DEGREESTThe Archaeology of Alderley Edge DEGREESD

Readership : Scholars and students interested in archaeometallurgy and the history of European prehistoric mining, and prehistoric Europe more generally.

In 1953 the schoolboy Alan Garner rediscovered a wooden shovel originally found in the Alderley copper mines in 1875. In 1991 he presented it to the Manchester Museum in the University of Manchester: this - and the discovery of a hoard of over 500 Roman coins - inspired the creation of the Alderley Edge Landscape Project, a multi-disciplinary research programme of the Museum and the National Trust, who own of most of the Edge, that aimed to study the entire history of Alderley, from geology to entomology, mining to oral history. No other village has enjoyed such a comprehensive study of its story: the list of chapter-headings reads like a roll-call of everything you ever wanted to know about this or any place. The book concludes with Alan Garner's retelling of the famous legend of the sleeping king, setting a familiar tale told him by his grandfather in a whole other world of prehistoric ritual and sacrifice.

This is the first general history of wells and their religious and cultural associations. The author begins in ancient times, exploring the archetypal motifs present in the cult of water. He then goes on to trace the development of holy wells in England.