Twmbarlwm Dig 2022
The lost weekend

13th – 14th August 2022

SATURDAY
After promoting this weekend as “Open Days” with various activities planned, it was a great shame to have to cancel it due to the extreme weather conditions. The Met Office had predicted temperatures in the high 30s and issued a amber warning – which means a danger to people’s health.

Therefore CPAT and the Society decided to abandon the work in the trenches for the weekend and not to encourage members of the public to climb to the top expecting to be given a guided tour of the site.

It had been our intention to have experts on site to talk to visitors about the geology and the fossils found there, about the great amount of Victorian glass we have found there and we had prepared activity packs for children. We hope to re-visit these activities later in the dig or into early autumn.

I spent Friday emailing all the volunteers who had booked in for the weekend and posting cancellation notices on social media – and fortunately the message must have got through because there was nobody up there when I visited the site on Saturday morning.

I put up notices on the Risca side car park and on the approaches from Car Park 2 and 7 of the Forest Drive. I only came across one family group walking across to the Twmp so it would seem most people decided to stay away because of the heat.

SUNDAY

Norman went up to check on the site on Sunday and he sent me the following notes on his visit.

Popped up to Twmbarlwm this morning with my Spaniel Harri, to check on the dig. I was surprised to see the car park on the Risca side of Twmbarlwm was pretty full at 9:30, just shows how popular the Twmp is.Harri and I took the ‘long walk’ up to the common and then back to Twmbarlwm we had a nice breeze but you could feel the temperature rising as we walked. We met a mountain biker coming  off the ancient monument. We had a nice chat and I explained to him that it was an offence to ride any type of bike over the monument. He was obviously unaware that this was the case. 

Near the Twmp I met two runners from Cwmbran, or as they told me, because of the temperature they were more walkers than runners. One of them was working in Abu Dhabi and he said that even he was feeling the heat. Both were very interested in the dig and what we had found last year, which could indicate that Twmbarwlm was important to people in the Neolithic period.

Harri and I checked out the excavation sites to see that everything was ok. It was my first visit to the dig since last Thursday and I was pleased to see how much more work had been done, particularly on the stone circle and the possible bronze age cairn. 

Our visit was marred by litter, snack wrappers, empty drinks bottles and believe it or not, a soiled nappy. Twmbarlwm is a beautiful and magical place so why can’t people just enjoy it and not spoil it for others.

I wasn’t able to pick any of this litter up Terry as I had nothing with me. Most of the litter was by the Trig Point. Perhaps CPAT or one of the volunteers could tidy it up tomorrow (Yes we got it picked up the following day).

Norman Liversuch
CTS Vice Chairman.