THE ROLLRIGHT STONES APPEAL The Cotswold HyperGuide - The Rollright Stones A personal Account of celebrating Samhain at the Rollrights.
Save Lyminge Forest and its Bronze Age Burial Mounds
West Wood is a large part of the ancient Lyminge Forest which stands on top of the North Downs in Kent south of Canterbury on the old Roman Stone Street that leads from Canterbury to the sea at Hythe. The oldest manuscript mentioning it shows that it must have existed at least since the 12th Century. According to a Latin document of 1285 the local tenants had to deliver up to 148 cartloads of wood from "West Wode" to a manor controlled by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Today it is a mixed beech, oak and pine forest, home to a wealth of flowers and to rare birds such as the Nightjar that is visited by about 140,000 people a year. it has been declared an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
It also has unexcavated and undisturbed bronze age, late iron age, Roman and early medieval sites where hundreds of pieces of pottery have been discovered. This forest was used for charcoal for iron smeltng in the Iron Age.
But the UK government has decided to sell off this public land to a private enterprise. The Rank Organisation have now obtained, despite strong local opposition, planning permission to buy all of West Wood and much of the rest of the forest in order to turn it all into a private holiday camp where overseas visitors can have the "English Countryside Experience". (It is the nearest forest to the Channel Tunnel). They plan to put in a car part for 3,400 cars, 950 holiday homes, and to tastefully landscape the many Bronze Age burial mounds in the forest, curving the Car Park around one and putting holiday houses closely around others.
So in March 1997, eco-warriors, protestors, moved into the forest in support of the local community action group. Today they have built in widely separated parts of the forest camps with well defended tunnels, with treehouses and more. All this is designed to stop the project non-violently by making it too expensive an operation for the site to be cleared of protestors.
The Forestry Commission swore in baillifs in Summer 1997 to evict the protestors - then decided against this for the moment at least. In August 1997 they gave Rank a two year option to buy the site. ... so we may have to stay here until August 1999. Click on the headline above to go to the Forest Site. Click on the heading below to go to a personal account of pagan rituals held within the forest (reported at the Winter Solistice 1997 favourably in the Sunday Telegraph with a full page article headed "Pagan Army in Forest.".Lyminge Forest has a website with much more information on it incluing a map and travel directions - you can get to it by clicking on Magic to get to an article and contacts about....
The Magic of Lyminge Forest. Other General Sites of much Interest on our ancient Stones and Sacred Places.. Stones of England Earth First! The Land Is Ours Homepage Welcome to White Dragon planetpeace | Sacred Sites Ashlynn's Grove
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