"...there was a continuity between the Etruscan wine landscape and the modern one"

Montecucco DOC Archaeological wine tour

The Montecucco DOC Archaeological wine tour will take you in the heart of Tuscany to discover the land of the Etruscans, for a guided tour of two days especially focused on “wine and archaeology”, but also on food and nature, hot baths at the spa of Saturnia and gastronomy, in the sign of pleasure and conviviality. The tour, realized by Tenuta Terre Brune in agreement with Colle Massari winery at Cinigiano, is particularly suitable for wine and archaeology lovers …yes, because you'll enjoy not only the esteemed wines produced by one of the most prestigious wineries of the Montecucco DOC, but also discuss the important ritual meaning of wine in the luxurious banquets of the rich Etruscan and Roman senators who implemented in these lands the first wineries of the Region, as well as visiting the ruins of two amazing archaeological sites: the Etruscan and Roman city of the ancient Vulci and Cosa. A recent archeo botanical research is demonstrating in the genome of the Etruscan vines a strict affinity with that of the modern vines of Maremma as if there was a continuity between the Etruscan wine landscape and the modern one, interrupted only by the black plague of the “malaria” , which devastated this land for more then thousand years. We will talk also about the Etruscans and Romans vines cultivation techniques, trying to retrace analogies and differences with ours modern wine production. Tours at the site of ancient Vulci and Cosa will be guided by an expert archaeologist. The wine tasting tour at the modern winery of Colle Massari will be led by an expert winery guide. 

CONTACT DETAILS

Claudia Pinci

Location: Cinigiano, Tuscany

Website: http://www.terrebrune.com/wine_and_cooking/azienda/wine_tour

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Saltwells local nature reserve, spring and harvest

Saltwells local nature reserve, a set by Dudley Council on Flickr.

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Spring is a great time in Saltwells Wood - but it always reminds me of Autumn, and harvests in particular. Black Country harvest festivals start with "the salts of the earth": a block of rock salt, a lump of coal and a jug of water. All of these were extracted from the Saltwells area....

The area - now an extensive urban nature reserve - was part of Pensnett Chase a large common with retained hunting rights for aristocrats in the middle ages. Commoners began digging pits for coal and iron ore from the 13th-century and part of their diggings are preserved in the woods - as a Scheduled Ancient Monument. It was annexed to Lord Dudley's Saltwell's estate by enclosure in 1785, and planted to provide charcoal for ironmaking. By now the long-established plantations have matured to provide a fine splay of bluebells and Ramsons (Wild Garlic), Wood Anemone, Sweet Woodruff and Yellow Archangel. It is also home to many typical woodland birds, such as Sparrowhawk, Stock Dove, Tawny Owl, Green and Great Spotted Woodpeckers, Nuthatch and Jay, as well as butterflies, including Brimstone, Purple and White-letter Hairstreaks and Ringle.... an unintended harvest of joy.

The saltwells were brine pools used medicinally from the 17th century. Doctor Robert Plot in his Natural History of Staffordshire published in 1636, referred to '....the Salt Wells of Lady Wood', their popularity, in the Black Country, and the numbers of people 'taking the waters'. Brine bathing has an analgesic effect on rheumatic and arthitic conditions, and helps relieve gout  These baths cause serum to flow from the blood stream through the skin and into the brine by osmosis, carrying with it uric acid, urea, creatinine and other waste products.. It may help (if pure water is drunk) to dilute mild lead poisoning... when middle-class families might have water stored in lead tanks. You can still stay at the Saltwells Inn, alas without the spa now.

The locality continued to be used for extractive industries with deep coal mines sunk in the 19th century  and Royal Doultons Saltwell's Clay Field operated for 70 years, until 1930. The claypit has since been reclaimed by nature and now supports unusual plants including hundreds of Common Spotted and Southern Marsh Orchids, as well as Common Lizards, Grass Snakes and Smooth Newts. It was, until 1966, the only local nesting site of Red-backed Shrike. An area of open-cast coalmine provides yet another local habitat with nesting pairs of Common Whitethroat and Linnet. 

South of the woods is the squatter settlement of Mushroom Green   where nailmakers squatted the commons in the 18th century, only to be taken within Lord Dudley's estate subsequently. an area of scrubland and meadow, plus a large reed swamp that provides a safe refuge for winter birds like Water Rail, Common Snipe and Eurasian Teal, whilst Kingfishers are often recorded in the area. 

Overall, the landscape character - and the character of locality, occupations and people - reflect the history of the last 400 years

Radio Discussion on Planning policy and Law

Bend your ears to this discussion of the National Planning Policy framework in England and its legal implications.... "Unreliable Evidence" with Clive Anderson

Planning policy has a profound influence on our landscape. Planning restrictions were relaxed in the 1930s - a response to the Depression. The result was an explosion of suburbs and bungalows across green fields -- so much so that the loss of large areas of Arden mourned by Tolkein, its swansong was the description of The Shire in the Hobbit. As seen in this area around Sarehole Mill where Tolkein stayed


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...and Selly Oak to the West

The Green Belt was an idea to counteract this growth -  first proposed by the Greater London Regional Planning Committee in 1935. It was adopted by the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947 - which allowed local authorities to impose this restriction in their Development Plans. Powerful House builders have their eyes fixed on removing some of these restrictions, hence a "simplified" National Planning Policy Framework  which supersedes all previous planning policy advice. However, the lawyers suggest it may be stymied by introducing clouds of uncertainty, leading to greater delay than the previous rule-led process.

Thames shore by the Tower of London - archaeology

There's an opportunity to investigate the Thames shore with the hard-working Thames Discovery Project, City of London Archaeological Society, Thames21 and Historic Royal Palaces Click Here for more

The intertidal zone is often overlooked - particularly in cities. Here's a film of the Thames Discovery Programme  exploring the shore below iconic landmarks of the Tower of London and Tower Bridge

Thames Discovery Programme, Episode 7: The Tower of London from Thames Discovery on Vimeo.

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Spectacle and the end of Brave New Brutalism in Stourbridge?

It is a feature of social failure in the physical built environment that it smells of urine. Walkways in Thamesmead, underpasses in Birmingham and stairwells in Stourbridge's multi-story car park all have the whiff of ammonia in my memory. In the case of Stourbridge, the Multi-storey accompanied the ringroad, the baths and a new shopping centre and library, all fitting traffic engineers models of utility, but as in so many areas, with sub-optimal social outcomes....   it, errrr, stank.
Now by the coup-de-grace of Tesco, a symbolic blowing-up/down of the multi-storey fits within a modern spectacle of demolition. Whilst 90-tonne machines with giant munchers could quickly have dealt with the demolition with less disruption, the drama of explosives is preferred as something more than popular entertainment. A quickening of the spirit perhaps, an engagement with destruction. Just as in classical Rome, executions at the Tarpeian Rock were reserved for traitors, so to for reviled examples of 1960s and 70s dystopias, their end is a public event. There is an order, a ritual, that is followed, which generally ends with the congregation (for that is the word) being anointed with choking concrete dust (and I wonder at what risk to their health). But who is it that has decided that this demolition sui generis is reserved for failed urban structures, and does it really help communities bounce back?

Brutalism Stourbridge style, a photo by DavidSankey on Flickr.

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Below is a mooch round Stourbridge at Yule 2011...

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Stourbridge drift (derive) Yule 2011, a set on Flickr.

A mooch round Stourbridge, where I lived in the 1970s, underlined its continued decline over the last thirty years. The thriving bits appeared to be the Job Centre+ and the Canal basin, opened by Direct Action. And yet this was a genteel well-healed town fuelled by 17th-century industrialism with the Earl of Dudley sponsoring research into smelting iron from coal