On Silbury Hill

by Adam Thorpe

Silbury Hill in Wiltshire has inspired and perplexed people for generations. Artists and poets have fathomed their deepest thoughts searching for the hill's hidden meanings, archaeologists have tunnelled through earth for fragments that prove its purpose. But for all this human endeavour, Silbury Hill remains a mystery. We do know it is the largest prehistoric mound in Europe. But was it once an island, moated by water? Was it a place of worship and celebration, perhaps a vast measure of the passing seasons? Along with Stonehenge and Avebury, was it part of a healing landscape or a physical memory of the long-ago dead? Silbury Hill is the sum of all that we project. A blank screen where human dreams and nightmares flicker. The hill has been part of Adam Thorpe's own life since his schooldays at Marlborough, which he would often escape in the surrounding downlands. He has carried Silbury ever since, through his teenage years in Cameroon, into his adulthood in southern England and France: its presence fused to each landscape which became his home. On Silbury Hill is Adam Thorpe's own projection onto Silbury's grassy slopes. It is a chalkland memoir told in fragments and family snapshots, skillfully built, layer on layer, from Britain's ancient and modern past.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Nature, Archaeology, Natural History, British Literature, Memoir

230 pages, Hardcover

First published August 28, 2014

About the author

Adam Thorpe is a British poet, novelist, and playwright whose works also include short stories and radio dramas.

Adam Thorpe was born in Paris and grew up in India, Cameroon, and England. Graduating from Magdalen College, Oxford in 1979, he founded a touring theatre company, then settled in London to teach drama and English literature.

His first collection of poetry, Mornings in the Baltic (1988), was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Award. His first novel, Ulverton (1992), an episodic work covering 350 years of English rural history, won great critical acclaim worldwide, including that of novelist John Fowles, who reviewed it in The Guardian, calling it "(...) the most interesting first novel I have read these last years". The novel was awarded the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize for 1992.

Adam Thorpe lives in France with his wife and three children.

-Wikipedia

Reviews

[Hugh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read all of Adam Thorpe's novels, so I was intrigued when I discovered that he had written a non-fiction book about Silbury Hill, other ancient historical relics on the Wiltshire chalkland (notably Avebury and Stonehenge, but also the smaller man-made hill in the grounds of Marlborough's public school, where Thorpe was educated), and how they have affected his life and thinking.

The book is something of a curate's egg, interesting at times, deeply personal and idiosyncratic but let down by a little too much fanciful hippie/new age speculation. Perhaps this is inevitable because so little is known about the people who built the monuments or what their purpose was.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

For our 13th anniversary back in July, we went on a daytrip to Avebury stone circle, Silbury Hill and their associated long barrows. It was a thrilling day of discovering Neolithic sites, and all the more special because it was about the first time we’d been able to travel all year. Even though Avebury is only 26 miles from where we live in Berkshire, it felt like a pilgrimage to another world – and another time. (I highly recommend it as an alternative to Stonehenge, which is impressive, yes, but also a tourist trap that doesn’t let you get anywhere near the stones themselves, whereas at Avebury you can walk right among them on the extensive site.)

We took along with us the Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin (now collectively known as Edgelarks) album Mynd, the opening track of which is “Silbury Hill,” and as soon as we got home I started Adam Thorpe’s volume on the place and finished it within a few days, much faster than I generally read nonfiction. He kept the magic alive for me because, although he explores the fragmentary history of Silbury Hill (a manmade mound the size of the Pyramids of Egypt) and the various attempts to excavate it, he ultimately has to conclude that we will never understand how and why it was made: “the hill is, intellectually, a mystery that flirts with the void.”

Thorpe grew up partially in Africa, but was also educated at the very posh boarding school in Marlborough, which we passed on our drive. For a teenager, millennia-old barrows, mounds and stone circles were a humbling reminder of human insignificance: “I was a mere blip, soon to be extinguished, in comparison with the multiple generations witnessed by this earthwork, and those stretching out into the future. This was possibly my earliest conscious realisation that death was woven into the landscape here in the chalklands in a colossally evident way.”

I made the mistake of not taking any notes during my reading and it’s been more than five months since I finished the book (in the meantime it’s sat in a review pile by my old PC and the spine got nibbled by a slug), but what I recall is that it struck me as a flawless integration of personal and wider history as well as a profound engagement with questions of human striving and hubris and a frank reckoning of what we can and cannot know. This is one of the first Little Toller monographs I read and I was really impressed with the production quality, including the frequent illustrations. The in-depth multidisciplinary studies they publish are among my favorite types of nonfiction.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is so difficult to absolutely categorise. It combines a history book, a memoir and with some natural history, all focusing on the prehistoric monument that is Silbury Hill.

This amazing structure is the largest man made mound in Europe measuring 40m high and covering an area of five acres, and is believed to have been constructed around 4750 years ago. Even though it has outlived its creators for several millennia, nobody has a single clue as to its purpose. That said, there has been plenty of speculation, and when viewed through the lens of the neolithic landscape it may have played some ritual purpose.

Thorpe first became aware of the monument when he was a boarder at Marlborough school. Of excursions from school he walked and cycled the landscape and even climbed it. It played an important part in his formative years as he escaped from the school. He makes journeys to Avebury and and other neolithic sites to try and understand the place, but without drawing any firm conclusions.

It is a beautifully written book though, as he deftly weaves the narrative between his childhood and recent visits to Silbury, with some of the characters that he meets on his travels, and the overlay of the paganism that you get around these sites. As an aside, this is a beautifully made book too. The size and weight of the book and paper feel just right, and the font makes for easy reading.

[Penny · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5
This is a beautiful book to look at - it's like a miniature coffee table book, shiny and even a bit glossy, full of drawings and photographs.
It's part of a small series of monographs by Little Toller, and I am definitely going to seek out the other ones published.
I live very close, to a Neolithic Henge - I can see the woods surrounding it from my upstairs house windows. It has a strange pull, and that's not just me being fanciful. Locals are proud (and protective) about being part of such an ancient landscape.
At the same time I have lost count of the people who have told me they avoid going into the copse because 'it has a funny feeling in there'. You'd have to pay me very good money to go there alone at night!
But what exactly are we feeling? Are we picking up how ancient the place is? The mystery of how and of course why it was built? Is it all in our minds?
This book (described as a 'chalkland memoir) is a meditation on how Silbury Hill has been part of Thorpe's life, right back to when he was a young boarder at Marlborough School close by, a place with its own mysterious mound.
I loved the mixture of nature writing, archaeology and personal memoir and thought it all worked really well. I especially appreciated Thorpe's honesty and lack of irony - his adolescent daydreams about being a Neolithic hunter returning home to his woman, or adventures in 18th century London under hypnosis.
I like his dreaminess and imagination, and how he seems someone living in the wrong time. I really hope he does more non fiction writing.
Thorpe can't give us any explanations about Silbury Hill. The point is, of course, that it has no point!

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bettie's Books

[Delphine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Monograph on Silbury Hill, the ancient artificial hill in the Wiltshire landscape, and other relics from the Neolithic age. Thorpe explores the genesis and possible purposes of the mysterious hill and links it closely to his own youth, spent nearby at Marlborough College. The historical relics served as companionship and comfort during his rough teenage years.

Thorpe is a very gifted writer, who knows how to transform feelings and thoughts into perfect sentences. When he starts to focus on the current pagan enchantment of the hill, the tight storyline looses its tension. A very personal book, an interesting blend between non-fiction and personal history.

[Sem · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps I should have a 'money down the drain' shelf or an 'if I'd been able to look at this book in a shop rather than make an impulse purchase at Amazon I'd never have bought it' shelf. The terminally wet reminiscences, the penchant for the "tofu-knitting, yoghurt-weaving world", the unreliability on facts, the brooding presence of the author in every speculation about the neolithic world view... I bailed out during the last chapter.

[Jackie Law · Rating 5 out of 5]

On Silbury Hill, by Adam Thorpe, is another fascinating addition to the Little Toller Monograph series. The author first became interested in Silbury – the largest prehistoric mound in Europe – while he was a pupil at nearby Marlborough College, an exclusive public school where he boarded during the 1970s while his parents lived abroad due to his father’s work. As well as providing the reader with information about the enigmatic hill and the varying theories about its original purpose, Thorpe writes of his time in Wiltshire as a schoolboy, and later in life when he would return to visit. Like many who are drawn to the area – I have lived nearby for over three decades – he finds something elemental in his reaction to the location and its ancient artefacts.

Silbury Hill was built, probably over several generations, more than 4000 years ago. She is around 130 feet high – the equivalent of a 13 storey building – and has a base covering around 5 acres. Nobody knows why she was created although there are many theories. Archaeologists have drilled down into her, dug tunnels through her and taken away samples to try to work out her purpose. She is neither a burial mound nor a treasure trove. There are few clues as to what she may have been used for.

What is known is that she was one of three man made mounds in an area that also includes the Avebury stone circles and its associated avenues. Nearby are several large barrows that exist to house the dead. There is evidence of massive gatherings in ancient times suggesting significant rituals were enacted. Today, gatherings are of tourists or those who claim a religious link.

“Sometimes I think that invasive archaeology is a metaphor for our whole current situation: the process of discovery necessitates destruction.”

What we know about Silbury Hill is due to the investigations that broke her open and allowed modern man in. These were halted earlier this century and repairs made to the damaging invasions. As a UNESCO World Heritage site the location must now be protected. Visitors are no longer granted access to the hill.

Thorpe writes of his time at boarding school and also of the visits he made at that time to his family in Cameroon. He found an appeal in what he perceived as the simpler, less materialistic lifestyle of certain Africans and compares this to what is known of Britons in Neolithic times. The latter, of course, had short life expectancy and high death rates. Their bones show signs of painful afflictions – it was hardly an ideal way of living.

At the time of Silbury Hill’s construction, much of the country was still wooded and large predators roamed free within their dark canopy. Man was transitioning from hunter gatherer to farmer but would still be reliant on the small community he lived within and contributed to.

“the examination of period burials reveals not only a ghastly catalogue of ways to suffer and die (plenty of fractures and wounds, severe arthritis, tooth abscesses, gum disease, rickets, polio, spina bifida, tetanus, tuberculosis, plague, malaria), but the likelihood that ‘four people in ten died before they were twenty’ – not including the 50 per cent who didn’t make it past their third year.”

As a schoolboy, Thorpe visited East Kennet Long Barrow – 5000 years old and the longest in Europe – and ‘had an extraordinary sense of my own mortality’.

“I was a mere blip, soon to be extinguished, in comparison with the multiple generations witnessed by this earthwork, and those stretching out onto the future.”

The ancients were closer to death and, perhaps therefore, revered the ancestors. Rituals would reflect this and their reliance on nature for survival.

“death was woven into the landscape here in the chalklands in a colossally evident way.”

“Alternatively, Silbury might have been a brilliant means to unite a people with a common project that gave their brief lives a meaning.”

Perhaps the hill draws so much interest because its purpose remains unknown. It has existed through several rounds of climate change – warming and cooling, with associated changes in water levels – and multiple ages as man’s habits and beliefs have endlessly shifted. She has been probed and speculated over. Her surroundings have been desecrated and rebuilt. It is her age and continuing existence – from such ancient times through to now – that demands pause for contemplation.

“So frail the summer,
I would like to plait it
like grass, and keep my place

in the book of my life
forever, now, here.
I’ve noticed this is not possible.

Something is always ushering us.”

The author writes in a personal and compelling style that pulls the reader in. He weaves the memoir elements with a wider history of the area and how these have contributed to shaping his own development. In a time when man has all but detached himself from his surroundings – the cars on the busy A4, that runs adjacent to the hill, whizzing by in too much of a hurry to pause at the millennia old wonder they may glimpse as they pass – it is good to consider how transient our existence, inventions and prideful acquisitions will be. Silbury Hill remains a mystery – just one facet of its allure – but stands as a monument to that which can endure, and the value of reflection.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A hard to define book, part memoir, part countryside and a dash of archeaology.

After getting past the school days Mr Thorpe really hits his stride, sadly a little late. However, this is still an absorbing read.

[Sophy H · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an extremely pleasant easy-reading style of book, part historical, part cultural, part spiritual, part self-journal.

Silbury Hill is a little like Stonehenge in that it has symbolised a lot of different things to different tribes of people over its history.

Adam Thorpe has a lovely relaxed writing style that makes you feel as though you're in conversation with an old friend. His descriptive ability and skill in recreating an atmosphere is second to none.

Highly recommended to anyone who is interested in historical mystical sites in Britain.

[Toby · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was a great deal I enjoyed about this book, not least the lovely writing, which accentuated the mystery and majesty of this area of England which I know well from childhood holiday. Where the book failed - for me, at least - was the the way in which Thorpe overplayed the whimsy; particularly towards the end of the book there was too much talk of "energies" and "visions" for my liking - the mumbo jumbo became tiresome.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week:
'"A marble cake of different soils. Memoir, data, theory, streaks of poetry, swirls of fiction"
Silbury Hill in Wiltshire - together with Stonehenge, Avebury and the remains of numerous barrows - forms part of a Neolithic landscape about which very little is known or understood.
Adam Thorpe's chalkland memoir is told in fragments and snapshots. He takes a circular route around the hill, a monument which we can no longer climb, and celebrates the urge to stand and wonder

[Adrian]

A personal reflection about what the neolithic site in southern England means to the author. He describes its history, explains how it was made and what archaeologists have discovered about it and takes part in a Wiccan ceremony that still take place around it on All Hallows' Eve. Much theory and poetry in here on time and space that I find impenetrable. Attempts to turn Silbury and other sites like it and Stonehenge into commercial ventures are rightfully scorned but his larger anti-modernist rant loses me. Much praised book is for me enjoyable only in parts.

[Roger Clarke · Rating 5 out of 5]

A remarkable book

[Kevan Manwaring · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adam Thorpe is a poet, although he is best known for his fictional social history of an English village in Berkshire, Ulverston. Here, Thorpe presents an organic, lyrical, and highly subjective portrait of the eponymous mound and his own bildungsroman, which is inextricably entwined with the ancient, mysterious Wiltshire landscape, due to his enduring schooldays at the private, privileged bubble of Marlborough College. Finding in Silbury a found structure, Thorpe presents layers of personal, local, international, and prehistoric 'fossil records' in a meandering ramble redeemed by moments of poetic epiphany, fascinating archaeology, and social history. Most of all, Thorpe renders a 'memoir of a Makar', depicting the making of a poet- a process that is never going to be straight-forwardly linear, causative, or clear cut. There are traces of WG Sebald's 'The Rings of Saturn', but Thorpe's psychogeography is neither so beautifully crafted or erudite. It lacks the heft of Sebald's prose. Nevertheless, it makes for a charming read, especially in situ. And Little Tollers handsome production, with its lovely illustrations, typesetting, and cover, all help to make this a pleasure to have in hand - a physical artefact as solid as a Neolithic hand-axe. Overall, Thorpe's ruminations are singularly eccentric, fey flights of fancy happy to pounce upon tenuous and tangential connections - a bricoleur bower-bird approach, which may exasperate some. Yet his love of Silbury and its environs is clear - and at times his obsession leads from the quixotic to insights of promising lucidity.

[Hilary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a highly original and hard to categorise book. It's chiefly about the author's relationship with this ancient site in Wiltshire, in an area with a surprising number of significant pre-historic sites including nearby Avebury, all of which seem to be interconnected in some way. These were the places the young Thorpe went to when he needed to escape the misery of his early boarding-school years and which therefore hold a strong place in his affections.

But Silbury Hill, the largest man-made mound in Europe, remains an enigma. He explores its origins, its significance and its links to the surrounding areas but finally all we are left with is speculation despite numerous attempts to identify its original purpose. And so it remains an indecipherable monument on which we can lay our own theories and beliefs.

I chose this for my book group and many found it challenging. As a poet, Thorpe's writing is sublime, his vocabulary extensive (I had recourse to the dictionary a number of times) but the chapters meander, the book is largely unstructured, though the early chapters deal fleetingly with his young life at school and in Africa. At other times there are tantalizing glimpses of his life which disappointingly are not pursued. We felt that there was rather too much speculation and not enough memoir, and it was difficult to get lost in the unstructured middle sections of the book, to the extent that more than a few gave up before the end. That's a pity because it is worth sticking with it - it repays the effort.

[Sophie Drt-Pmllr · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book as I am fascinated by Silbury Hill and the surrounding neolithic monuments in this part of England. I devoured the first 80 pages or so and there were passages I found gripping or moving. But overall, the mishmash of topics (archaeology, natural history, childhood memoir, poetry, folklore, local history), the level of details to describe the landscape and places of his childhood (which didn't conjure up much for me visually and I kept losing focus halfway through), and the going around in circles, seemingly saying the same thing about Silbury in slightly different ways - all of this made picking up the book feel like a chore. I stopped 80 pages from the end. As my partner pointed out, the book opens with "The point about Silbury Hill is that she has no point". Perhaps I should have heeded the warning! Not my cup of tea.

[Tom]

This is a bit of an odd book. For me, it veers a little too close to plain autobiography at times. Although, having said that, it is obviously a deeply personal book and maybe some of the seemingly unrelated autobiographical tangents are necessary for filling out the picture of the author. When it does stick more closely to its ostensible topic, it offers some wonderful, poetic musings about Silbury Hill, Avebury, Stonehenge, and our general connection with the prehistoric. Thorpe's approach is right up my alley: open minded and ready to scavenge whatever he can use from the scientific to the fantastic.

[Stewart Monckton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really rather wonderful book. It seems to me to be about the relationship between people and place, focused through the lens of one remarkable object - Silbury Hill. Sillbury Hill is part of the complex of sites that includes (the probably more famous) Stonehenge and Avebury.

What I really liked about this book was the authors willingness to remain sceptical about things, while remaining open to a wide range of possibility. It is not dogmatic about how to interpret such sites as Silbury - but neither does he rush off into unsupported weirdness. It's a personal book, that tries to make generalisations.

It's really very good.

SM

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful read...about...the mystery of our distant pasts in our landscapes...in this case southern Britain...well before the English arrived...well before the Romans...well before written records...the very existence of a man-made earthwork like Silbury Hill confounds us still. Adam Thorpe has spent a lifetime trying to grasp its eternal questions for all of us...walking in a wild, apparently uninhabited, place...with only the breeze & the birdsong.

[Olwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoughtful and thought-provoking book about the mysterious mound at Silbury. Well worth reading if you have any interest in the ancient history of Britain.

[JoJo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't quite connect with this narrative, but not wholly sure why. It seemed genuine and well written - maybe I just wasn't in the right mood for it.

[Jeff Goostrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

More a memoir rather than actually about silbury hill, disappointing overall.

[Peter Mullins · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book, far more enjoyable than it had any right to be, given Adam Thorpe's beautiful writing.

[Steve Gillway · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting jaunt around the subject of Silbury Hill and Avebury, which are musts to visit and revisit. Intertwining the history and mythology of the area with his own life and literary connections makes for great summer read. Hannah Martin and Philip Henry have a great accompanying song called strangely enough Silbury Hill.

[Brendan Howlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting book with 2 good theories on Silbury Hill

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strange but enjoyable book--one man's relationship with the fascinating Neolithic landscape of the Salisbury Plain.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Historically fascinating, however I wasn't so keen on the autobiographical parts.