Ancient wooden walkway preserved.

[studiot]

Image source, Historic England

Image caption,

The Sweet Track in Shapwick Heath National Nature Reserve is protected as a scheduled monument

A 6,000-year-old wooden walkway over wetlands is no longer under threat thanks to conservation work.

The Sweet Track, in the Shapwick Heath National Nature Reserve in Somerset, is set to be removed from Historic England's Heritage at Risk Register.

The prehistoric track was built by the first farming communities in 3,806 BC and is the UK's oldest wooden walkway.

 

BBC news article.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-60203225

What tickles me is the date it was allegedly built. 3806 BC.

Not one year earlier or one year later !

Happy reading.

[MigL]

The pressure treated wood of my back fence looks like crap after 30 years.
And this wooden walkway is over 5800 years old ?

[studiot]

45 minutes ago, MigL said:

The pressure treated wood of my back fence looks like crap after 30 years.
And this wooden walkway is over 5800 years old ?

Glad someone found the article interesting.

[joigus]

5 hours ago, studiot said:

Image source, Historic England

Image caption,

The Sweet Track in Shapwick Heath National Nature Reserve is protected as a scheduled monument

A 6,000-year-old wooden walkway over wetlands is no longer under threat thanks to conservation work.

The Sweet Track, in the Shapwick Heath National Nature Reserve in Somerset, is set to be removed from Historic England's Heritage at Risk Register.

The prehistoric track was built by the first farming communities in 3,806 BC and is the UK's oldest wooden walkway.

 

BBC news article.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-60203225

What tickles me is the date it was allegedly built. 3806 BC.

Not one year earlier or one year later !

Happy reading.

Very nice. I knew about these structures. Typical Bronze-Age Britain. Thank you.

[studiot]

Although over 20 miles inland these wetlands are at sea level, some parts 1 -5 metres above and some a similar amount below.

This reminded me that I haven't congratulated @beecee on his cricket teams performances lately. They deserved their victory.
The point of this is to introduce a newly created wetland in the lower otter valley, in neighbouring Devon, is being returned to its natural state.
in the late 1700s, the land was drained and protected from the sea by a barrier to create new farmland.
But the land was always too marshy and prone to flooding, so became the Budleigh Salterton cricket club.
 

The pavilion can be seen in the first video.

 

The second video shows the valley in normal times, from 2 minutes in.
The red rocks are the start of the 'Jurrasic Coast'  with the old red sandstone low cliffs.

 

 

 

[zapatos]

Very interesting article @studiot, thanks!

As I couldn't imagine how a wooden walkway could remain intact for that long I did a little more research and found that the picture depicts a replica (in case anyone else was confused like me). Most of the walkway is still contained in damp peat on site although some has been removed and preserved.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Track

[beecee]

1 hour ago, studiot said:

This reminded me that I haven't congratulated @beecee on his cricket teams performances lately. They deserved their victory.

Thanks. Our team has come a long way since sandpapergate and is now well balanced with a host of express bowlers to chose from, ( and a top spinner in Nathan Lyon) and a number of world class batsman. 

On your OP, and the track preservation, great work! 

[mistermack]

Wood can get preserved for a very long time in a bog. Under the right conditions, the oxygen gets completely removed, so the wood eating bacteria can't operate. 

My parents came from the west of Ireland, and used to cut peat for the fire. Tree stumps were constantly turning up as you cut away the peat, and they were in amazing condition. They were called bog-oak locally, although they were often pine. The wood was rock hard, very difficult to cut it with a chainsaw or an axe. 

And there are the bog-bodies that turn up, beautifully preserved, varying up to 10,000 years old. This one is a mere 2,500 years old :

 

[zapatos]

30 minutes ago, mistermack said:

The wood was rock hard, very difficult to cut it with a chainsaw or an axe. 

Interesting, as the wood from Sweet Track is soft and degraded, and cannot be easily handled unless first preserved.

[mistermack]

44 minutes ago, zapatos said:

Interesting, as the wood from Sweet Track is soft and degraded, and cannot be easily handled unless first preserved.

Yes, they had to treat the wood from the Mary Rose for a year or more with preservative, to stabilise it, although that was salt water. I suppose it depends how stable and how boggy the conditions are. Bog oaks in Ireland vary from 3,000 to 8,000 years old. We had quite a bit of it on our farm. We had a relatively small area of bog where my uncle used to cut turf. I asked him why he didn't burn it and he said that you couldn't cut it without destroying a chain of a chain saw, so it was just left lying around. 

Wikepedia says :  Water flow and depth play a special role in the creation of bog-wood. Currents bind the minerals and iron in the water with tannins in the wood, naturally staining the wood in the process. This centuries-long process, often termed "maturation," turns the wood from golden-brown to completely black, while increasing its hardness to such a level that it can only be carved with the use of specialty cutting tools.^[1]             

                       ^{You can make stuff out of it though :}   

[zapatos]

1 minute ago, mistermack said:

                       ^{You can make stuff out of it though :}   

 

That is really cool. I'd love to get a piece of that wood to make something! 😀

[mistermack]

12 minutes ago, zapatos said:

That is really cool. I'd love to get a piece of that wood to make something! 😀

You can buy it. This isn't Irish, it's from the Ukraine,  so you might have to do a deal with Putin : 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/153666279646?hash=item23c73958de:g:0pwAAOSwIvddkqrv