Mel Roxby-Mackey
@archaeoborders.bsky.social
Archaeologist of borders, Anglo-Welsh borderland and its folklore, digital humanist, University of Birmingham. Archaeologist in Residence, Offa's Dyke Association. All ops my own. archaeoborders.wordpress.com
I love the concept of a ‘geography of belonging’ from @fotofacade.bsky.social - it inexplicably really resonates with me. And the Anglo-Cymric border gets a couple of honourable mentions in his All Time Best Pubs guide too 👍
✨🍺 My All Time Best Pubs 🍻
Seems quite appropriate for the season - updated and revised the pubs I've gravitated to on my travels over the last 20 years. Cheers! 👉 www.digest.andymarshall.co/andy-marshal...
Seems quite appropriate for the season - updated and revised the pubs I've gravitated to on my travels over the last 20 years. Cheers! 👉 www.digest.andymarshall.co/andy-marshal...
Andy Marshall's All Time Best Pubs
A time to toast and a toast to time....
www.digest.andymarshall.co
December 29, 2025 at 1:54 PM
I love the concept of a ‘geography of belonging’ from @fotofacade.bsky.social - it inexplicably really resonates with me. And the Anglo-Cymric border gets a couple of honourable mentions in his All Time Best Pubs guide too 👍
Reposted by Mel Roxby-Mackey
So why can't we do this with detecting?
Why not a license required to own a detector and an online test (to check knowledge of the law and Code of Practice) to be completed before license granted...?
#Archaeology #Detecting 🏺
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Why not a license required to own a detector and an online test (to check knowledge of the law and Code of Practice) to be completed before license granted...?
#Archaeology #Detecting 🏺
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Many new UK drone users must take theory test for outdoor use
The Civil Aviation Authority reckons up to half a million people in the UK may be impacted by its new requirements.
www.bbc.co.uk
December 29, 2025 at 11:11 AM
So why can't we do this with detecting?
Why not a license required to own a detector and an online test (to check knowledge of the law and Code of Practice) to be completed before license granted...?
#Archaeology #Detecting 🏺
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Why not a license required to own a detector and an online test (to check knowledge of the law and Code of Practice) to be completed before license granted...?
#Archaeology #Detecting 🏺
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
I confess I have a particular soft spot for ancient yew trees, especially those with an old churchyard nearby, but maybe I need to expand my horizons to limes too.
Country diary: A rare giant in the quiet of the wood | Sarah Lambert
Old Sulehay Forest, Northamptonshire: Distant church bells are about all I can hear as I stand below a 500-year-old small-leaved lime – a tree that may be making an unlikely comeback
www.theguardian.com
December 29, 2025 at 1:28 PM
I confess I have a particular soft spot for ancient yew trees, especially those with an old churchyard nearby, but maybe I need to expand my horizons to limes too.
Which sounds depressingly familiar, doesn’t it. . .
That’s not to say there isn’t plenty of evidence for the locals raiding and taking chunks out of each other because there is. But the evidence from the landscape and documentary sources for coexistence and cooperation is simply drowned out.
If there are two recurring themes running through our past on the Anglo-Cymric border it’s the evidence for elite ‘mischief’ and the evidence for how local populations have responded to these interventions in order to overcome the challenges and exploit the resulting opportunities over millennia
December 28, 2025 at 11:17 AM
Which sounds depressingly familiar, doesn’t it. . .
That’s not to say there isn’t plenty of evidence for the locals raiding and taking chunks out of each other because there is. But the evidence from the landscape and documentary sources for coexistence and cooperation is simply drowned out.
If there are two recurring themes running through our past on the Anglo-Cymric border it’s the evidence for elite ‘mischief’ and the evidence for how local populations have responded to these interventions in order to overcome the challenges and exploit the resulting opportunities over millennia
“Most people, given the option, would surely prefer to live their lives peacefully, striving to improve their lot and that of others, free from importunate, lying politicians, divisive dogmas, shaming bigotry, competing great power hegemonies and renewed conflicts.”
December 28, 2025 at 11:16 AM
That’s not to say there isn’t plenty of evidence for the locals raiding and taking chunks out of each other because there is. But the evidence from the landscape and documentary sources for coexistence and cooperation is simply drowned out.
If there are two recurring themes running through our past on the Anglo-Cymric border it’s the evidence for elite ‘mischief’ and the evidence for how local populations have responded to these interventions in order to overcome the challenges and exploit the resulting opportunities over millennia
“Most people, given the option, would surely prefer to live their lives peacefully, striving to improve their lot and that of others, free from importunate, lying politicians, divisive dogmas, shaming bigotry, competing great power hegemonies and renewed conflicts.”
Through the lens of history, Trump's legacy will be more of a blotch than a Maga masterpiece | Simon Tisdall
Take this hopeful thought into 2026: the tyrants we endure always falter, and their ‘seismic’ upheavals are usually false dawns, says Guardian foreign affairs commentator Simon Tisdall
www.theguardian.com
December 28, 2025 at 11:12 AM
If there are two recurring themes running through our past on the Anglo-Cymric border it’s the evidence for elite ‘mischief’ and the evidence for how local populations have responded to these interventions in order to overcome the challenges and exploit the resulting opportunities over millennia
“Most people, given the option, would surely prefer to live their lives peacefully, striving to improve their lot and that of others, free from importunate, lying politicians, divisive dogmas, shaming bigotry, competing great power hegemonies and renewed conflicts.”
Through the lens of history, Trump's legacy will be more of a blotch than a Maga masterpiece | Simon Tisdall
Take this hopeful thought into 2026: the tyrants we endure always falter, and their ‘seismic’ upheavals are usually false dawns, says Guardian foreign affairs commentator Simon Tisdall
www.theguardian.com
December 28, 2025 at 11:05 AM
“Most people, given the option, would surely prefer to live their lives peacefully, striving to improve their lot and that of others, free from importunate, lying politicians, divisive dogmas, shaming bigotry, competing great power hegemonies and renewed conflicts.”
If you're curious about #Herefordshire folklore it's worth noting that most of what we now know about how weirdly wonderful the county's traditions are is derived from the work of Ella Mary Leather in the early twentieth century. You can discover more about her at tradfolk.co/tradfolk-101...
December 27, 2025 at 2:59 PM
If you're curious about #Herefordshire folklore it's worth noting that most of what we now know about how weirdly wonderful the county's traditions are is derived from the work of Ella Mary Leather in the early twentieth century. You can discover more about her at tradfolk.co/tradfolk-101...
I had a big pre-Christmas deadline, so I'm still generally catching up. This includes the wonderful folklore podcast from @icysedgwick.bsky.social with this episode covering Herefordshire traditions surrounding mistletoe bound up with New Year, rather than Christmas or Yule - so it's not too late!
Festive Folklore and Traditions with The Faerie Folk and Celtic Myths & Legends - Fabulous Folklore with Icy
For this second episode in our Festive Folklore series for December 2025, I'm joined by my podcast pals, The Faerie Folk podcast and Sian Powell from Celtic Myths & Legends.
We discuss some plant...
pod.co
December 27, 2025 at 2:41 PM
I had a big pre-Christmas deadline, so I'm still generally catching up. This includes the wonderful folklore podcast from @icysedgwick.bsky.social with this episode covering Herefordshire traditions surrounding mistletoe bound up with New Year, rather than Christmas or Yule - so it's not too late!
Featuring our very own Broadway circular national trail walk up to the tower on the second highest point in the Cotswolds #Worcestershire
11 of the UK’s best winter walks – all ending at a cosy pub
Too much turkey and Baileys? Blow away the Christmas cobwebs on one of our rambles. And if that doesn’t work, they all end at a pub for a hair of the dog
www.theguardian.com
December 27, 2025 at 10:05 AM
Featuring our very own Broadway circular national trail walk up to the tower on the second highest point in the Cotswolds #Worcestershire
Good news! @oxbowbooks.bsky.social are extending the sale prices on all the books featured in their advent calendar until the end of 2025. There is soooo much good stuff in there. If any archaeology geeks out there with Christmas present money to spend are wondering what to do with it 👇
Oxbow Christmas Sale 2025
Representing leading independent publishers
www.scriptbooks.co.uk
December 26, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Good news! @oxbowbooks.bsky.social are extending the sale prices on all the books featured in their advent calendar until the end of 2025. There is soooo much good stuff in there. If any archaeology geeks out there with Christmas present money to spend are wondering what to do with it 👇
Genealogy as the hidden engine room of historical research. And who doesn’t love a good churchyard? “I think that each of these people has a story, and each of them is owed a remembering”
‘The hidden engine room’: how amateur historians are powering genealogical research
Wealth of datasets compiled as private passions are now a goldmine for those hunting for their ancestors
www.theguardian.com
December 26, 2025 at 8:27 AM
Genealogy as the hidden engine room of historical research. And who doesn’t love a good churchyard? “I think that each of these people has a story, and each of them is owed a remembering”
Good news for tackling the floating pennywort on the Worcester Birmingham canal and safe havens for native crayfish in Gloucestershire
Crayfish, weevils and fungi released in UK to tackle invasive species such as Japanese knotweed
Scientists working for government breed biological control agents in lab to take on species choking native wildlife
www.theguardian.com
December 24, 2025 at 9:31 AM
Good news for tackling the floating pennywort on the Worcester Birmingham canal and safe havens for native crayfish in Gloucestershire
This post isn't about archaeology, or the Anglo-Cymric border. It's the annual round-up of what went right in the world in 2025 from @positive.news.web.brid.gy Sometimes it really does feel like everything is going to hell in a handbasket, so here's a reminder that good stuff is happening too 👇
December 23, 2025 at 2:34 PM
This post isn't about archaeology, or the Anglo-Cymric border. It's the annual round-up of what went right in the world in 2025 from @positive.news.web.brid.gy Sometimes it really does feel like everything is going to hell in a handbasket, so here's a reminder that good stuff is happening too 👇
What were medieval Londoners importing for Christmas? “Dozens of paintings, whistles, harp strings, hundreds of candlesticks, a “box of japes” (tricks or toys)’, and “14 dozen Jesuses” amongst many other things now lost to us. Thank you for sharing @histgrove.bsky.social
Thanks @uk.theconversation.com for disseminating some of the results of our project "Unlocking Upcycled medieval data" (an Anglo-German collaboration between the @ihr.bsky.social and the #UniversityofBamberg).
We often imagine medieval life as dull, dirty and short, with little in the way of material comfort or decoration. However, medieval Londoners were importing toys, treats and trinkets by the boatload centuries…
December 23, 2025 at 10:43 AM
What were medieval Londoners importing for Christmas? “Dozens of paintings, whistles, harp strings, hundreds of candlesticks, a “box of japes” (tricks or toys)’, and “14 dozen Jesuses” amongst many other things now lost to us. Thank you for sharing @histgrove.bsky.social
Must have been terrifying. Huge congratulations to Shropshire Fire Service for handling the situation so professionally.
Man describes narrow escape after boats pulled into giant hole on Shropshire canal
Major incident declared as 50-metre-long breach opens up in waterway previously flagged as ‘amber risk’
www.theguardian.com
December 23, 2025 at 9:26 AM
Must have been terrifying. Huge congratulations to Shropshire Fire Service for handling the situation so professionally.
Reposted by Mel Roxby-Mackey
Isotope analysis of Bronze–Early Iron Age tin ingots from four Mediterranean shipwrecks found the tin was mined in south-west Britain. Evidence for 'zones of interaction' indicate land and sea connections from Britain to the Levant #MaritimeMonday
🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
🏺 #Archaeology
🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
🏺 #Archaeology
December 22, 2025 at 1:25 PM
Isotope analysis of Bronze–Early Iron Age tin ingots from four Mediterranean shipwrecks found the tin was mined in south-west Britain. Evidence for 'zones of interaction' indicate land and sea connections from Britain to the Levant #MaritimeMonday
🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
🏺 #Archaeology
🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
🏺 #Archaeology
“ I knew what was coming: a picture of a giant projector, ratchet-strapped to four drawers.” @ledbydonkeys.org, just like Michael Sheen, absolute legends
What happened next: the night Led By Donkeys projected Trump and Epstein on to Windsor Castle
The art activists made headlines during the US president’s state visit when they shocked the waiting media with a short documentary – and were quickly arrested
www.theguardian.com
December 22, 2025 at 9:25 AM
“ I knew what was coming: a picture of a giant projector, ratchet-strapped to four drawers.” @ledbydonkeys.org, just like Michael Sheen, absolute legends
Michael Sheen is an absolute choofing legend, is what he is ❤️
The actor Michael Sheen used all his money to start a fake debt collecting business, buy 900 people in Wales's debt, and excused it. If Musk bought ALL $194 billion in medical debt in the U.S. and excused it in the same way, he'd still be the world's riches man by hundreds of billions of dollars.
Michael Sheen spent his own money to write off $1.3 million of neighbors’ debts | CNN
Actor Michael Sheen has bought $1.3 million of his neighbors’ debts and written them off using $129,000 of his own money.
www.cnn.com
December 21, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Michael Sheen is an absolute choofing legend, is what he is ❤️
I forgot @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social was on here, so I can properly thank him for this now. I so enjoyed it.
I so enjoy Tom Cox's writing and as we celebrate the solstice I owe him a debt of thanks for sharing this video of Tony Hart creating a (mostly) pastel image of Stonehenge. An absolute trip down a time tunnel for those of us in the UK of a certain vintage. I'm sure I was absolutely gripped
1987: TONY HART creates a pastel STONEHENGE | Hartbeat | Children's Television | BBC Archive
YouTube video by BBC Archive
youtu.be
December 21, 2025 at 6:52 PM
I forgot @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social was on here, so I can properly thank him for this now. I so enjoyed it.
At the risk of causing confusion over whether archaeologists do dinosaurs (we don’t), I’m sharing this absolutely brilliant presentation from some of our colleagues who do. Agreed @beccyscottuk.bsky.social there should definitely be more of this 😂 👇
Oh my goodness, YES! Why don't more people write musical covers of their papers??!
'Tis the season for some festive science songs.
If you've ever wanted to hear someone sing about a dimunitive tyranosaur then now is your chance
If you've ever wanted to hear someone sing about a dimunitive tyranosaur then now is your chance
December 21, 2025 at 11:16 AM
At the risk of causing confusion over whether archaeologists do dinosaurs (we don’t), I’m sharing this absolutely brilliant presentation from some of our colleagues who do. Agreed @beccyscottuk.bsky.social there should definitely be more of this 😂 👇
I so enjoy Tom Cox's writing and as we celebrate the solstice I owe him a debt of thanks for sharing this video of Tony Hart creating a (mostly) pastel image of Stonehenge. An absolute trip down a time tunnel for those of us in the UK of a certain vintage. I'm sure I was absolutely gripped
1987: TONY HART creates a pastel STONEHENGE | Hartbeat | Children's Television | BBC Archive
YouTube video by BBC Archive
youtu.be
December 21, 2025 at 11:00 AM
I so enjoy Tom Cox's writing and as we celebrate the solstice I owe him a debt of thanks for sharing this video of Tony Hart creating a (mostly) pastel image of Stonehenge. An absolute trip down a time tunnel for those of us in the UK of a certain vintage. I'm sure I was absolutely gripped
Best winter walks featuring the Malvern Hills and the spectacular Iron Age hillfort, the British Camp. Definitely one of my very happiest of places
‘You can’t beat a wintry walk on a crisp, bright day’: readers’ favourite UK winter activities
From rock pooling in Somerset to stargazing in Northumberland, our readers share their favourite seasonal outdoor activities
www.theguardian.com
December 21, 2025 at 10:52 AM
Best winter walks featuring the Malvern Hills and the spectacular Iron Age hillfort, the British Camp. Definitely one of my very happiest of places
I confess I used to dread the coming of the dark nights for more years than I'd care to admit to. But a bit more maturity has brought me into the orbit of people who have given me an entirely different perspective. One in which the winter solstice is a time to slow down with the world and reflect
December 20, 2025 at 5:46 PM
I confess I used to dread the coming of the dark nights for more years than I'd care to admit to. But a bit more maturity has brought me into the orbit of people who have given me an entirely different perspective. One in which the winter solstice is a time to slow down with the world and reflect
Folklore wisdom from @hookland.bsky.social
Folklore walks. Not just across imagined lines on maps of nations, not just across time itself. Folklore instinctively walks towards landmarks. When stories see a ruin, a notable tomb or impressive tree, they travel towards them to tether themselves in the landscape. – Dr. M. Benn #Folklore
December 20, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Folklore wisdom from @hookland.bsky.social