DDC Core Strategy and Financial Crisis

The Dover District Council core strategy was developed in the period immediately preceding the global financial crisis of 2008. 

The Global Financial Crisis 2008

The financial crisis of 2008 that hit Britain and many other countries around the world was effectively a global financial crisis. It resulted in the bailout of numerous banks, increased unemployment, recession, cuts in government spending and a decline in consumer expenditure.

One of the main reasons leading to the global financial crisis was the burst of the so-called housing market bubble, when the artificially inflated property market proved to be unsustainable. This led to an increase in home-evictions through failure to meet mortgage requirements, and to many unnecessary housing-estate projects being abandoned after construction had begun, as is the case in several European countries.

Another result of the global financial crisis is the realisation that numerous countries are in no position to reduce their national debt, and even find it difficult to service the interest on their debt. As a result, they have to resort to printing more money, an operation known as Quantitative Easing, or to full-scale bailouts through other countries. This in turn has led governments to introduce austerity measures.

In Britain, austerity measures include reducing the number of public sector workers by many hundreds of thousands, and decreasing the funding of council budgets by about 40%.

Dover District Council (DDC) Core Strategy

The Dover District core strategy was developed in the period leading up to the global financial crisis of 2008. It is based on the principles of the unsustainable housing market economy that preceded the global crisis and largely contributed to the banking crash of 2008. This core strategy has never been amended and does not take into account the ensuing bankruptcy that is pervading national economies around the world, including the British economy.

The DDC core strategy is based on a set of calculations that have not materialised in the local economy, including the belief that the pharmaceutical research and development facility of Pfizer, which is based in Sandwich and employed 2,400 people, would expand and offer more employment. Since then, however, it has downgraded its production significantly.

The core strategy also envisaged the creation of 4,000 unspecified jobs, perhaps some of these in relation to Pfizer, but fails to take into account the fact that many factories in East Kent employ out of principle Eastern European workers, recruiting these through work agencies in return for the minimum wage.

The failure of the DDC local Government to even mention this in the core strategy is proof of the unreliability of their notion of economics.

The rapid downgrading of Pfizer in the Dover area puts a radical new dimension to one of the few local companies in East Kent on which Dover District Council's core strategy is based as a means of sustaining the local economy. However, the recruitment methods of the numerous minimum-wage factories in East Kent, offering jobs specifically to Eastern Europeans, do not receive any mention in the present DDC planning strategy.

DDC Core Strategy: Housing and Mass Migration to Dover

The core strategy envisages the allocation of mainly farm and woodland in the Dover area for the building of 9,500 new houses over the next few decades, with the evident intention of attracting tens of thousands of people to migrate to Dover.

This plan quite clearly needs revising, as it is not in line with economic reality in Dover, where unemployment has increased considerably since 2008, and local minimum-wage factory jobs are given prevalently to foreign workers. Indeed, a number of other sectors of the local economy also offer minimum-wage employment mainly to foreign workers, and so, for many local people, there is no prospect of ever being in a position to purchase a new house, as they are largely excluded even from minimum-wage jobs. As a result, many are unlikely to find any permanent employment at all.

With regards to migrants moving to Dover by their thousands to buy a new house, the question arises as to where they are supposed to work, and where their children will be working when they leave school.

Will they be competing with local people for the vacant jobs in shops and supermarkets, in banks and at the post-office?

It seems likely that this would be the case, and it would certainly not be to the benefit of the local people living in Dover. So the legitimate question arises: can the DDC core strategy go ahead without being revised?

A New Core Strategy for Dover District

Perhaps a new set of eyes and ears are required that are open to Dover's reality, indeed a new local Government that would be elected at the next local elections after presenting a capable and credible economic programme. One that does not base its ambitions on the pre-2008 era of building upon the foundations of the housing market bubble that led to the global financial crisis, the bailout of the banks, Quantitative Easing (money printing to avoid national bankruptcy) and, ultimately, the bailout of a whole nation by foreign states.

Were the DDC core strategy to be projected on a national scale, our Country would possibly increase its population to 120 million people through migration over the next few decades, and would be rife with unemployment and bankruptcy, ultimately requiring a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This would be a bailout we could never repay, with austerity measures exceeding those even of the southern Eurozone countries. 

Written by D. Alexander

Read on: DDC plans to build settlements on Western Heights and at Farthingloe, respectively a Scheduled Ancient Monument and an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty:

celticbritannia.blogspot.com/2012/07/western-heights-and-farthingloe.html

Western Heights and Farthingloe

Western Heights and Farthingloe

Prior to 2012, Dover District Council (DDC) and China Gateway International (CGI) have been planning the sale of areas of Western Heights and Farthingloe for private development. The declared intention is to rake in enormous profits from the building of around 700 houses, a luxury hotel, a conference centre and several other buildings. There is also a plan, however not related to CGI, to build a mega World War memorial on Western Heights, designed to attract large numbers of visitors from all over Britain.

Parts of the unique heritage of this area of Dover's Green Belt are at risk of being put up for speculation, cemented over and permanently destroyed. The narrow road full of bends that crosses through Western Heights, and is called Military Road, is not designed to support large volumes of traffic, and so the area could become out of bounds for people walking up or down the slopes.

The construction of new houses, a hotel and a conference centre, as currently planned on this part of Dover's White Cliffs, even in the absence of a mega World War memorial, would certainly increase the local traffic considerably, as new residents would be transiting daily by car from rural locations to the town centres of Dover and Folkestone, while visitors would be accessing by car a hotel or a conference centre, drastically changing the present status of the area.

Speculation from Western Heights to Farthingloe

China Gateway International is presently pushing for a partial urbanisation of Dover's Western Heights, which is to a large extent a Scheduled Ancient Monument, and for large-scale urbanisation of adjacent Farthingloe, designated as Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Their intention is to sell on to developers the land they own, both on Western Heights and at Farthingloe, in return for an enormous profit. In order to achieve this, they need to receive building permission from Dover District Council. Developers would in turn sell the land, once it were built upon, to house-buyers. Many people in Dover, however, have decided to oppose these speculative objectives.

China Gateway International purchased the land they own on Western Heights and at neighbouring Farthingloe with the intention of selling it for speculative gains. In June 2012, CGI presented their planning application to Dover District Council, whose councillors are attempting to transform areas of the White Cliffs of Dover into urban settlements, notwithstanding the fact that Dover's local population is not in need of new urban areas. These proposed settlements are expressly designated for migrant settlers from other parts of Britain, in particular from London, as a number of local councillors have openly stated in public.

Dover District Council Corporate Plan 2012-2016

Under the above heading on the DDC website, the following text appears:

“To make land available at Western Heights/Great Farthingloe Farm to enable progress towards the comprehensive proposals for regeneration, linked to the Town Centre, and maximise the tourism potential of this area, enabled and facilitated through a Planning Performance Agreement.”

Whoever wrote this official piece of legislation published by Dover District Local Government, seems to want to make people believe that the building of hundreds of houses in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, as is Farthingloe, and on a Scheduled National Monument, as is Western Heights, will attract tourism. Yet sane reasoning leads us to believe it will deter tourism. The term "regeneration" to describe the desecration of an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and a Scheduled National Monument, and their transformation into areas sacrificed to a speculative money-grabbing cult, is beyond belief.

The White Cliffs of Dover in Return for Money

In regards to the China Gateway International planning application, Lorraine Sencicle, a local Dover historian who has achieved outstanding results in saving the Western Heights from decay and from previous development plans for houses, wrote on Dover Forum on 4th July 2012: "If given the go-ahead by DDC, the council will receive the New Homes Bonus fund - this is a levy on money raised from the development that can be spent on the District."

Quite clearly, DDC Local Government is intent on permitting the selling off of areas of the White Cliffs of Dover to developers in return for money. This would come by way of funds granted by Central Government, but only if the CGI planning application is approved, as this would enable CGI to sell the land they own on Western Heights and at Farthingloe either to developers, or directly to potential house owners in the form of lots.

China Gateway International is operating out of speculative interests, in the hope of massively increasing the value of the land they purchased in Dover in protected areas. In order to achieve this, they need to market their product, making people believe that it is in the interests of Dover that this land should receive building permission. Then they could go on and sell it for an enormous profit, while Local Government would receive funds under the New Homes Bonus scheme.

Written by D. Alexander

Update 1: Petition for Western Heights and Farthingloe

On Saturday July 7th 2012, Kent Highways gave permission for six people to run a petition in two streets in Dover, from 10am to midday. In this short lapse of time, well over 400 signatures were collected, with name and address, to halt the CGI development plans on Western Heights and at Farthingloe.

The vast majority of people in Dover who were asked, stopped and signed the petition, after reading its wording. Many who signed were already aware of the planning application, and expressed their disapproval of the development plans. Other local residents had not been aware, and without any doubt, signed.

All the passing visitors to Dover who were asked, also signed, many of these from Canada and Australia, and some from Belgium.

Will the Dover District Council Planning Office take heed of the petition, that in such a small period of time had such huge response? Or will they trample down democratic opinion and go ahead with a lucrative plan to sell off these areas of the White Cliffs of Dover?

Update 2: English Heritage and Western Heights

On Monday July 9th 2012, English Heritage released an official statement, part of which is as follows:

"However, we are recommending refusal of planning permission for this damaging scheme for houses in the interior of the Western Heights. The openness of the interior is an essential part of the Heights and we cannot support its infilling as proposed.

If permission were granted, the prospects of appreciating one of England’s greatest historic places would have been cashed in for an unnecessary 94 houses, the location of which is driven only by the land ownership and not by any strategic thought on the part of the applicant China Gateway International for its destructive consequences.”

Update 3: Democracy Is Rejected

CGI have made a new planning application towards the end of 2012, almost identical to the previous one, but with some modifications to the Western Heights plans. They want at all costs to build a settlement at Farthingloe, in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The public consultation is running again, but this time there seems to be scant interest, as people have probably given up believing the Local Government will listen to what the evident democratic opinion is by way of a petition. 

When Democracy has failed to convince an elected local Government, which has quite clearly done everything by way of local legislation to push through the CGI planning application before it was even presented, after years of ongoing talks between DDC and CGI, then all one can hope for is that Democracy will prevail in the future, through new national legislation, allowing for referendums on important local issues: referendums that are binding!

The present DDC Council made the Corporate Plan 2012-2016 after the local Council elections, so they were not elected on a mandate to do this. They hadn't revealed their intentions to build settlements on Western Heights and Farthingloe prior to being elected. It was not part of the DDC core strategy either.

D. Alexander 

The God Particle

The God Particle in Science

Creation is of Intelligent Design, following an order which is absolute and does not tend towards chaos. Chaos is not the origins of order.

As order does not lead to chaos, all chaotic occurrence is but subordinate, temporary and limited in nature, and is by no means absolute.

Erratic Deviation from the God Particle

Randomness is a lack of intelligible pattern, but is not compatible with the God Particle of science, and has no part in Creation. Randomness in science is a deviation from the absolute Design, and will be resolved with ensuing harmony, which is in the absolute order of Creation.

Scientific Creed

The end result of the God Particle is Eternity with the Creator, from whom Creation stems. 

Written by D. Alexander

http://youtu.be/Isa7VHcrEr0

The Origins of the Scottish Church

The Church in Scotland has origins going back to very early times, at least to the second century, and in territories that were inaccessible to the Romans.

Cradle of the Scottish Church

The origins of the Church in Scotland go back to the dawn of Christianity. The first known historical reference to Christians in Scotland comes from Tertullian of Carthage around the year 200: with evident reference to the territories of the Picts, he wrote that areas of the Britons inaccessible to the Romans had received the Word of Christ.

A form of local episcopacy did not exist is Scotland for more than 500 years after Christ, and, probably as a result of this, disputes in the formulation of ecclesiastical doctrines – which characterised the Church in Italy, Carthage, Egypt and Asia Minor – were unknown.

John Howie, author of the ebook Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies), writes in his introduction: “The Church of Scotland knew no officers vested with preeminence above their brethren, nor had anything to do with the Roman pontiff”. The first recorded attempts by Rome to assert episcopal preeminence and papal authority in Britain date to the end of the 6th century, with the arrival of Saint Augustine in Kent. Augustine, however, never managed to achieve the objective of his mission.

Celtic Music
http://youtu.be/ufY9Lz-a0OE

Celtic Monasticism

By the mid 5th century, Rome's imperial influence in Britain had vanished, and the formation of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in what was to become England constituted a further barrier between the Celtic churches in Britain and Ireland on the one side, and the continental churches of Europe, Asia and Africa on the other. The effects of this separation were to prove extremely beneficial to the cause of Christianity among the Celtic populations of Britain and Ireland, and also among the English.

In Britain and Ireland, the Church was not bound to the central authority of any episcopal see, either local or Roman, and as a result, Celtic Christianity acquired a form of expression that made it unique, whereby the monastery, headed by the abbot, would become the centre of spiritual missionary zeal.

Celtic monasteries were the heart of biblical study, contemplation and prayer. Priests and laity resided in wooden houses built around a central church, and among them were pupils learning the scriptures while following the monastic way of life. The community comprised whole families, with women and children equally taking part in biblical studies and ascetic contemplation under the guidance of the abbot.

Celtic priests were free to marry, as the Gospel does not impose celibacy on the priesthood. Farming and craftsmanship for the community's upkeep were an essential part in monastic life, as dedication to Christianity came without financial recompense. In fact, contrary to the practices established within the institutions of the Roman clergy, there was no form of secular church tax to maintain the priests.

The Benedictine monasticism that was to rise in Italy in the mid 6th century and gradually spread throughout western Europe, required that monks and nuns be confined within the monastery and obliged to obey an oath of celibacy and seclusion. Celtic monasticism, which precedes that of Saint Benedict, was truly the opposite: abbots and their followers would travel among the people of the surrounding country, imparting knowledge of Christ's Gospel as the alternative to pagan beliefs.

Saint Ninian

Among the Christian missionaries in Scotland is Saint Ninian, a Briton born around the year 360, possibly in Cumbria or neighbouring Galloway in southern Scotland. The earliest written historical reference to Ninian is found in a passage of the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, compiled around 731 by the Northumbrian monk Bede, who states that his knowledge of Ninian is based on traditional accounts passed down orally.

At the time of Bede's writing, Rome had been attempting to subdue the Celtic Churches of the British Isles, including the Celtic-inspired English Church of Northumbria, with the intention of destroying their independence. Seen under this light, Bede's statement that Ninian had been a bishop, and furthermore that he had studied in Rome, could be an embellishment on the part of the author to detract authority from the independent Church established among the Scots, Picts and Britons who inhabited the land that was to become Scotland.

Historical evidence shows that, during the 5th century, the period when Ninian was present in Galloway, papal authority and Roman ecclesiastical customs had no hold whatsoever in Britain. Even the idea presented by Bede of an episcopal see in Cumbria or in Galloway in Ninian’s days does not fit a realistic description.

The first bishopric was established in Galloway around the year 730 by the Northumbrians, precisely in the time when Bede wrote his book, whereas Cumbria was evangelised by Saint Kentigern of Scotland in the 6th century, becoming part of the episcopal see of Glasgow more than one and a half centuries after Saint Ninian’s foundation of Whithorn.

The Monastery of Whithorn in Galloway

In the year 397 Saint Ninian founded a church in Galloway, a region inhabited both by Picts and Scots and bordering to the north of Cumbria, which was in the territory of the Britons. Bede recounts that Ninian had the church built of stone and painted white, hence its name Whithorn, deriving from old English (Hwit Aern) and meaning: white house.

Archaeological excavations at Whithorn have confirmed the existence of a fifth century structure that was the original church, and also of a number of small houses with central hearths that would have formed the monastic complex where the community's members resided. The results of the excavations tend to confirm that Ninian’s church and monastery were no different to so many others among the Celts, apart from the church being made of stone rather than of timber.

The evidence shows that Saint Ninian did not exercise episcopal authority in a town, but lived as an abbot within a monastic centre which he himself had founded. He accomplished this following his spontaneous desire to reveal the Gospel among people to whom the Word of Christ was mainly unknown.

It is reasonable to believe that Saint Ninian took his missionary zeal further than his monastery, travelling the country of the Picts and the Scots as far as central Scotland, or perhaps even only within the region of Galloway. However, he did this in accordance with Celtic customs, reaching out to the people living in the country and bringing the good news of Salvation, and not from an episcopal chair as was the custom of the Roman clergy.

In the course of the 7th century, Whithorn and much of Galloway became part of the kingdom of Northumbria, which in that period had expanded into a popular union between Anglo-Saxons and Celts.

The Dispute Between Rome and the Scottish Church

In the year 635, an Irish monk by the name Aidan was sent with his companions from the Scottish island-monastery of Iona to Northumbria at the request of king Oswald, who wished to bring Christianity to his people.

A previous attempt by the Pope's envoy to Kent, Paulinus, to convert Northumbria through mass baptism, had completely failed, compelling Paulinus to return to Kent in the year 633. Two years after the departure of the Roman envoy from York, Aidan was consecrated bishop and founded the Northumbrian monastery of Lindisfarne, from where he and his companions of the Celtic Church successfully evangelised the Anglo-Saxons of northern England.

But Rome held claim to the keys of Saint Peter, and as a result of this gigantic assertion, papal authority began to spread through Northumbria starting from the year 663, after the Synod of Whitby. It was at this synod that the Christian King, Oswy, under the belief that Rome held the authority of Saint Peter, rejected the Celtic Motherhood of Northumbria’s Christianity. He chose Rome, opening the door to papal influence within the established Northumbrian Church.

The historical evidence in this regard – that Rome had no foothold in Northumbria and Scotland prior to the year 663 – is further proof that Ninian, who lived in the fourth and fifth centuries, approximately 250 years before the Synod of Whitby, was extremely unlikely to have had any relationship to Roman ecclesiastical authority, thus demonstrating that his monastic centre in Whithorn was of Celtic conception.

Sources:

•  John Howie, Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies), Project Gutenberg.
•  The Venerable Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People.

Written by D. Alexander


Read on: The origins of the English Church:
celticbritannia.blogspot.com/2011/12/origins-of-english-church.html

Celtic origins of the English Church:
celticbritannia.blogspot.com/2011/05/english-church-is-built-upon-celtic.html

The Last Pope

Who will be the last pope? The answer is to be found by examining historical documentation.

The First Pope

In order to answer the question concerning the last pope, we need to know what the term pope actually means, and who the first Roman bishop to bear this title may have been. The term pope is of Greek origin, pappas, used already in Homer’s day, and possibly even earlier, with the meaning of father, or, more precisely, dad, as we would say in English. 


It is generally acknowledged that the first time a bishop of Rome acquired the title of pope was at some point between 296 and 526 AD. It would therefore appear that the title of pope was not used by the bishops of Rome until the fourth century at the earliest. 


This conclusion poses the question as to whether Linus, who the Catholic Church claims is St. Peter's successor, was actually a pope. Evidence indicates that he was not. He lived more than 200 years before the earliest possible date (296 AD) in which the papal title came into adoption among the Roman clergy. 


Historical research of the title of pope within the Roman church has uncovered the impossibility to determine with certainty who the first pope actually was. It may have been Marcellinus, who was Bishop of Rome from 296 to 304 AD. However, it might have been John I, who was Bishop of Rome from 523 to 526. Clearly, neither of these lived in the first century and both were born a very long time after St. Peter's apostolic mission, as can be ascertained in the following link.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope

As a result of this research, we can be assured that at least until the end of the third century AD, there was no pope in Rome. During the first several hundred years of the Roman church, the Roman bishop simply did not have this title. 
So is it possible to speak of a Pope Linus who lived in the first century? Quite frankly, no!

The Successor to Saint Peter

One of the pope’s official titles is successor of Saint Peter. The Vatican officially calculates the line of popes as starting with Saint Peter and passing then to Linus, who, according to the Catholic teaching, is the second pope. Linus, however, was never mentioned by St. Peter in his two letters, and no other author of the New Testament ever mentioned Linus as St. Peter’s successor.

The Apostle Peter chose Mark as his son, with the meaning of chosen heir to the apostolic priesthood, and in fact Saint Mark the Evangelist wrote the first version of the Gospel, following St. Peter’s testimony to Jesus Christ. 


So when did the Catholic Church first call Linus a pope and declare him as St. Peter's successor? The answer is, somewhere between 296 and 526 AD. Linus is not known for any writings, either in the New Testament or otherwise, whereas St. Mark is the author of the first written Gospel. Even so, the Vatican does not acknowledge the first Evangelist Mark, or any other of the four Evangelists, as Simon Peter’s successor.

Zion or Rome?

Is the High City to be identified as Zion the Celestial, or as Rome the terrestrial? Does the Spirit come from God or from man? As the Throne of God is In High, so too the eternal Priesthood of Jesus Christ, as was confirmed on the Day of Pentecost. On that day, the Spirit from Heaven descended upon a house in Jerusalem where the followers of Christ were gathered, and at that hour the Church in Christ was founded in Jerusalem. No pope was present at that time.


Knowledge of Christ and of the spiritual foundations of the Church comes from the New Testament, in particular from the four Evangelists. It is the written word of the Gospel that has upheld the Church over many centuries. Without this written word, we would have no Church, and Christ's Gospel would be unknown to us. Consequently we must acknowledge that the first Evangelist, who is St. Mark, is the rightful successor to the Apostle Peter, who called Mark his son.  


The Last Pope

When Mark son of Peter is recognised as the successor to St. Peter’s priesthood, and the word of the New Testament is acknowledged as binding in establishing this fact, then the last pope will be considered the last one of a long line of popes who never possessed the titles they claimed to be theirs.

The New Testament does not name St. Peter as pope (father), for Jesus used the name Father when referring to God Almighty Who is in Heaven. Jesus called his disciples brothers. 


Peter the Apostle did not call Linus his successor, and did not call him father, but chose Mark as his son, with the spiritual meaning of chosen heir to the apostolic priesthood. This Saint Mark is the first of the four Evangelists, without whom the Word of Christ would not be known to us.
Zion is the City in High, and from Zion comes Prosperity.

Written by D. Alexander

Christ's Church revealed:

celticbritannia.blogspot.com/2011/10/christs-church-revealed.html

Mark son of Peter:

celticbritannia.blogspot.com/2011/12/mark-son-of-peter-apostle.html

Scotland The Brave:
http://youtu.be/PSH0eRKq1lE

The Bronze Age Boat in Dover

Albion is the ancient Celtic name for Britain, and is believed to refer to Dover, home to the Bronze Age Boat

Dover during the Bronze Age

The name Dover is generally accepted as being of Celtic origin, deriving from Dubra, meaning 'the waters'. The name of Dover's river Dour stems from the same Celtic word, and is considered to mean literally 'the river'. Likewise, the name Kent is of Celtic origin; according to the Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, the name comes from the Brythonic Kantion, meaning probably 'corner land'.

The ancestors of all the populations that settled in the British Isles are likely to have passed either near or through Dover. The White cliffs of Dover are the only part of Britain visible from the European continent, and so, in prehistoric times, any families attempting to cross the stretch of sea dividing Europe from Britain would have directed their small boats towards Dover's cliffs. An inlet between the cliffs formed a natural haven for sea-faring vessels, and the various arms of Dover's river Dour running into the sea made it possible for boats to move sufficiently inland to take up a safe mooring position, thus making Dover an ideal port.

Taking into account the proximity to the continent, it is reasonable to imagine Dover as being the oldest port in the British Isles, and maybe also home to the oldest settlement. Pottery dating back as far as 1800 BC has been found on the Eastern Heights near Dover Castle, and can be seen on display in Dover Museum together with numerous other Bronze Age items.

Albion and the White Cliffs of Dover

The ancient Celtic name for Britain is Albion, and is believed to refer initially to the white cliffs of Dover. Historical references to Britain prior to the first century BC are both rare and vague, and stem mainly from the ancient Greek colony of Marseilles in modern France.

The idea that Albion derives from the Latin albus, meaning white, is misleading, as the Celtic name Albion was mentioned in Greek scripts from Marseilles possibly as far back as the sixth century BC, whereas the Romans first came into contact with Britain during the middle of the first century BC. The original meaning of the Celtic name Albion remains surrounded in mystery, with various interpretations being given. It is far from clear whether the name was used only during the Iron Age, or already in the earlier Bronze Age.

The Bronze Age Boat

The Bronze Age is considered to start in Britain in the latter half of the third millennium BC, and followed the Neolithic Age. It continued to around 800 BC, when iron was introduced. At first, copper was used on its own, but within time people discovered that bronze could be obtained by adding a small quantity of tin to the copper. It was used to manufacture tools, replacing the older flint implements of the Neolithic Stone Age. Tin reserves were abundant in Cornwall and Devon, and around 1600 BC tin was being exported from Britain to Gaul.

The oldest known sea-faring vessel in the world was discovered in Dover in 1992. Dating to 1550 BC, the Bronze Age Boat was conserved owing to a protective mud case that had formed around the wood, concealing it from contact with the air. The larger part of the vessel was retrieved and is preserved in Dover Museum.

A piece of shale from Dorset was found in the boat, revealing that the vessel had travelled along the English Channel in the direction of Devon and Cornwall. The evidence shows that long before the Iron Age, cargo vessels were transiting along Britain's southern coast and crossing the Strait of Dover, operating within the context of established trading links that were vital to the Bronze Age civilisation in Britain and Europe.

Sources:

•  Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, edited by Victor Watts, Cambridge University Press, 2004. 
•  Dover Museum. 

Written by D. Alexander

The British Isles in the Neolithic Stone Age:
celticbritannia.blogspot.com/2012/03/british-isles-in-neolithic-stone-age.html

Celtic Origins in the British Isles:
celticbritannia.blogspot.com/2011/09/celtic-origins.html

Photo 1: Albion, the White Cliffs of Dover

Photo 2: Light Tower Church on Eastern Heights, above the Port of Dover

Photo 3: The Union Jack In High, Albion, Dover

The British Isles in the Neolithic Stone Age

The British Isles are home to monuments and even houses built of stone thousands of years before the foundation of Rome

Neolithic Stone Age Monuments

The many Stone Age monuments in the British Isles are silent records of prehistoric populations who carried out their architectural work using stone and flint tools but left no written accounts of themselves. In Britain and Ireland, the Stone Age gave way to the Bronze Age around the end of the third millennium BC.

The latter part of the Stone Age is known as Neolithic, when people no longer lived in caves or depended on hunting and gathering, but had learned to build wooden houses, to farm the land and keep herds of cattle. The age of monuments from this period is calculated using radiocarbon dates, and as these give only an approximate estimation, dates referring to the same monument may vary by hundreds of years.

Stonehenge

The Neolithic monument of Stonehenge near Salisbury in the south of England is the most imposing testimony to British prehistoric civilisation. According to English Heritage, the first works were carried out on the site around 5,000 years ago. It is thought to have been completed around 500 years later with the transportation of enormous stone blocks from as far as Wales.

Although there is no indication as to whether the people who carried out the work of dragging, shaping and erecting these enormous blocks of stone spoke a Celtic language, the mystical outlay of the site and the absence of inscriptions seem to have at least some parallel in the secretive functions of the druids, the priests among the Celts.

Ancient British Religion Without Script

The druids were renowned for maintaining secret many aspects of their knowledge, apart from that which they would communicate orally. The result is that, owing to the absence of any form of writing or inscription, no written history of the Celts or of any other population in Britain prior to the first century BC has been passed on to later generations.

This is in stark contrast to the priests among the ancient Israelites, who meticulously wrote all the scripts of the Old Testament and copied them throughout the ages; and to the priests of ancient Egypt, who sought by way of hieroglyphics and wall paintings to give a descriptive account of their time.

The enormous blocks at Stonehenge are written in the ground, like gigantic letters, and yet to this day no-one can understand with certainty their purpose and function, or significantly fathom the religious customs of the people who placed them there. Although there is no formal link between Neolithic monuments and the Celts of the Iron Age, the druids would have almost certainly known the original purpose of the circular henges and stone chambers of Britain and Ireland.

Knowledge of ancient Celtic traditions, together with archaeological research, suggests that the Celts of the Iron Age believed in a spiritual presence within nature. The natural presence of groves, water and trees fascinated the Celts more than any structure of human origin.

The much older culture of the Neolithic Age, therefore, may have been centred on a different perception of religion, on a celestial God whose presence can be mirrored in the light of the sun entering a circular stone construction. It would seem, however, that the religion of the Celtic druids replaced this with a perception of divine presence to be found within nature itself, an earthly presence of the Divine.

Architecture Aligned to a Cosmic Order

The Neolithic chamber of Bryn Celli Ddu on the island of Anglesey in Wales, according to the Ancient-Wisdom web page, dates back to about 5,000 years, and is thought to have been built on an even older site. Although described as a burial chamber, it has been suggested that it may have also served as an agricultural calendar.

The three mounds, or cairns, of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth, near the town of Drogheda in Ireland, are estimated to be about 5,200 years old. Detailed information can be found on the online web page Mythical Ireland as to the original functions of these stone chambers. Generally described as passage-tombs, they share a fascinating secret with Stonehenge, Bryn Celli Ddu and many other Neolithic stone chambers and henges: their structural design may be based upon the cosmic order.

A similar pattern is found at Maeshowe on the Orkney Islands, where a cairn with entrance passage and chambers dating to about 2700 BC incorporates the same form of Stone Age architecture that is seen in England, in Anglesey and in Ireland and appears to be designed according to a specific alignment with the sun.

There is a general acceptance that these and numerous other Neolithic structures in Britain and Ireland were designed to receive the light of the rising sun and of the setting sun within stone chambers by way of an entrance; or to receive the sunlight that passes in a particular lapse of time between vertically erected stone slabs, such as at Stonehenge.

The winter solstice and the summer solstice are considered essential calculations of time in determining the positioning of the entrances and pillars. This would imply a firm belief on the part of Britain and Ireland's ancient inhabitants in a cosmic order that ensures day and night and the repetition of the seasons, a repetition that is vital to human life on Earth and ensures prosperity and posterity.

Skara Brae and Prehistoric Stone Houses

The Neolithic village of Skara Brae on the Orkney Islands is made up of stone houses that were linked to each other by a system of stone passages covered with slabs. According to the online web site Orkneyjar, its origins go back to the late fourth or early third millennium BC.

The even older Orkney farmstead of Knap of Howar, comprising two oblong stone buildings, could have been inhabited as early as 5,600 years ago. Skara Brae and Knap of Howar are two examples of stone architecture used in the building of houses that existed in Britain thousands of years before the foundation of Rome!

Sources: 

•  English Heritage online;
•  Ancient-Wisdom online;
•  Mythical Ireland online;
•  Orkneyjar online.

Article written by D. Alexander

Read about Celtic Dover in Kent:
celticbritannia.blogspot.com/2012/01/celtic-dover-in-kent.html

Read more: Celtic Origins in Britain and Ireland
celticbritannia.blogspot.com/2011/09/celtic-origins.html

Photo: ancient pathway of stone in Dover