What is the story of Chesters Hillfort near Drem? When does it date to? Who Built it? When was it used?
As part of the Peter Potter Gallery, Lost Landscapes Programme, Ms Morgan, Education Co-ordinator from the Peter Potter Gallery organised a walk and writers workshops at Chesters Hillfort for our Primary 5/6 class on Monday 26 September. The walk was led by a local archaeologist David Connolly and pupils learnt about the archaeology and history of Chesters Hillfort. The Writers Workshop was delivered by local writer and poet Colin Will. Mr Will came to the school in the afternoon worked with the children to create short stories and poems inspired by their walk around Chesters Hillfort.
Discoveries at Chesters Hill Fort Primary 5/6, Athelstaneford Primary School 26 September 2011 We saw banks and ditches. What were they for? We discovered new words and their meanings – revetments, bedrock, erratics. We saw flowers – harebells and yarrow – and fungi – puffballs and a bright red one. We climbed the bank and stretched out our arms, to calculate how many warriors would be needed to defend the fort. The answer was 1000! There were 20 houses in the settlement, so that meant 50 warriors per house, plus their families. That doesn‟t make sense, so it couldn‟t have been a defensive fort. It was a settlement built on the hillock to impress the people living in the lower lands towards the sea. Maybe it was the home of a great chief, his family and followers? One circular hollow, by the side of a revetment, had housed a huge gun during the Second World War. The village was built on the lava bedrock, scraped and shaped by glaciers in the Ice Age, which moved past on either side to make a crag-and-tail feature. round houses full of dense smoke, people gathered round the fire to keep warm, bread-making, meat smoking, fish drying We walked down the long hill, past the cows, through gateways, and came across a big rock. Why was it here? How did it get here?
David told us The Legend of the Rock: Once upon a time there were two giants, Aneirin and Tostig, who quarrelled about who owned the land. Tostig lived on the hill. His arms were 50 metres long. “Get off my land” said Tostig. “I‟m envious of your land. It‟s mine. Let me have it,” said Aneirin. “I don‟t think so,” said Tostig, picking up a rock and hurling it at Aneirin. Aneirin dodged it, and it fell into the sea, where it became the Bass Rock. Tostig launched a second rock in anger, but Aneirin stepped aside, and it became North Berwick Law. A third rock was thrown with such force that it flew across Scotland and became Ailsa Craig, off the West coast. Aneirin was coming closer. Tostig picked up a rounded pebble, put it in his sling, whirled it round and round, then released it. It flew as fast as a bullet and struck Aneirin in the centre of his forehead. The giant collapsed to the ground. The land shook, cracked, rumbled like thunder, as if the old volcano was erupting again. “Victory!”shouted Tostig, punching the air. His „pebble‟ is the large, round boulder that we‟ve called the Giant‟s Monument, marking the place where he fell. We walked down to the corner of the field and discovered the ruins of a 16 th century farm house and courtyard. The windows had been filled in with stones, to make them solid. There were stone pillars. Thinking about the lives of the people in the Iron Age, the medieval period, and now, we agreed with David that it must have been „the same, but different.‟ We discovered Jerseys grazing; they discovered us, stared at us with big glassy eyes, defending the exit gate, silently sharing their secret place.