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By Myghal Map Serpren
The granite wheel-headed Mediaeval (1066 to 1539) cross now standing at High Cross, Constantine in Cornwall has had something of a chequered history during which it was both relocated and incurred substantial damage but now appears to have a rather more secure future.
High Cross is a hamlet situated in the parish of Constantine but around a mile east of the actual village centre, and the Mediaeval cross in question now stands on a grass island at the High Cross road junction surrounded by substantial granite boulders.
The cross was rediscovered by local men John Keat and Anton Noall as recently as Spring, 1992, it having come to light in a local hedge which had been heavily eroded by movement of cattle and which lay immediately adjacent to the old church path to Constantine.
The crosshead and a short portion of the shaft were recovered to the Tolmen Centre in Constantine, a former chapel and now a cultural centre and small museum.
During November, 1993, Andrew Langdon, Bard of Gorsedh Kernow, expert on Cornish crosses and author of many books on the subject met with representatives from Constantine Parish Council and Constantine Local History Group and together the party conducted a thorough search of the church path, hedges and fields in the hope of locating the missing cross shaft and base. Sadly, fortune did not smile on the volunteers and their efforts and the items remain missing.
During 1999, a new shaft and base stone both of granite were carved to fit and mount the cross and the monument was erected in its current location in April, 2000.
Just six months later and during October of that year, the recently placed cross was damaged following impact by a motor vehicle.
Work was undertaken and it was re-aligned with the cross head being re-pinned to the modern shaft.
The large granite boulders now found at the site were placed around the grass island as a form of defence against future motor vehicle collisions, sadly a common occurrence in Cornwall.
The actual cross head has a Latin Cross in relief on its principal face with the limbs expanding toward their ends. A narrow bead runs about the circumference of the head. The reverse has an equal-limbed cross contained within a double incised ring.
Standing proud on its new shaft and base, the original cross remnant measures two feet ten inches in height, with the width of the head being one foot seven inches and the remaining original shaft being one foot two inches wide by between eight and six inches in thickness.
Strangely, the cross appears to enjoy no protected status and one can but hope that following a very uncertain past, its years ahead may be more secure.
References
- Stone Crosses in West Cornwall – Andrew Langdon, Federation of Old Cornwall Societies, Cornwall 1999
All images author’s own, except where stated.
See similar articles by Myghal Map Serpren
By Myghal Map Serpren
Sir Philip Rutnam, who was the Civil Service Permanent Secretary at the Home Office until 2020, currently serves as Chair of the National Churches Trust, which works to keep Britain’s church buildings open and in use by awarding grants, promoting churches as community hubs and places to visit and by advocacy and lobbying.
Churches not only constitute the largest collection of listed buildings in Britain, but are also home to countless historic artefacts and priceless art.
Writing recently, Sir Phillip launched a five-point plan for keeping these historic buildings open and accessible. In his wide-ranging article, he pointed out that there are 39,000 buildings used for Christian worship across the country of which almost 20,000 have been listed.
Mostly all of these are parish churches and chapels and those churches and chapels include nearly half of Britain’s most important historic buildings being Grade I listed or equivalent.
It is true to say that church buildings are an important base for voluntary and community activities and continue to reduce social isolation and build community spirit.
At this time and perhaps a comment on the times in which we find ourselves, earlier are now more food banks than branches of MacDonalds and a great number of these charitable resources are found in church buildings.
In ‘The House of Good’, a recent independent evaluation for the National Churches Trust using the same methodology for appraising projects as that found in the Treasury’s so-called ‘Green Book’, it has been conservatively estimated that the economic and social value of the activity in church buildings amounts to around £55bn a year.
However, there is a real crisis facing church heritage.
Wales
In Wales, at least two-thirds of the chapels that were once open have now closed.
In the last two decades, the Church in Wales has closed 15 per cent of its churches and expects the rate of closure to increase in coming years.
At the time of writing, nine can be found for sale on the Church in Wales website, from Monmouthshire to the Menai Strait.
Scotland
The Church of Scotland, guardian of many of the country’s most important buildings, is bracing for the closure of perhaps 30 to 40 per cent of its churches.
Some have already appeared on its website for sale, including Old High Kirk, the oldest church in Inverness.
Others are still going through the process of closure such as Saint Monans in Fife, endowed in the 14th century by David II, King of Scots, which served as a Dominican oratory by the sea and stands as one of Scotland’s most important mediaeval buildings.
England
Across England, the current model of maintaining these buildings is under obvious strain, above all in places that are poor, isolated, or both.
The Church of England says its backlog for repairs is at least £1bn, and one estimate says it is growing at £75m a year.
The causes of this crisis are many; falling congregations, a fall in the volunteering ethos, impoverished communities burdened with building maintenance amongst them.
Compared with most other European countries, funding for churches and chapels in Britain is rather different.
As Sir Philip points out, although the church and state are closely and constitutionally linked, church buildings receive no regular public funding.
Elsewhere
In France, a more secular state, cathedrals are maintained by the national government and churches by local authorities. As an example, President Macron appointed a former chief of the French defence staff to oversee the reconstruction of Notre Dame.
In other countries, the most common form of financial support is by way of a church tax covering anyone who is a member of the church, whether or not they attend.
Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and most of Scandinavia operate systems like this, and in each case ‘membership’ is somewhere between common and near-universal.
Italy, Spain and Portugal offer more choice but still have millions of people voluntarily paying to support churches.
Italy has the ‘otto per mille’ system which allows taxpayers to choose where 0.8 per cent of their income tax is spent among a list of causes resulting in more than 80 per cent selecting churches.
Compare all this with the arrangement in Britain where the burden of keeping up these buildings rests almost entirely on the congregation, the people who actually attend services.
A community which is modest in numbers or income can find itself facing an enormous repair bill for a significant building.
Five ideas
So what can be done to address Britain’s greatest heritage challenge?
No single actor can fix this: action is needed by churches locally, denominations nationally, and by the government itself.
Sir Philip lists five ideas:
- First, the government needs to recognise that these buildings are a public good for both heritage and community, and that it is not realistic for the whole burden to rest on local shoulders. In fact, successive governments used to recognise this: from the 1970s until 2017 there was dedicated grant funding for listed places of worship, running at up to £40m a year. This ringfenced pot was abolished by the Heritage Lottery Fund, and since then the Lottery funding for churches and chapels has fallen from £46m in 2018–2019 to £11m in 2022–2023. The Fund is now changing tack in a way that is welcome, but the scale and urgency of the problem demand further action by both government and the Fund.
- Second, the national denominations need to provide much more practical support to congregations, not least offering more specialist advice on building maintenance and widening the range of uses, as well as collecting much better information on the condition of their assets. The Roman Catholic Church has done excellent work on this in recent years. Churches themselves should be more strongly encouraged to be open and accessible.
- Third, we should do more to realise the unexploited potential of these buildings for visitors and tourism, including for pilgrimage. In Northern France and Belgium, 56 belfries are grouped together as one World Heritage Site. Why not promote the wool churches of Norfolk and Suffolk as something similar? Or the towers of Somerset, or the Christian conversion sites of Wales and northern Britain, associated with the Irish saints who arrived in the 5th–7th centuries?
- Fourth, public bodies need to stop being afraid of engaging with faith groups, Christian or otherwise. A wealth of evidence shows the positive social impacts and the reach that they can have. There are some good tools available, not least the Faith Covenant produced by the Faith and Society All-Party Parliamentary Group, which takes the form of a set of principles to promote practical collaboration between religious groups and local authorities.
- Finally, we do need to start exploring new models of keeping some of our most rural and isolated buildings alive, while recognising that this is a long-term task and no substitute for fixing the roof and supporting heroic volunteers.
The National Churches Trust has an impressive record assisting to keep up to 2,000 churches and chapels open and available to their communities, making grants which have removed 14 buildings from the heritage at risk register during 2021 alone and paying out in excess of £5 million to needy church structures during 2021.
As Sir Philip points out, “Britain’s churches are a huge national asset, available for all to visit, use and benefit from. It’s time to ensure that as many as possible are properly supported so that these wonderful historic buildings can thrive today and tomorrow.”
Links:
By Myghal Map Serpren
In a recent release, Cornwall Heritage Trust (Trest Ertach Kernow) have announced the launch of a Historic Sites Fund as part of their ongoing mission to rescue Cornwall’s heritage sites.
The Trust are playing an increasingly significant role in acquiring and protecting a wide range of sites across the Duchy and building an increasing membership base along the way.
Under its mission banner ‘gwytha ha crefhe’ (‘preserve and strengthen’), the Trust which was founded in 1985, now has ownership and management of 14 heritage assets across Cornwall ranging from hillforts and Iron Age villages to Holy Wells, standing stones and even industrial heritage in the shape of Treffry Viaduct.
It also sponsors an increasing number of educational projects aimed at younger people and adults alike and individual membership of the Trust allows free access to those historic sites owned by the Duchy of Cornwall but managed by the quasi-charity English Heritage in Cornwall, which include Tintagel Castle and the Henrician castles at Pendennis and Saint Mawes.
With its head office based in Cornwall, the Cornwall Heritage Trust has recently announced its bold intention to bid for the purchase of Tregonning Hill near Helston, a site of immense importance with numerous monuments dating to the Bronze Age and certainly the birthplace of the global china clay industry.
Following the shock announcement that the hill was to be put up for sale and bearing in mind the out-of-control so-called ‘development’ which is blighting Cornwall, the announcement by the Trust of its intentions to attempt to purchase and save the hill has received widespread approval.
An appeal fund has been launched and more information about this can be read here.
Personal membership of the Cornwall Heritage Trust is £15 a year and remains a very affordable way to invest in the efforts to save, protect and make available Cornwall’s unique heritage and history, and more details of how to join and of the benefits enjoyed by members can be found here.
Following our recent article quoting Simon Jenkins, we received an interesting email from a representative of “These Fields Have Names”, a campaign group in Cornwall protesting the destruction of the countryside while building a nearly 8-mile-long new route for the A30 near Truro. They make some excellent points about ‘appreciation’ of a site not being sufficient to save it from ‘progress’:
How do you think your publication, and your archaeologists, can help prevent any more destruction to our landscape in time before complete ecological collapse? The premise that we must fully “appreciate and preserve” our landscape, as you say, is all very well, but does not give me hope when “appreciation” has not prevented needless destruction of archeology and landscape and society and ecology in the past. The sentiment that we must “act“ to preserve things by liking what we have got, not by standing in resistance to the status quo that exists, is flawed.
It has never in history been the case that acting with appreciation of what exists causes change to happen. I am talking about massive societal change here, but maybe preserving monuments and archaeology also cannot be achieved without these defiant acts. For example some physical acts of civil resistance caused men to decide to change the status quo to include allowing women and unlanded gentry the vote. Nothing else worked.
Because of this fact, any archaeologist who wants to change the status quo, I think must “act” in civil resistance on the very sites that have already been destroyed and inside the now structural “status quo” infrastuctural sites themselves which have replaced them. Rather than stand in appreciation looking at a landscape before it is bulldozed, eg around Stonehenge, how about standing in those destroyed places? The “infrastructure” sites which right now have replaced fertile soil, trees, organic fields and rich archeology and are continuing to do so, include the A30 site in Cornwall. Our A30 is that sort of place. This is what will befall Stonehenge, this change from archeology to infrastructure, otherwise.
As is demonstrated by the images above of just one small part of the A30 works, when talking about roadworks and new roads, it’s not just the footprint of the road itself that causes damage but all the associated infrastructure and heavy machinery needed to support the actual construction of the road – which can and often does cover a much wider area. A salutary warning for supporters of the Stonehenge tunnel perhaps?
Whilst we here at the Heritage Journal cannot condone any direct action which may be construed as illegal in nature, there are many actions which can be taken legally to protest or delay development and we would encourage all lovers of heritage, be that archaeological (professional archaeologists take note!) or natural, to consider what actions can be taken to stop the desecration of our heritage in all its forms.
And a final comment on the current A30 roadworks:
Part of this road did not exist before 1991. So the 2022 one will be a bypass around a bypass around a very small village. Crazy times when first a 60 mph road is built, using and destroying landscape and fertile fields and archeology, then in 2022 a 70mph road is built around that 60 mph around a 30 mph road when public transport would have been sufficient in all cases. These fields have names.
All images courtesy and copyright of Cornwall Climate Care.
After a two-year silence, developers are mounting a fourth bid to build housing in the landscape setting of one of Britain’s pre-eminent Iron Age hillforts.
Since being allocated in Shropshire’s local plan (SAMDev) in 2015, land near the hillfort known as OSW004 has faced a succession of planning applications and revisions, each attracting substantial and sustained opposition both locally and nationally.
Campaigners say that although housing numbers have seen a slight reduction, from 91 to 83, the latest scheme still constitutes ‘major development’ within the near setting of a scheduled monument. They claim that an even greater proportion of dwellings would exceed, either wholly or partly, the northern limit for new buildings that was agreed between Shropshire Council and Historic England as a condition of the site’s allocation for housing.
A change in ownership rights affecting access across the railway line also prevents the application complying with special conditions for development.
Substantial harm
Campaign group HOOOH (Hands Off Old Oswestry Hillfort) insists that the revised application does nothing to mitigate what would be substantial harm to the setting and significance of the hillfort. They argue that Old Oswestry is a scheduled monument of great national importance, meaning that any development within the setting can cause substantial harm in contravention of planning law. English Heritage has described Old Oswestry as ‘one of the greatest archaeological monuments of the nation’.
“We are at a frightening tipping point in Old Oswestry’s 3000-year history,” HOOOH said.
“The proposals threaten a new direction of town growth that will devastate the hillfort’s surviving but fragile setting, after we have held Oswestry’s urban edge at a respectful and protective distance for generations.
“Housing will obliterate one of the best views of the hillfort for visitors approaching Oswestry from the east, leading to substantial harm to the heritage significance of the monument by destroying appreciation and understanding of the hillfort in its landscape setting as seen from this important vista.
“The town’s northern development boundary will creep ever closer to the hillfort to make way for this out-of-place housing, eroding the hillfort’s rural setting and devaluing its status and visual dominance in the landscape.
“More worrying still, it will give a potential foothold for further construction that will side-line the hillfort as the Oswestry Growth Corridor takes shape along the bypass.”
High quality agricultural land
Classed as greenfield and high quality (Grade 2/3a) agricultural land, OSW004 was originally allocated because the public benefits to meet housing targets were judged to outweigh the detrimental impacts on one of Britain’s archaeological jewels. But HOOOH says new targets have been scaled back in the forthcoming SAMDev revision, and more than sufficient land has been identified elsewhere to accommodate long-term housing growth in Oswestry.
“The over-ambitious housing targets and over-stated need for housing land that were the main imperative to build seven years ago no longer exist,” HOOOH continues.
“The push to develop now is purely down to a housebuilder keen to capitalise on the site’s very saleable proximity to a sleepy, green hillfort despite the devastating impacts on world-class heritage and on a landscape highly valued by the community. We trust the planning committee will see sense and throw it out.”
Campaigners point out that planning consent for housing just a short distance along from OSW004 on Whittington Road was recently refused because it would add to traffic congestion and safety issues at the junction with Gobowen Road.
HOOOH said: “An estate of 83 houses at OSW004 would make these traffic problems considerably worse. Joined up planning is needed to see that OSW004 is the wrong location for Oswestry’s sustainable development due to the disconnect with schools and shops, the additional traffic congestion, and the inappropriate use of land of high heritage and agricultural value.”
Dominate the landscape
Iron Age hillforts were strategically located to dominate the landscape and signpost tribal territory and power. Often referred to as the Stonehenge of the Iron Age, Old Oswestry ranks among the most impressive of Britain’s prehistoric sites. This is due to the earthwork’s unique and complex design, the extent to which the monument and surrounding landscape have been preserved, and their importance to our understanding of Iron Age society.
The historic farming landscape around the hillfort contributes greatly to how we experience Old Oswestry in its setting and how we can appreciate its heritage significance. This landscape is, therefore, an integral part of the safeguarding and conservation of the scheduled monument.
The housing bid has consistently met with mass objections from the public, local stakeholders, and influential national heritage bodies including the CBA (Council for British Archaeology), RESCUE (the British Archaeological Trust) and The Prehistoric Society.
High profile academics and media figures have also voiced their support for the campaign including Professor Alice Roberts, Professor Michael Wood, Professor Mary Beard, Bettany Hughes, Dan Snow, Tom Holland, Francis Pryor of Channel 4 Time Team fame, and the author Cressida Cowell. The campaign was also featured on Griff Rhys Jones’ ITV series, Griff’s Great Britain.
The public deadline for representations to the planning application (reference 20/01033/EIA) is February 9. Full details can be found at https://tinyurl.com/44m38rna
HOOOH says that if anyone encounters problems making representations via Shropshire Council’s planning portal, they can email them to: planning.northern@shropshire.gov.uk
More information on the 10-year debacle over development in Old Oswestry’s setting can be viewed at www.oldowestryhillfort.co.uk
We’re pleased to report that there is a new player in the site guardian arena. A new group has been formed to look after several sites on the Derbyshire Moors. We welcome GSSN, the Guarding Sacred Sites Network, who introduce themselves in the guest post below. We look forward to hearing good things about their work going forward.
There are many beautiful, ancient sacred sites on Stanton and Harthill Moors, in Derbyshire. Nine Ladies, Doll Tor, Rowter Rocks, Nine Stones Close, Robin Hoods Stride, to name a few. These sites are always under pressure of various kinds.
The damage at Doll Tor during lock-down didn’t go unnoticed as the images spread across social media sites. Although shared on Facebook, no one had reported it to the PDNPA, English Heritage, or the Rural Heritage Police. This is where our group began. We reported the damage and realised there was a lack of information about what to do if one witnessed or discovers damage at sites. We made a poster, set up a Facebook group, and became inundated with messages of hope and offers of help, from people across the country.
Since then we have created an adopt a site monitoring scheme which covers Stanton Moor and Harthill Moor. We have a monitoring form and some guidelines for volunteers to follow. We’ve listed the potential hotspots for rubbish and damage in the area and created a ‘How to report damage’ leaflet. Sites on the list have been monitored every weekend since we started the group.
Many of you will have seen the posts on Facebook about the recent and very busy solstice celebrations at Nine Ladies over the past weekend. Thankfully there has been a group of volunteers on the moor acting as unofficial stewards and collecting rubbish from the site, as well as educating people. At the time of writing this, I can happily say all the rubbish has been collected and taken off-site. Indeed, it may now be cleaner than many other spots in the area.
Organisations who are officially responsible for large numbers of archaeological sites, such as the National Trust and English Heritage, have recognised that one of the most productive ways to ensure their long-term survival and conservation is via a regular and systematic monitoring scheme undertaken by local volunteers. In this way, sites which might not be encountered that often by archaeological staff (e.g. due to their out of the way locations on moorland, farm fields, and cliffs) can still be visited regularly, and any actual or potential damage can be reported and acted on before it gets out of hand. This information is then fed into a database designed to record each site’s current state, including any problems and the subsequent response to them. By recording such information, the database becomes a tool with which to make informed decisions about the management of a broad range of sites, based on their type, construction, location, and so on.
Our second shared responsibility is to create interpretation material that informs visitors about the importance of the sites through an educational website, books, artworks, and so forth, that encourages a sustainable love and appreciation for our sacred sites. ‘Sacredness’ is not simply a matter of joy in experiencing a beautiful or historic place, but a component which motivates people in how they interact with places. Our network is a platform to explore ways that we can help to educate people through positive, informal, and relaxed experiences. Our goal is to help protect sacred sites in this area from any damage. Damage includes digging, rubbish, graffiti, fires within the circles or close to the stones, machinery damage, vehicle access, and other types of damage to the natural environment.
Stanton Moor, in particular Nine Ladies, is a contested space. Many people have very strong opinions about how it should be treated. How can the complexity of meanings surrounding a place, be represented, through formal management and interpretation? This question is difficult to answer. There is no easy solution, there are many. Each site has its specificity, each visitor, their preferences. Such issues are faced by environmental educators, archaeologists, heritage managers, landowners, those who provide information for others regularly.
If you would like to join us on our quest for preservation and education, please like our Facebook book, Guarding Sacred Sites Network, or email guardingsacredsites @ gmail.com.
The Uffington Horse, in Oxfordshire was the site of the first meeting of the founders of Heritage Action, which led to the eventual creation of the Heritage Journal, published continuously since 2006.
Although the figure is thought to date to the Iron Age or even the Bronze Age, like many other chalk hill figures the image must be regularly ‘refreshed’ with fresh chalk to ensure the figure continues to stand out in the landscape.
This refreshing of the chalk is often carried out by volunteer labour, under instruction from the figure’s guardian organisation – in this case, the National Trust. This year the re-chalking is due to take place on the weekend of 4th-5th July and anyone who would like to lend a hand is asked to book in advance. The work involves being given a hammer and a bucket of chalk and then bashing the chalk into the existing monument for an hour or so to help brighten the image.
A great way to meet like-minded individuals, and contribute to the upkeep of a national treasure (that doesn’t involve handing over cash to the NT!)
Highways England’s A303 Stonehenge tunnel scheme is at a critical stage. A decision on whether to approve it is due by 2 April, but funding for the scheme could be announced in the Budget on 11 March. We would like to swamp the Chancellor of the Exchequer with letters from around the country and abroad to show the strength of feeling against it.
Please write in your own words to:
The Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer
Email: public.enquiries@hmtreasury.gsi.gov.uk
cc: transportsecretary@dft.gov.uk and your local MP (find your UK MP here)
Subject: A303 Stonehenge
Dear Chancellor,
I would like to strongly urge you not to approve funding for the high risk and highly damaging A303 Stonehenge scheme:
- It is poor value for money and high risk. Highways England estimates only 21 pence of benefit for each £1 invested, if the highly dodgy heritage survey is discounted. Cost overruns are likely due to tunnelling through poor quality chalk and unpredictable groundwater conditions.
- UNESCO opposes the scheme which would irreparably damage The World Heritage Site and which the UK Government has pledged to protect for future generations.
- The scheme would increase carbon emissions at a time when the Government needs to show international leadership on climate change ahead of COP26 in Glasgow.
- Please add any other concerns or expand on the above.
Yours sincerely,
Your full name
Your home address
If you have time please also email the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.
For more ideas on what to write see the recent letter to Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps from the Stonehenge Alliance
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT AT THIS CRUCIAL MOMENT IN OUR CAMPAIGN
The Stonehenge Alliance is a group of non-governmental organisations and individuals that seeks enhancements to the Stonehenge World Heritage Site and opposes development that would cause it significant harm.
The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is the only official, up to date, register of all nationally protected historic buildings and sites in England – listed buildings, scheduled monuments, protected wrecks, registered parks and gardens, and battlefields.
Sounds good, no? And in even better news, as recently reported by the BBC, the NHLE has recently had an update, with 17 new sites being added – including an industrial estate, a business park that “features circular forecourts following the turning circle of a car” and a Crown Court building which first opened in 1988.
Whilst we’re sure that these are all worthy in their own way of their place on the list, we can’t help but wonder about the omission of some much older sites, many of national importance.
Elizabeth Dale, a friend of the Heritage Journal, recently highlighted some of the very important omissions which are in danger of being lost to development on her blog: see “Our Defenceless Monuments.”.
And World Heritage Site status doesn’t afford any more protection to unlisted sites within the boundaries than to those outside of it. Blick Mead is a case in point within the Stonehenge and Avebury WHS area, it remains unprotected by scheduling and in danger of being damaged (if not totally obliterated) by the groundworks for the planned tunnel at Stonehenge..
Whilst, in theory, anyone can nominate a site to be scheduled, there does not seem to be an easy way for a member of the public to find how to actually go about this. For instance, searching on Google for Scheduled Monument Application brings up many links, most of which refer to Scheduled Monument Consent – which is something entirely different and is a way for Developers to apply for permission to work within and around scheduled monuments. But if an application is put in, to suggest scheduling and protecting an unlisted site, even nationally important sites are scheduled only if it is felt that this is the best means of protecting them!
And yet a “car turning circle” merits inclusion in the list! We sometimes despair…
Protected: Aztec West Business Centre, South Glocs.
Unprotected: Trevean Courtyard Settlement, Cornwall
Alice Farnsworth is back, to answer another reader’s archaeological query. Don’t forget to send in your questions, and you may be lucky enough to get your own answer from Alice!
Q. As the old adage goes: ‘Take only photographs, leave only footprints‘, but don’t footprints cause erosion to delicate sites? How can I minimise my interactions with our ancient sites, given that I feel visiting a site in person is the only way for me to truly experience it?
A. Ha! Yes, it’s true that footfall is a major cause of erosion at our ancient sites, especially at the more popular sites. For instance, the banks at Avebury have often been fenced off to allow the soil to recover from visitors.
There is no simple answer to this question. one way to minimise impact would be to only view sites from a distance (as enforced at Stonehenge), but I can see that this is unsatisfactory in many ways. Limiting your visits to sites that are much less popular with tourists would allow you to gain the interaction you seek. But remember that many of the lesser known sites are on private land where permission may be needed to visit them, or may be off the beaten track with the safety issues that that implies.
Ensuring that you only visit in periods of suitable weather will also reduce the impact of your visit, as fragile sub-surface archaeology can be unwittingly damaged when the ground is sodden. But beware if the weather has been too dry, as the ground underfoot may then crumble and erode, and again, archaeological evidence could be destroyed.
Of course, when visiting any ancient or historical site, you should always attempt to remove any rubbish left behind by others less considerate than yourself, and of course, ensure you do not leave any detritus of your own.
In short, enjoy your visit, and leave the site as you would hope to find it – in its natural state.
The Heritage Journal 
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