There is a bitter sequel to the Priddy story. It concerns the fate of the world’s other multiple henge monument, also in England.

The Nosterfield Publication Report (insensitively titled “Holes in the Landscape”), the fruits of seventeen years of archaeological investigations of part of the now-quarried monumental landscape of Thornborough, the greatest prehistoric monuments between Stonehenge and the Orkneys, is now available here.

The fieldwork and publication have been funded by Tarmac Northern and the peer-reviewed report has been produced on behalf of Mike Griffiths and Associates who were engaged by Tarmac Northern to carry out the investigative work. 

Perhaps the most telling words are these from the introductory text: 

While Nosterfield Quarry has resulted in the loss of the archaeological deposits discussed within this tome, it has paradoxically added significantly to our understanding of the archaeology and landscape of the wider area and provided a framework in which future discoveries can be placed and understood.

Thanks Tarmac. Due to your unwavering insistence on digging here rather than somewhere less archaeologically important we’ve learned stuff. Of course, we could have learned much more over time by traditional sampling techniques but best not to dwell on that eh? You won, you got what you wanted. Couldn’t you have resisted, just this one time, dressing up what you did  as culturally beneficial when you know perfectly well it was unnecessary vandalism of the highest order? A big chunk of the Thornborough monumental landscape is now an electronic file. That is not something you should pretend is to anyone’s advantage but YOURS. Britain is full of gravel deposits, as you know perfectly well.