Grimes Graves Neolithic Mine Visit With Will Lord

A Grimes Graves visit is something I've wanted to tick off for a long time and when Will Lord posted some dates on his website I knew I had to act. Will's family have been custodians of the site (which contains over 400 neolithic flint mines) for many decades and whilst there are three pits to descend the Canon Greenwell pit isn't accessed much at all.

I've had 1-2-1 tuition from Will before  during a 2016 work sabbatical I was lucky enough to get, and whilst half the afternoon was dedicated to knapping which it would be great to practice again the real draw was getting into the afore mentioned pit which is one of around sixty that have had an exploratory dig.

Whilst other attendees had arrived before me I was the first to get to the large tent that was erected, perhaps they were staying warm in their cars on a cool and windy day. I said hello to Will and Jason, his help for the day. Jason was just finishing butchering a small Muntjac for the dinner to come. It was also  noticeable just how audible the Skylark song was from all sides.

After a brew Will sat us down and started doing an introductory talk both about the day and about various tools and artefacts that he has. He actually mentioned the Skylark song saying that the site was talking to us.

  

As he finished laying them out in a display, with a small Mammoth tooth amongst them, the English Heritage staff signalled that the pit was open and that the portable winch was in place. We went in to the warm visitor centre to get our harnesses and helmets on.

As we walked over, again with the Skylark song filling the air, we passed the two other pit entrances (with this being one of them). Once you are past the visitor centre the crater like landscape becomes evident and the size of them is impressive.

Will asked us to be quiet as we waited to descend, and once we got down to the pit's floor stone too, just to be able to take in the atmosphere of this special place. Will went first and I was the third attendee down. This video at the 4 minute mark shows the ladder down into the darkness.

The winch cable makes any looking up quite hard to do as it is right behind the back of your head. but I slowed every few rungs to look around as I descended ever further into the blackness with the rungs getting ever colder to the touch. Will unclipped me and I turned to sit down and chose a raised ledge about one o'clock from the ladder to sit cross legged on.

Initially you see the light from the hatch, even on a dull day,  seemingly extra bright compared to the dark recesses, you look around and everything seems gloomy but as  your eyes, ears and senses start to adjust to your new environment and you feel the cold  floor, the paste like chalk dust and see the entrances to the various chambers become clearer.

We occasionally caught the odd quiet instruction from the staff at the winch but other than that there was little noise. Just before the last attendee came down there was a delay and for a precious moment there literally was silence. Once we were all gathered with two staff members Will left a moment before speaking and did a little talk.

There are  six galleries in total and we were free to sensibly and respectfully explore with Will taking up position in gallery number three. I'd strongly recommend that you bring a head torch for this experience.

The reason for Will taking up residence in number three is because this has several treasures  in the tunnel-like passage which we all needed to navigate to get to him at the end. Along the way we saw the feminine looking tabular flint mother stone which the miners possibly left because of this 'Mother Earth' connection. Will touched it with some reverence as he passed it.

This is also one of two discarded antler picks in the narrow passage. There were actually nearly sixty antler tools in this passage originally and mostly left-handed antlers which made the perfect tool for a right-handed miner.

Talking of the narrow passage I have included this anonymous picture of a female attendee's posterior to demonstrate just how confined some of the access is. In all seriousness this experience isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea due to the dark, confined space and the depth of descent.

We went in to the end of the gallery one by one and he asked me to put my head torch out, inch towards a small opening in the wall to my left, and then switch on my head torch again...I let out an audible gasp. This was literally a look back in time to a small tunnel that hasn't been entered for 4,000 years with lumps of chalk and antler picks festooning the floor. A visit to a museum or castle takes you back but this is the real deal.

Will also handed us a pick to handle, I'm pretty sure that it is one that revealed itself during a small cave collapse that is mentioned in this video at the 19 minute mark. It felt so comfortable to hold and there were still hand marks that the last user had left on it. Once we were done we had to reverse crawl out of the  narrow tunnel avoiding the  queue, supports and artefacts in the process.

This gallery nearer the ladder also had several antler tools in, plus discarded flint, chalk and the remains of a fox which had fallen in some time ago.

This was one of the smallest and most accessible of the galleries to the right of the ladder (four o'clock if your back was to it) and it's most noticeable feature was a small bat roosting to the right of the torch light. 

Every nook and cranny that you shone light down seemed to offer the promise of something to see or ponder over.

 I spent a fair bit of time in this gallery. This a shot down the long corridor near to the ledge I initially sat on. A battery had become dislodged in my head torch so I followed an attendee in because the light on the way back (from the tunnel) made it navigable but I had to use his torch light to miss the supports which we'd been told to not bump into.

  

At the entrance there were two antler tools, one resting and the other one wedged. Polished axes were the tool of choice through the chalk and the antler tools were used to prise out the flint nodules. 

Upon reaching the end it revealed several back filled tunnels which were really filled up, they didn't halfheartedly put the spoil back. Perhaps as well as the waste logistics it was another 'Mother Earth' moment for them. As the attendee with the torch turned to go his torchlight appeared to flicker as he scrambled back and it almost looked like the tallow fuelled lights I assumed the workers may have used to mine by.

I knew that the folk with Will were slowly coming to an end so having finished my exploring I decided to just sit in a quieter part of the pit and wait for the tour's natural end. This is to the left of gallery three but I elected to go in the area directly in front of number three's entrance so I could see when things ended.

 This is the sitting area I plumped for, noone else in there and just a little light from the main area to the left. As Will made his way out of the 'time capsule' bit I realised that I must have been sat there a while because I had become accustomed to it and I had to shield my eyes from the torch light.

As the winch cable came down to get us we were chatting to Will and I asked him if they used tallow lamps when mining. He said that checks had been done for soot and none was found, but that said the original entrance hole that they dug  was massive and would have let a large amount of light in. I was last so I grabbed a selfie in the bowels of the Earth and as I put my phone away I noted, predictably, that there was no service.

As I ascended the ladder it was again hard to look up due to the winch cable so I just focused on the ladder rungs which seemed never ending but got brighter and brighter as I neared the hatch. We were told that the oxygen level  is actually slightly higher underground and I indeed started panting once unclipped, due to the oxygen change, climbing the ladder briskly, both or neither? I'll never know.

Having been in our own little world it was impossible to know how long we'd been down there as you are in the moment with just the noise our group made and no outside references. As I walked back I noticed just how grubby I looked and that the  song of the Skylarks was still surrounding us.

After handing our gear back in to the centre we got another brew and Will started a hand axe making demonstration whilst Jason finished the venison soup/ stew dinner.

I've always had a rather 'lame game' palette so I wondered what I'd make of the stronger venison taste, actually I really enjoyed it so credit to Jason there.

After dinner Will resumed his demonstration and then produced enough suitable pieces for everyone to have a go at their own hand axe too.

I'd previously contacted Will to ask if I could attempt an arrowhead instead and was given a suitable piece to crack on with. This is in the early stages after an initial knap of the edges, a little bit by Will but a decent amount by me too.

You realise just how strong Will's hands must be because whilst I elected to knap with the correct technique I was shown on my 1-2-1 I found that it it was making the hand holding the pressure flaker a tad uncomfortable. I did get the main man to deal with a small area of flint that was thicker than the rest that I struggled with.

We all had eye protection of course and we occasionally showered each other with shards during the afternoon but I'm so glad I checked my cup before having a Growers Cup coffee as there was a lump of flint in there! It was small and blunt but a small sharp fragment could have caused internal mischief.

I finished off my arrow head by both removing the diagonal bit at the back of it and making the edges rounded, I haven't taken many large surface flakes off it but I'm happy with it. I did an arrow head with a view to mounting it on an atlatl dart but I may use it to practice making an arrow...A project for another day.

A sudden project that I have in the here and now is some polishing, lots of it. When Will finished his hand axe demonstration he said whoever promises to polish it can have it and my mouth opened. I've got a bit of work to do.

Having finished my knapping ahead of those doing hand axes I started to do a little bit of initial grinding. Here you can see the barely started one I'll be working on at top left, with a finished one from Will's collection below right. I'll work on one side at a time so I can see progress.

I asked for some guidance on doing the edges and you can see Will has generated a dull spark near his right hand thumb. This might be an interesting fire lighting project with a bit of amadou held on the side of the axe.

4 o'clock arrived and we had reached the end. I went into the centre to have a look at the display in there which can also be seen online here. There is also a Will Lord leaflet in there too. 

The site is so large that a photo at ground level doesn't do it justice so I took a picture of a picture in the exhibition. I can't ever see myself going down Grimes Graves again because it's one of those things where the first visit is the best visit. 

As I came out I thanked Will and Jason and said goodbye. I drove to the toilets for a pit stop before the journey as they are some way from the centre. As I got in the car I noticed that as we had finished so had the Skylarks.

I watched Will's Grimes Grave tour video the next day to work out the  timings I'd included as hot links in this blog and do you know what I got butterflies watching it. that Tells me what a great experience I had, as does the ache of muscles from crawling.