Similarly, we have a starling chick on our front path that we need to deal with. The starlings beat the swifts to the box on the front of our house this year and we were just happy to have the chatter of feathered neighbours. Here’s hoping the rest of the chicks fare better.

You know you’ve got a good book when early afternoon has morphed into early evening without you even noticing. For anyone with even a passing interest in the natural environment, history and hope for the future of the Anglo-Cymric borderland ‘Hafren’ by @sarahchave1.bsky.social is one such book

Thank you to @dsaarchaeology.bsky.social for sharing this timely reminder

And you don’t have to take my word for it. Daniel Herbert’s research makes a compelling case for Arthur on the Anglo-Cymric borderland. His recent book looks wonderful, but is beyond the means of this archaeologist

Absolutely relevant to the Anglo-Cymric borderland. So hoping this finds its way into institutional rather than private hands.

Oh thank you to @flintdibble.bsky.social for providing a timely historical perspective on events in our county council. I needed this.

We normally only make it into the national news during flood season, but our county council is the poster child for how few grown ups there currently are in local and national politics and how their efforts to make things work are thwarted by their petty-minded colleagues

Making the most of good news when it happens a new, groundbreaking charter for the Wye. Now we just need to make sure it has teeth 👏👏👏

Good luck to everyone on this year’s excavations at Castleshaw. I spent a year working for the GMAU on the fort at Castlefield in central Manchester in the 80s, but visited the contemporary Castleshaw dig. Quite the contrast. It’s such an important site.

Not the Anglo-Cymric borderland, but proper archaeological goosebumps!

Anything that reminds us that we always have been, and continue to be, part of the natural world has to be a good thing

Thanks once again to @inkcapjournal.bsky.social for the link to this open access paper outlining a brilliant piece of interdisciplinary research that not only extends our knowledge of the extent of nineteenth century mature tree coverage, but also promises to contribute to future planning too 👏👏

Thank you to @inkcapjournal.bsky.social for the heads up about the BBC article reporting on the bathing sites on the Severn and Teme. Unsurprisingly, they are all currently in an officially 'poor' state. On the upside (?) the Dee at Chester is one of the newly designated sites for this year 🤞

Latest exciting educational developments at Stonehenge by English Heritage “Everything in that building was growing in this landscape 5,000 years ago. We’ve been using replica stone tools to create every aspect of this building … we’ve counted literally every blow every axe has made.”

To counter some of the current doom and gloom here's good news from #Shropshire on a proof-of-concept project to monitor water voles around Church Stretton and the Long Mynd by Shropshire Mammal Group

The fate of the Bogleys Stone is an absolute, stinking travesty. What a metaphor for our times, but the work undertaken by @urbanprehistorian.bsky.social to uncover its story over the last couple of decades is also cause for hope.

In #Shropshire? Bored on a Sunday? Fancy a game of cricket? Then Acton Scott are looking for new (and old) players to join them. Acton Scott has not only the most scenic ground in the county, High in the Shropshire Hills, but also the very best cricket teas 😀

A bit of a sleepless night took me to the old episodes of The Essay on BBC Sounds and to Michael Wood's excellent defence of Penda, the last Mercian pagan king. Whilst Bede in Northumbria is no fan, Wood illustrates the value of reading across Cymric and Irish literature for a truer picture

The MOWLIT team has partnered with the Historic Towns Trust to create a historic map of the Marcher towns of Brecon and Hay-on-Wye. Join us at Hay Castle on 28 May to celebrate the map’s launch! ticketpass.org/event/ENYEBW... ticketpass.org/event/ENYEBW... ticketpass.org/event/EOBKRE...

Sometimes you (or at least I) have to boggle at the things that haven’t landed in your consciousness. Thank you for sharing @peterreavill.bsky.social This film is just wonderful

I recently had cause to do a bit of digging around on Bronze Age art. Here, for #FindsFriday is an article on the unspeakably beautiful #Shropshire Bulla featuring @peterreavill.bsky.social I never tire of gazing at it ❤️

Presumably where one goes to dither... 🤔 📷 Shrewsbury, today

I usually try to keep my politics away from here, but if Labour could take a few moments away from their infighting to take note of the degrees of positive change that are possible when leaders try. Please and thank you.

This version of the new book by @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social absolutely needs to be a thing.

I just had cause to scan through some images on the educational resources provided by Historic England and found this picture of a reconstruction of a Bronze Age axe discovered at Beeston Castle, Cheshire 👇 historicengland.org.uk/education/sc...

Want to age better for longer? Visit a monument or a museum. At the Offa’s Dyke centre in Knighton you can do both! And for balance there is also excellent cake and coffee.

Thank you to @megalithic.bsky.social for this excellent thread on the Cotswold-Severn long barrows. Their builders inhabited the landscape sitting between the Severn and Thames, the main west and east facing arteries through southern England. Far from hiding away in this liminal landscape. . .

This Mesolithic amber figurine from Denmark is conclusive proof that The Wombles were around long before the 70s.

Here's a shout out to the #archaeology community. The Offa's Dyke Association is about to publish a fully bilingual book in Cymraeg and English, details to be released soon. It set us to wondering though, if, or how many, other such publications exist? If so, we'd love to hear about them!

When in Tewkesbury I never fail to go to see the Tom Denny stained glass - today, with the sun shining through, they looked fabulous! #StainedGlass #TewkesburyAbbey

Thank you @johnnythin.bsky.social for this post that reminds us of the interconnectivity of our world and the utter genius of David Attenborough

A beautiful nineteenth century carving from Lichfield, location of Offa of Mercia’s most ambitious ecclesiastical project - Mercia’s short-lived Archbishopric to counter the power of Canterbury

‘It’s a special tree’ Featuring my fellow Offa's Dyke Association Trustee Dan Llywelyn Hall 'If we can buy paintings for museums for gargantuan sums, why can’t we see these natural wonders as equals and give them due reverence, care and dignity?' 👇

Thank you to @inkcapjournal.bsky.social for the prompt to the @theguardian.com article on the. impact of No Mow May on supporting nature, featuring the #Cheshire village of Tattenhall 👇

I’ve taken the opportunity to revisit Hafren by @sarahchave1.bsky.social and to be reminded of the excellent sustainable farming practices undertaken by landowners such as Bradford Estates in Shropshire. Good things are possible and are happening, it’s not all bad. I can heartily recommend the book

Today's prehistoric pottery challenge ⚱️🏺: this little pot was excavated in the 19th Century, from a Bronze Age birial. This replic has taken over three hours to make and decorate, but can you identify it and what do you think it may have been used for? #Archaeology

Saw this and thought of you @alisonfoster.bsky.social

I admit that #LocalHistoryMonth always takes me a little by surprise (it shouldn't, forgive me). One of the joys, from my point of view, is being able to celebrate the work of the @vch-home.bsky.social network, some of whose recent publications are described in the thread below. #Skystorians

Needless to say, I’m shamelessly making the case for relevance to the Anglo-Cymric borderland through the tyranny of intensive chicken farming.

Not archaeology, but contemporary culture. Creativity in the face of oppression from György Pálfi. “The chicken needs to be a chicken. Sometimes we play with what a chicken can think, but we try very carefully to use a chicken as a chicken.”

@myworcester.bsky.social have opened up public consulation on the regeneration of the historic Shrub Hill Quarter which is open until 5th June. The updated plans look to preserve its industrial heritage whilst supporting just the kind of brown field re-development we really need 👇

Continuity rules. We think we are so divorced from our natural world. . .

And for anyone interested in the pioneering work undertaken by women in archaeology @trowelblazers.bsky.social provide all the information you could possibly want trowelblazers.com

Chilling reflections from @aidanosullivan.bsky.social on the state of affairs in the US. Making posts such as this on the pioneering work of Dorothy Garrod all the more significant

Anyone looking for a digital archaeologist or digital ethicist - I’m looking for contract work. Hit me up. Paid work only, please. My dogs don’t get fed on exposure or cool networking opportunities.

Beaver family 'healthy and busy building dams' #Shropshire #Salop

Not the Anglo-Cymric border, but ancient trees being protected is always worth celebrating

Little Moreton Hall, near Congleton, Cheshire; built 1504-1610. Not sure it would meet current building regs.

There's quite a lot of volumes on East Anglia in this listing (not that their archaeology is better than ours, it just gets dug up more!), but it also includes Derek Hurst's edited volume Burials and the Black Death: The New Library Excavation, Hereford Cathedral

Script Archaeology are celebrating Local and Community History Month 2026 with a selection of discounted books featuring Roger White's (edited) excellent Floreat Salopia: A Celebration of Shropshire’s History and Archaeology 👇