This edited article about protecting and conserving Britain’s heritage originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 705 published on 19 July 1975.

Londinium as the Romans built it, by Ralph Bruce

The occupant of an earth-satellite poised in space over Britain at the right altitude, would be able to see almost at a glance, if he knew what to look out for, evidence of man’s existence here during more than 5,000 years. This would be the record of his way of life, at first agricultural and then industrial, from the time when he originally established himself and laid his ‘signature’ upon the land. From Muckle Flugga at the tip of Shetland to the granite crags of Land’s End, history and prehistory would be spread out beneath his gaze. This is what we call our heritage.

His eye would be caught by the greatest prehistoric monument within our shores, Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, the masterpiece of Stone Age Man which may have taken 1,000 years to build and was completed perhaps 3,500 years ago. Its true purpose is still not known. Not far from it, he would see the Avebury Stone Circle, the largest of its kind in all Europe, and the avenue of giant stones leading to Silbury Hill, the largest man-made mound in Europe. He would see, too, the hundreds of round and oval burial-mounds, especially in Wiltshire, marking the last resting-places of chieftains who died over 3,000 years ago.

All these are impressive relics of Stone Age and Bronze Age Man, the earliest inhabitants of Britain. The hills and ridges of Berkshire, Dorset, Derbyshire and elsewhere carry the relics of their successors. These are the great earth ramparts and ditches of the hill-forts established by Iron Age Man. They may be seen from the air, but you can see and explore them on foot. All are prehistoric sites. All were there when, in the last years B.C., the Romans arrived in Britain.

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This edited article about Pompeii originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 702 published on 28 June 1975.

The last days of Pompeii by Graham Coton

In Pompeii, the morning of August 24th, in the year A.D. 79, had dawned as bright and clear as it normally did at that time of the year. Peasants were now working busily among the vines and olive groves on the slopes beneath the shadow of slumbering Mount Vesuvius, which had not spewed lava from its volcanic depths for centuries. The farmers who had risen particularly early, were already wheeling their two-wheeled carts piled with fruits and vegetables towards the market. There they would find more than enough buyers from among the wealthy Romans who used the fashionable resort of Pompeii as a pleasant refuge from the sultry heat of the Roman summers. In the streets, people were discussing the forthcoming elections and laying wagers on the gladiators who were due to fight in the amphitheatre before an audience of some ten thousand people. At the bottom of the steep street that led down to the harbour, men were busily unloading a cargo of wine and oil.

As the morning progressed, the city became more busy than ever. Slaves scurried among the crowds, shopping for their mistresses and masters, and as usual, the public baths were full of wealthy men of all ages who used them as a club where they could discuss the latest tit-bits of gossip that had been brought from Rome by some of the more recent arrivals. For the children, it was a particularly happy time because they were not at school. Noisily, they ran around the rooms and courtyards of their villas, playing hide-and-seek with their friends, or else they trundled their hoops through the streets, keeping a wary eye out for the charioteers who frequently came clattering along the rough roadways. In short, that August morning was very much like any other summer morning for the carefree population of Pompeii.

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This edited article about underwater exploration originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 701 published on 21 June 1975.

Salvage divers by Andrew Howat

Wearing rubber suits and breathing apparatus, two men dived deep into the water off Grand Bahama in the warm West Indies. Propelling themselves by their flippers, they went farther and farther into the green depths to find themselves amid a myriad of strange plants and fishes.

The two explorers in this underwater world were John J. Gruener and R. Neal Watson of the U.S.A., who made a record descent of 437 feet (133 metres) on 14th October, 1968.

Men using chambers to withstand the pressure of the water have gone deeper than this. But they lack the mobility of skin divers like Gruener and Watson. By studying old wreck sites, sunken harbours and inundated cities, these specialised divers are helping historians and archaeologists to gain valuable knowledge about the past.

Divers are specially trained for this work, for clumsy, unskilled probing could ruin a valuable wreck site and destroy something of vital importance. This is because most ships do not remain intact underwater. The wood in them rots away and the metal parts become covered in weed and develop a solid, hardened “skin”.

Each descent brings a surprise, for who knows what the divers will find as they probe the mysteries of the ocean?

This edited article about cavemen originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 698 published on 31 May 1975.

The discovery of the cave paintings at Lascaux by Clive Uptton

Before the great Ice Age came, about a million years ago, Early Man enjoyed a warm climate and did not need to build a home to protect himself against the cold.

But when the Ice Age passed, the continent of Europe was left with a bitterly cold climate. It was then that the hunters of the Old Stone Age were forced to find somewhere warm and dry in which to shelter from the weather. They chose caves and overhanging rocks for their dwelling places, knowing that these could not be destroyed by cold and storms.

The most famous dwelling places of these times are in a valley of the Dordogne River in France. It was here that the Neanderthalers lived. They made tools of short flint stone and hunted wild animals, many of which, like the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, and the cave bear, are now extinct.

The Neanderthalers lit fires of brushwood in the mouth of the cave and cooked the meat they had caught.

For bedding they probably had pine twigs and dry grass or bracken. When they slept, they covered themselves with animal skins and made clothes from these to wear during the day.

After many thousands of years, another type of man came to the Dordogne. He was much more like we are today. The newcomers, called the Cromagnon people, were much better craftsmen than the Neanderthalers, and on the walls of their caves they often carved with flints pictures of the animals they had hunted. Nearly all the European decorated caves are found in France and Spain, and the finest of all, discovered in 1940, is at Lascaux, in the Dordogne region.

This edited article about Sussex originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 691 published on 12 April 1975.

The great Anglo-American novelist, Henry James, outside Lamb House in Rye, with inset showing the famous garden room where he wrote, by Harry Green

During the sunny summer days of the late eighteenth century the folk of the little fishing village of Brighthelmstone in Sussex gaped in amazement at crowds of ladies, gentlemen, and children from London who were suddenly thronging their pebble beaches.

Why had all these wealthy people come to the quaint Sussex village built on a crumbling cliff ledge? Neighbours told each other it was something to do with a new doctor from Lewes who had taken a house on the seafront.

The doctor had written a book in which he prescribed sea air and sea bathing as a cure for many illnesses. It was rumoured that even the Prince Regent was anxious to try the new cure.

Then, in 1783, George, the Prince Regent, suddenly arrived in Brighthelmstone. Every summer day he walked along the Steyne promenade with a crowd of friends.

Prince George liked the seaside air. He liked it so much that he built a palace a few yards from the sea, decorated with Indian domes, hangings, and Chinese dragons. Here he gave great banquets for his London friends.

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This edited article about Easter Island originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 682 published on 8 February 1975.

A sun-worshipping ceremony on Easter Island by Andrew Howat

Easter Island was a mystery from the moment the look-out of a ship spotted it in 1722. And it has been a mystery ever since to the people who have explored it and tried to unravel its strange secrets.

People have long puzzled over the intriguing story which began to unfold when the observant sailor saw the green blob of land and reported it to the skipper of his ship, Admiral Roggeveen, a Dutchman. Bewildered, the admiral consulted his charts, but no land was marked at that point.

The admiral inked a blob of land on his map and wrote beside it “Easter Island”, for it was Easter Day. Little did he know that by this action he had given a name to the most puzzling island in the world.

After he and some of his men had explored the island, the admiral wrote a report to his superiors, saying, “The island contains about six thousand souls. All over the island stand huge idols of stone, representing the figure of a man with big ears and bearing a head covered with a red crown.”

One can imagine how that report intrigued other adventurers. Many made landings. They tramped the island and counted the statues. There were 230 standing all over the place. And apart from size – varying from five to twelve metres high – the statues were all identical.

Legless, they rose from the earth at hip level. The faces were expressionless, with receding foreheads, tight lips, prominent chins and a curious tilt at the end of the nose.

But more curious still were the ears. Long and thin, they hung down to the jaw. On each statue was a hat-like crown of red stone.

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This edited article about Egypt originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 671 published on 23 November 1974.

Building the Pyramids by Neville Dear

Armies have fought across its deserts – men in tanks and bomb-laden aeroplanes in recent years, and the conquerors on camels in its distant past. And yet this land in the desert beside the Nile is a place with a strange tranquility, which the hot haze rising in the streets of its sun-bleached towns cannot dispel. It seems strange and yet Egypt, (for this is the country otherwise known as the United Arab Republic) will always remain an enigma from its inscrutable Sphinx staring across the desert to its political disturbances of modern time.

Egypt is a leading nation in the Arab world, and the Egyptians are descended from one of the oldest civilisations known. Their written records go back over 6,000 years. But for century after century, this nation has been dominated by its various conquerors. Ethiopians, Persians, Greeks, Romans and others have all left their footprints in the sands of Egypt. From 525 BC, the date of the Persian invasion, until 1922, when a British protectorate ended, it has been virtually ruled by foreigners. Although a king was proclaimed in 1922, the military occupation by British troops did not end until 1936.

Later, it saw the rise to power of Colonel Gamal Nasser, first president of the Egyptian republic, who nationalised the Suez canal, and sparked off retaliatory action by British and French armies. He also built the enormous Aswan High Dam to irrigate vast areas of desert and turn it into fertile land. Nasser carried out many reforms to bring his people out of their feudal backwardness and, since his death in 1970, his work has been continued by his successors.

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This edited article about St Albans originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 661 published on 14 September 1974.

Henry Vi is rescued fronm the Yorkists by the Lancastrians at the second Battle of St Albans in 1461, by C L Doughty

At first sight, with its main street Woolworths, its Marks and Spencers, and its Boots, it looks like many another town lying between London and the North. Then you see the signposts to the historic monuments that remind you that it has a past.

Even then you have to tear aside many heavy layers of history to see the full sum of that past. And when you have done that, you have, in St Albans, one of the oldest and most exciting chapters in the story of Britain.

For of all the places they settled in the British Isles, the favourite of the Romans was Verulamium, as they called St Albans. While they established four “colonies” – Colchester, Lincoln, Gloucester and York – Verulamium was the only town or municipium, known to have existed in Roman Britain.

Here, Caesar’s legions marched down Watling Street and rested between battles. They went to the theatre, to the town baths, and boarded in the wood or wattle houses. For a legionary, Verulamium was the best “posting” in Britain, for it was the place that looked most like Rome.

Its story began even before the arrival of the Romans, when the Belgae tribe, a Celtic people, swept over Britain from the Continent of Europe.

In their European homelands, these Belgae had learned something of the Romans, and were copyists of some of their ways. They were a tall, fair-skinned fair-haired people, lovers of bright colours, fierce and intelligent. Some of them, a sub-tribe called the Catuvellauni, settled themselves on a hill at Wheathampstead, a little to the north of St Albans. Here their chief, Cassivellaunus, built his headquarters – a hundred acres enclosed by earth ramparts and a ditch nearly 40ft. deep.

When the Romans arrived in Britain for their first visit, this fortress of Cassivellaunus, stood in their way like a child’s sandcastle stands in the way of a beach bully. They knocked it down with impunity and then went back to Rome.

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This edited article about Bath originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 637 published on 30 March 1974.

Roman baths and Abbey at Bath

For at least two thousand years people have called it simply “taking the waters.” They were, and still are, “taken” either by bathing in them or drinking them because, it is thought, they have medicinal properties; they may ease the pain of rheumatism, smooth out creaky joints, cure stomach disorders and anything else you may care to believe in.

The “waters” were found only in those few places where warm natural springs bubbled to the surface, and it was in Somerset, where the city of Bath now stands, that one Bladud discovered them in the year 863 B.C.

Bladud was said to have been so delighted with the place in the valley of the River Avon, and the health-giving properties of its hot springs, that he founded the city of Bath then and there. Unfortunately, no evidence exists to support Bladud, so we must move on to the Roman occupation of Britain.

The Romans thought hot springs were more than medicinal; they regarded the waters with superstitious veneration. So they called their Bath Aquae Sulis, meaning the waters of Sul, a local god. And for four centuries the soldiers of the Caesars took their leave in Aquae Sulis and spent their pay there on health and pleasure.

The hot springs which the Romans developed at Bath were called in Latin thermae and today we can see them in the city, near the famous Pump Room, excavated and exposed, and among the finest Roman remains in Europe. With them is the Roman city wall which indicates the size and importance of Aquae Sulis about the year 250 A.D.

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This edited article about archaeology originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 629 published on 2 February 1974.

A typical Roman villa was built round a courtyard, by Peter Jackson

Men digging holes for a park fence found, beneath their spades, a beautiful mosaic floor. Their find was later to set archaeologists on a trail of discovery which was to take them far back into Roman Britain where they were to unravel the intriguing story of a villa’s creation and destruction and of the people who lived and died within its walls.

Once the house had teemed with life and worship. But nothing could save it now. Its weathered timbers changed to black charcoal and then to white ash as flames raced among them, leaving blackened roofless walls standing amid mounds of fallen tiles.

It must have been hard, seeing it then, to realise that the end had come to a house that, for nearly four centuries in Roman Britain, had been the home of a succession of prosperous families who had made it the centre of their lives.

They had lived in it, bathed in its fine bath house, worshipped in its chapel and farmed the lands surrounding it. But now, this fire in the fifth century had destroyed it.

The Roman villa at Lullingstone, Kent, was a shell. In time, even this disappeared beneath the soil washed down upon it from the hills.

Centuries later, some men were building a fence around Lullingstone Park. As they thrust their spades into the soil to make a hole for a timber post, they struck something hard. It was a mosaic floor.

A second hole was dug and revealed a further part of the floor.

This was in the middle of the eighteenth century and a note was made of it in a book published soon afterwards.

In 1949, a group of archaeologists went to the site and began carefully removing the centuries of soil.

For twelve successive years they worked carefully and meticulously. Their efforts brought to light the intricate story of the villa and its surrounding buildings, and of the lives of the people who occupied it.

It is a story, both wonderful and exciting, which begins far back in time in the year of the Roman Conquest, AD 43.

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