Again, from reading interesting links on the “Past Thinking” blog site – I came across some links to the megalithic portal. All I can say is “wow.”

The map is amazing, and accurate. I have spent the last 10 minutes marvelling at the photos and sheer volume of information they have available. It has a forum and lots of user-contributed information, which is both good and bad. While I havent had time (yet) to fully explore the site, first impressions are very, very good. All I can say is check it out now!

http://www.megalithic.co.uk/

Thanks to a link on the “past thinking” blog I found out about some very interesting software produced to create 3D models. So far it looks VERY cool – I have not had time to check it out properly but I will do so soon.

One of the most interesting things about this is, is the ability it has to link into Google Earth maps – potentially great fun.

You can find out more about this at http://www.sketchup.com/.

Tynemouth Priory and Castle,
originally uploaded by me.

I promise this is the last photo of the day 🙂

This is a picture of the grave yard to the read of the priory at “Tynemouth Castle.” (An English Heritage site at the mouth of the river Tyne, oddly enough :-))

Most, if not all the graves with readable details on date to the 17th or 18th centuries – some from the early 19th but not many. Despite this, apparently King (later Saint) Oswin of Deira and King Osred II of Northumbria are supposed to be buried here. All I can say is I never found their gravestones.

Apparently the priory / monastry did well until the disolution under Henry VIII. During his reign, the Monks here surrendered the site to the king, and he apparently decided it was more suitable for a costal defence fort – and the castle was built.

It is a strange site – it has lots of early medieval parts (the priory for example), is ringed with a sixteenth century artillery fortress, has WW1 and WW2 gun emplacements and, best of all, a 1960’s tower building (looks like an Air Traffic Control tower) which now appears to be home of the CCTV monitoring site. All very amusing.

Well, as I was feeling somewhat photogenic I thought it would be appropriate to share some of my own flickr photos with the world!

This is one of sunlight coming through the trees at Belsay castle. Well, I liked it 🙂 You can see more on the flickr pages.