BBC 2 series within a year. Personal highlights were "illicit laverbread" and "some amount of back and forth" to describe a protracted military conflict.
Excellent history lesson Tweedy. Gosh Europe was such a melting pot back then with all of the fighting, invasions etc. good way to keep the gene pool healthy I guess! Lol. You guys (sorry English) are so good with your history. Over here there are not so many historians unfortunately. There was a big battle very close to where I live in 1840 but even the local families can’t tell me much about it. Very few written records of it etc. Nice beer. This afternoon I am going to keg a nice wheat beer 🍺. Thanks for sharing Dave 🇬🇧 🇳🇿
Thanks Dave! I think a lot of this "history" recounted here is highly debatable, I don't think there's any certainty that the site I visited in this video is in fact where the battle talked about took place. In fact from my limited understanding of it I'm not even convinced there was an actual battle - it could have been the case that the Roman army showed up, the Britons took one look at them and their sophisticated weapons/armour and said "Ok you win!".
A pleasure to watch after just coming home from a late work shift. Mafia Lava bread sellers, bluebells, stunning scenery, great ‘walk past camera’ shots and a few good dance moves as well 😄👍🏻 May I ask what was the brand of beer you were drinking? It looked scrumptious
Thanks Seán! The beer was named the same as the pub - The Inn on the Green - but it was a Greene King pub, and I've seen them do that in a few of their pubs. I suspect what you're actually getting there is one of their generic beers just badged differently. I suspect something like Greene King IPA. Normally anything referred to an IPA would be something I'd avoid now, because it tends to mean those American style IPAs which taste of grapefruit (using Cascade, Citra and other American hop varieties) but Greene King's is an English style IPA using English hops (Pilgrim, Challenger and First Gold apparently). Still not really my favourite style of beer - I like old fashioned brown malty bitters - but at least it didn't taste of grapefruit!
@@jacobreesdogg5522 Oh wow, a small world! I liked Wheathampstead, it had a nice feel to it, albeit that I only very briefly passed through. I didn't get the sense the locals were particularly interested in their potentially very important historic site, I only saw one other person during my time walking through the Devil's Dyke, and that was just a dog walker. Although I suppose there are only so many times anyone can walk through a ditch.
It is many years since I’ve been there, so thanks for visiting. There’s long been this suggestion of significance attached to The Devil’s Dyke, and of course, it’s not far from St. Albans - another key location in the early years of the Roman occupation. Nice walk-bys too!
Yes I'm not sure how credible the association between this site and the historical events mentioned are - I believe there are other candidates for where the Catuvellauni had their "last stand" (which is probably a mis-characterisation of what actually took place). If I understand correctly this idea was largely propagated by Mortimer Wheeler, based on relatively scant evidence... but this was part of the Catuvellauni's territory, it would have been a fairly significant fortification, and it roughly fits with Caesar's handwavey reference to the battle being somewhere "north of the Thames". Whether or not it was historically significant it was a great spot, particularly this time of year with the bluebells flowering.
@@tweedyoutdoors yes, I think at one stage, what Wheeler said, became established fact. But I understand a lot of his interpretation has latterly been discredited. I just checked on Wikipedia and there’s this somewhat depressing quote: “However, many of his specific interpretations of archaeological sites have been discredited or reinterpreted and he was often criticised for bullying colleagues and sexually harassing young women.”
I'm lucky that I really don't have it too bad, as I said in the video usually just about one month of the year then it's gone. I know some people suffer non-stop for all of spring and summer and that sounds brutal!
6:34 and for a great fiction series based on Ceasar's gaul campaign (and through to the civil war & beyond) check Simon Turney's Marius' Mules series .
If you have closed captions, or subtitles as us English know them, switched on, the fine Mr Tweedy is translated as "2D". Perhaps they think you are a little flat!
You might like Allotment Fox's channel then! I have become really interested in the subject, at least partly thanks to his videos. It's so easy to just take place names for granted and treat them as meaningless sounds but they all do mean something and often in just a few syllables there can be some quite enlightening insight into a place's history.
Thanks for a nice historical video, really enjoyed it. 👍
Thanks Ysgolgerlan, glad you enjoyed it! A useful reminder that once upon a time all of Britain was Welsh!
Brilliant 😊. Very interesting history as well.
Thanks Cara! I didn't think I was very interested in the Iron Age (as I said in a previous video, it always seems like Britain was just sitting around waiting for the Romans to invade) but I took a shine to Cassivellaunus, or Caswallawn as he's referred to in the Triads (and probably closer to his real name, given that he presumably would have spoken a form of Welsh). He seemed like a bit of a character! Plus it helped that the Devil's Dyke was such an evocative spot.
You always make me laugh John , a lovely looking place .
Thanks Stuart! Yes I really liked this spot, and I think I was lucky with the weather and the time of year too.
Delightful video Tweedy. There is something about ancient earthworks that I find quite enchanting. The scale of the works is stunning considering they were all created by manual labour. Close to where I live are the Bartlow Hills...Romano British burial mounds, The Wandlebury Ring near Cambridge and another Devil's Dyke which straddles Cambridgeshire and Suffolk.
When I worked in central London I too had real problems with the Plane trees. They drop a large round seed pod which bursts on contact and/or by people crushing them underfoot. Inside the pod there fibrous strands almost like wool which cause severe irritation if breathed in or if they get in your eyes on a windy day. Since I retired to the country, I have no problems.
Your videos are always make me smile 😊 … ‘I’m here to see a ditch of course’ haha of course! Nice seeing the bluebells and learning about the history of the site. Nice place to visit.
Beautiful walk. The Iron Age earthworks are amazing given the amount of labor the construction must have required
We need more of them ''walking past the camera'' dances .😁
I did start off thinking I was going to do a sensible walking past the camera shot but it just seems so ridiculous when you're doing it and I can't take it seriously!
There's no better way to wake up with my coffee on a Sunday morning than watching an English gentleman dancing by the camera in a ditch wearing a tweed suit. 😂
As always I absolutely found this both entertaining as well as interesting. I would totally stealth camp there for a night, I think the atmosphere there would be awesome under the stars on a summer night. Cheers Tweedy! 🎩🍻
Thanks Jamie! Yes in the back of my mind I was pondering whether it might be suitable for a stealthy wild camp. Not much flat ground though, other than the path itself and it was very close to houses at one end at least. It had a really nice atmosphere to it while I was there though, so it was quite tempting somehow.
Haaa, you mentioned "Tribute, not the beer from Cornwall" well I am drinking that very beer as I watch this:)
There's lots of Dykes associated with the Devil and lots of Ditches associated with Grim..
A lovely walk and the backlit beech leaves look wonderful.
Regarding Richard IIIrds My Kingdom for a horse reminds me of a time 28 years ago when my daughter (a baby back then ) was crying for her soother and I would exclaim "My Kingdom for a Dummy". A horse would be too much of a mouthful..|
That reminds me of when I was walking the Wessex Ridgeway, and one day passed through Heytesbury and later Corton. I thought being in more rural parts of Wiltshire I might have an opportunity to try beer from some of the traditional Wiltshire brewers - Wadworth, Arkell's etc. As it turned out though in both pubs the only ales were Cornish! I have no objection to Cornish beers, but, you know, when in Rome etc.
Yes I've been to at least one other Devil's Dyke (in the South Downs), not to mention a Devil's Punchbowl, a Devil's Pulpit, a Devil's Cauldron, a Devil's Kitchen... I touched on this odd naming convention indirectly in a recent video on the South Dorset Ridgeway - where there's similarly the "Hell Stone". My theory is just that this is a catch-all for anything considered to have been built in the pre-Christian era of Britain, therefore by heathens and/or actual unearthly creatures.
The historical content of this video is off the charts, Tweedy. If this trajectory continues you'll have a BBC 2 series within a year. Personal highlights were "illicit laverbread" and "some amount of back and forth" to describe a protracted military conflict.
Thanks Jim! I considered "some amount of argie bargie" but wouldn't want to be accused of sensationalising events.
Excellent history lesson Tweedy. Gosh Europe was such a melting pot back then with all of the fighting, invasions etc. good way to keep the gene pool healthy I guess! Lol. You guys (sorry English) are so good with your history. Over here there are not so many historians unfortunately. There was a big battle very close to where I live in 1840 but even the local families can’t tell me much about it. Very few written records of it etc. Nice beer. This afternoon I am going to keg a nice wheat beer 🍺. Thanks for sharing Dave 🇬🇧 🇳🇿
Thanks Dave! I think a lot of this "history" recounted here is highly debatable, I don't think there's any certainty that the site I visited in this video is in fact where the battle talked about took place. In fact from my limited understanding of it I'm not even convinced there was an actual battle - it could have been the case that the Roman army showed up, the Britons took one look at them and their sophisticated weapons/armour and said "Ok you win!".
@@tweedyoutdoors good point Tweedy! I would think a Roman Legion would be a fairly intimidating sight. ! If you can’t beat them, join them!
A pleasure to watch after just coming home from a late work shift. Mafia Lava bread sellers, bluebells, stunning scenery, great ‘walk past camera’ shots and a few good dance moves as well 😄👍🏻 May I ask what was the brand of beer you were drinking? It looked scrumptious
Thanks Seán! The beer was named the same as the pub - The Inn on the Green - but it was a Greene King pub, and I've seen them do that in a few of their pubs. I suspect what you're actually getting there is one of their generic beers just badged differently. I suspect something like Greene King IPA. Normally anything referred to an IPA would be something I'd avoid now, because it tends to mean those American style IPAs which taste of grapefruit (using Cascade, Citra and other American hop varieties) but Greene King's is an English style IPA using English hops (Pilgrim, Challenger and First Gold apparently). Still not really my favourite style of beer - I like old fashioned brown malty bitters - but at least it didn't taste of grapefruit!
Enjoyed the sunglasses. Like a young Tom Cruise.
🤣
Ah, I used to live in Wheathampstead before I returned up North.
Around 11:34 you look like a Poundshop version of Basil Fawlty.
And that’s a good thing 😂.
@@jacobreesdogg5522 🤣 On some level I have always aspired to that!
@@jacobreesdogg5522 Oh wow, a small world! I liked Wheathampstead, it had a nice feel to it, albeit that I only very briefly passed through. I didn't get the sense the locals were particularly interested in their potentially very important historic site, I only saw one other person during my time walking through the Devil's Dyke, and that was just a dog walker. Although I suppose there are only so many times anyone can walk through a ditch.
It is many years since I’ve been there, so thanks for visiting. There’s long been this suggestion of significance attached to The Devil’s Dyke, and of course, it’s not far from St. Albans - another key location in the early years of the Roman occupation.
Nice walk-bys too!
Yes I'm not sure how credible the association between this site and the historical events mentioned are - I believe there are other candidates for where the Catuvellauni had their "last stand" (which is probably a mis-characterisation of what actually took place). If I understand correctly this idea was largely propagated by Mortimer Wheeler, based on relatively scant evidence... but this was part of the Catuvellauni's territory, it would have been a fairly significant fortification, and it roughly fits with Caesar's handwavey reference to the battle being somewhere "north of the Thames".
Whether or not it was historically significant it was a great spot, particularly this time of year with the bluebells flowering.
@@tweedyoutdoors yes, I think at one stage, what Wheeler said, became established fact.
But I understand a lot of his interpretation has latterly been discredited. I just checked on Wikipedia and there’s this somewhat depressing quote:
“However, many of his specific interpretations of archaeological sites have been discredited or reinterpreted and he was often criticised for bullying colleagues and sexually harassing young women.”
@@WC21UKProductionsLtd Perhaps the takeaway here is to take everything with a large pinch of salt without evidence!
Same here in america my eyes are burning i call it heeeey fever 😢
I'm lucky that I really don't have it too bad, as I said in the video usually just about one month of the year then it's gone. I know some people suffer non-stop for all of spring and summer and that sounds brutal!
6:34 and for a great fiction series based on Ceasar's gaul campaign (and through to the civil war & beyond) check Simon Turney's Marius' Mules series .
Thanks for the recommendation Andy!
I missed the cooking outdoors part ?
If you have closed captions, or subtitles as us English know them, switched on, the fine Mr Tweedy is translated as "2D". Perhaps they think you are a little flat!
🤣
Also a place name geek here .
You might like Allotment Fox's channel then! I have become really interested in the subject, at least partly thanks to his videos. It's so easy to just take place names for granted and treat them as meaningless sounds but they all do mean something and often in just a few syllables there can be some quite enlightening insight into a place's history.
@@tweedyoutdoors Simon roper Is brilliant for language history .