Sunday 1 July 2012

just testing

a swift post because the blogspot keeps popping up with an incomprehensible error msg and no indication of how to resolve the problem whatever it is. 

So here is a test, about walking in Cheshunt  along the New River,  completed  in 1613 to carry water from Amwell in Hertfordshire right into London by gravity alone, and a diversion to take in the site of Theobalds, the great house built by Lord Burleigh, which his son gave to James I - a sort of obligatory gift - in exchange for the old Hatfield House and estate. 

Theobalds was demolished during the Commonwealth - sale of the late King's goods etc - but the site is marked on OS maps as 'remains' so I was curious.  It's now a public park, based on the mansion/s  built there in C18 and C19.
The only visible piece of old fabric is this stone, with date 1621, though it looks rather crisp, and unexplained. 
Archaeology is underway however: the most significant find being the skeleton of a very large dog, provisionally classified as one of James I's hunting wolfhounds.... not quite the same as foundations, but early days.

In the garden is a ruined archway which from a distance could be an old wall robbed of its facing stone but turns out to be a much later folly cobbled up from great flints and lumps of brick.
This by way of testing whether and how this post will appear....
PS  problem now sorted, it seems

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