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Flag Fen Bronze Age Centre, Cambridgeshire

Bronze Age Hut at Flag Fen

The Bronze Age in Britain is generally held to refer to the period between 2100BC and 700BC. This was a period of change for the British Isles. Metal working evolved to a new level, and there was large scale production of characteristic pottery, particularly inverted bell shaped beakers. This period saw the building of huge ritual monuments such as Stonehenge and Avebury. The climate probably deteriorated at this time, becoming wetter, and there is evidence of once cultivated areas returning to scrub. This seems to have been a difficult period, but the great ritualistic monuments that survive indicate that to some extent at least the stress did not lead to people fighting amongst themselves. Perhaps the great henge monuments could be viewed as exercises in maintaining social cohesion, both in their building and use.

At Flag Fen near Peterborough, a set of particular environmental conditions has resulted in Bronze Age artifacts being found in a remarkable state of preservation. Waterlogging has resulted in the preservation of items of wood dated to 1000BC. Excavations are continuing all the time, lent a sense of urgency by the fact that the waterlogged area is now drying out, and the site will be lost within the next twenty years.

 

Schematic representation of the Flag Fen monument

The wood found at Flag Fen appears to have been used to build a huge monument, consisting of five rows of timber posts stretching over a kilometre, with a timber platform equal in size to a football pitch in the middle. Three thousand years ago this area was a water meadow, relatively dry in summer, flooding in the winter. The area of annual flooding was crossed by the monument.

Quite why this huge monument was built is not clear. It could have been a mainly functional structure, acting as a bridge over the flooded water meadow, the platform in the middle perhaps serving as a place of refuge in times of attack. It is fairly obvious though that this place went beyond the purely functional. It is too big and ornate. Surely there weren't so many people crossing here that they needed four lanes of traffic. The function of the Flag Fen monument was only a part of its symbolic importance. This was a crossing, and the whole idea of crossing over may have been what it was all about. Literature at the site describes how Bronze Age people may have believed that water was a looking glass through which people entered the next world. Perhaps the causeway was a visual representation of the great crossing over of life.

 

Wandering round Flag Fen, looking at what is left of the post alignment in the Preservation Hall, I couldn't help thinking of a more modern image of crossing over. The image of the Beatles crossing over Abbey Road on the cover of their famous album popped into my mind! People come from all over the world to cross that zebra crossing in St Johns Wood. That zebra crossing has gone beyond its workaday function helping people over Abbey Road, to become a symbol of crossing over in a wider sense. In the famous picture there are various allusions to a bigger crossing over, Ringo wearing an undertaker's outfit, Paul with bare feet. My own reaction to Flag Fen was similar to the one I felt when I made a pilgrimage to north London and walked over the Abbey Road crossing. The Flag Fen monument might have had its workaday function, but it could also have been the Abbey Road crossing of its day.

The Flag Fen museum contains artifacts, which include the oldest wheel ever found in England. The Preservation Hall has a display of Europe's only Bronze Age timbers remaining in their original position. The entire width of the post alignment has been excavated, but only ten meters of it's length is on show. Originally this line of posts ran for a kilometer between Fengate and Northey Island. The Park at Flag Fen, first laid out in 1987, now covers almost the entire length of the post alignment. The area has been landscaped with trees and shrubs that would have been growing locally in the Bronze Age. The park includes reconstructions of Bronze Age and Iron Age round houses, and the remains of a Roman road.

Also on display are timbers from "Seahenge" a Bronze Age wooden circle monument discovered at Holme-Next-The-Sea, Norfolk in 1999.

Opening Times: Flag Fen is open to the public at weekends and bank holidays only, from 10am - 5pm, with last entry at 4pm. Visiting during the week is only available for group bookings. The site is closed "in the winter", so if you are intending to visit out of season, check first.

Address: Flag Fen Archaeology Park, The Droveway, Northey Road, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire PE6 7QJ

Directions: Take the A 605 out of Peterborough towards Whittlesey. Turn left onto the B1040, and then turn left again into North Bank. Click here for an interactive map centred on Flag Fen.

Access: Wheelchair access to the site is good, and a wheelchair is available to hire. A guide book is available in Braille.

Contact:

telephone: 01733 313414

fax: 01733 349957

e-mail: info@flagfen.org

web site: www.flagfen.com/index.html