#Shropshire England

[blueiscoool]

‘Beautiful’ Roman Mosaic Depicting Dolphins and Fish Uncovered in England

A rare 2,000-year-old mosaic depicting dolphins and fish in still-bright colours has been uncovered in a Roman city in Shropshire, English Heritage has said.

Archaeologists found it while carrying out excavations looking for the main civic temple at Wroxeter, one of the best preserved examples of a Roman city in Britain.

The experts behind the dig said the discovery, along with a large number of small finds including coins and pottery, would help them date the various phases of the city and the activities which took place.

Wroxeter, previously known as Viriconium, was established in the 90s AD. It was once as large as Pompeii in Italy, with a civic bath house, market place, county hall and judicial centre as well as more than 200 houses.

The excavation was a collaboration between English Heritage, the University of Birmingham, Vianova Archaeology and Heritage Services, and Albion Archaeology.

They opened trenches near the city forum to find the main civic temple based on geophysical surveying showing a walled precinct.

It uncovered a large monumental building on the city’s main road, as well as a shrine or tomb which may have honoured an important individual in Wroxeter’s earliest history, experts said.

They found the mosaic soon after the city was established, and depicts dolphins and fish in bright colours still visible today, along with a painted plaster wall on one side which survives to knee height.

The archaeologists say it would have been commissioned by a wealthy and important person.

Win Scutt, senior properties curator at English Heritage, said: “Although much of Wroxeter is unexcavated, geophysical surveys have helped us understand the layout of the city and we were aware that to the north of the forum there was another large civic building, almost certainly the main civic temple, buried underground. “Our excavations were in hope of discovering the walls of this building, but we never suspected we would find a beautiful and intact mosaic, which had lain hidden for thousands of years.

“This discovery, alongside a large number of small finds such as coins and pottery, will go a long way in helping us to date the various phases of the city and indicate the kinds of activities that were taking place.

“It’s always an astonishing moment when you uncover a fragment of beauty hiding just below the ground.”

The area of the excavation has now been reburied for its protection and preservation, English Heritage said.

[vintagecamping]

Camping beside an idyllic stream in the village of Llanfair Waterdine.

Shropshire, England

1987

[reasonsforhope]

"In west England, a series of hills cloaked in heather and wildflowers are the target of a national restoration project that is already seeing success.

Similar to the story GNN reported on last week about the rewilding along the south coast and South Downs National Park, Sussex, volunteers are seeding old hay fields with native wildflowers and replanting traditional hedgerows to ensure wildlife can move freely through the region.

The region is called the Shropshire Hills, which by British law is designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and is managed and controlled so this beauty can endure. But while the area is indeed beautiful, the valley between the sections of hills known as Long Mynd and Stiperstones has for decades been under heavy hay cultivation, with farmers plowing up meadows and planting fast-growing commodity grasses.

As part of a project by the UK’s National Trust called Stepping Stones, volunteers have been working with landowners and local councils to turn some of these meadows back over to the wildlife, creating corridors of habitat to allow species like the bilberry bumblebee, pine marten, and curlews to move freely from hilltop to valley floor and back to hilltop.

Charlie Bell, project manager for Stepping Stones, told the BBC that the project is one part of an overall mission that aims to restore 97% of meadows that have been lost in the UK over the last 100 years.

“Many old meadows have been plowed up and re-seeded with more productive mixes of grasses,” she told the national broadcaster. “Fertilizers are often added to increase the growth of these dominant productive grasses, at the expense of finer grass species and wildflowers.”

Jinlye Meadows, on the Long Mynd side of the valley, is now thriving with native wildflower species like mountain pansy, and volunteers have recorded the area is thriving with bilberry bumblebees which are rare and in decline.

In particular, the meadows were covered last year in yellow rattle, also known as the ���meadowmaker,” a key part of Ms. Bell’s strategy for restoring meadows. This native species attaches itself to the roots of grasses, slowing, but not sabotaging, their growth. This allows not only the flower to grow, but space for all manner of other flowers to grow as the grasses’ growth is [slowed down]."

-Article via Good News Network, July 11, 2024. Video via NT Midlands, June 19, 2023.

[petitworld]

Shropshire, England by Susan Rushton

[peacefulandcozy]

Instagram credit: polly.florence

[pedroam-bang]

Atonement (2007)

[victusinveritas]

Woman living near Ironbridge Power Station eating by candlelight during power cuts in 1972 by David Bagnall.

[unteriors]

Coxall Baptist Church, Bucknell (Shropshire).

[connorphilpphotography]

Such a beautiful little village, Ironbridge.

[aneverydaything]

Day 2293, 2 October 2024

Honey for sale

Outside a house in Church Stretton, Shropshire

[mothmiso]

(1) (2) (3) (4) by David Burch

Via Flickr:

(1) The railway no longer goes to Bromyard. (2) Sheep in Herefordshire. (3) Snowy view from Clee Hill.     

[runawayandhide]

[mostlyuk]

Shropshire Hills by Brad Carr

[scholarofgloom]

[principiumindividuationis777]

[gothic-architecture]

Stokesay Castle, Shropshire, England

(Historic England Archive PLB/NO80705)