18 replies to this topic

[ocd]

hello all

I have to say this annoys the shit out of me - I visit Helman Tor near luxulyan in cornwall on a regular basis, a couple of years ago white painted crosses started appearing painted on the stones all over the site.
These seem to be reproducing - what morons keep painting them there, would they paint them on the side of their homes?
It's a beautiful ancient site that happens to be located near the saints way.
Yesterday there was the addition of racist statements in bright yellow paint all over the stones in 4 or 5 places, and something written in cornish and the cornish coat of arms too.
I suspect the statement said something along the lines of cornwall for the cornish, I only know a minimal amount of the cornish language.
These were written by adults rather than kids and obviously locals - what morons, a massive part of cornwalls economy comes from the holiday trade without it many people would be poor.
What can I do about this?

ocd

[stonecarver]

What is bizarre is that the people who are doing this are ruining their own environment and heritage.

Mind you, hardly surprising... I know of one Cornish PhD student who is enthusing about global warming because then 'Cornwall will be cut-off from England when parts of Devon and Somerset are submerged under the rising seas, and so we Cornish are really pleased with global warming'.

With a mentality like that amongst the supposedly intelligent and educated, it's little onder these idiots are destroying their own heritage too.

Have you any photos of the site ocd?

[ocd]

stonecarver

I didn't have my camera with me, but I'll visit the site in the next week or so and take some snaps.
I have had some trouble posting pictures on this site recently, I think I'm a decade out with my computer literacy.

Some of the grafitti is very racist.


ocd

[ocd]

stonecarver

Just as an aside.
I worked for a number of years in forestry and conservation - near Helman Tor is a site called Breney common and Redmoor.

These are sites that were designated as areas of special scientific interest, when the local farmers found out these two places were going to get this status they tried to put a spanner in the works.
Over the xmas period - xmas eve, xmas day, boxing day they went out and dug a 3-4 feet deep trench for a mile across the land with jcb's in an attempt to drain the land and remove the insect life that was of special interest.

Obviously doing it over xmas ment nobody realised what they did until they'd finished.
Luckily it didn't work they just created a stream instead.
This was over 10 years ago.

It wasn't even their land.

We are just passing through life - what makes people think they can destroy sites that have been here for thousands of years.


ocd

[Cakes]

You can remove the paint. I had good luck removing fresh paint from rock with horticultural oil. by using horticultural oil, you don't damage the moss and stuff growing on rocks. I wrote a thread on it here at the Stone Pages.

or you could use stronger chemicals. like the stuff that is meant to remove paint. or maybe acetone (it evaporates off very cleanly) found in hardware stores and sells for under $20 USD per gallon. gasoline works too. and a scrub brush but it is the scrub brush which will leave marks. it leaves marks because it cleans the stone so well and the clean parts stand out afterward.

if your climate would support it. you can also grow moss or lichen over the paint. Strips of moss are easy to grow at home and then they can be stripped up and laid out/affixed to your transplant surface. Even if it dries out and dies, the brown and golden fur might look better than the paint.

[ocd]

cakes

thanks

ocd

[Nigel]

Cakes, on 15 May 2007, 15:49, said:

You can remove the paint. I had good luck removing fresh paint from rock with horticultural oil. by using horticultural oil, you don't damage the moss and stuff growing on rocks. I wrote a thread on it here at the Stone Pages.

Hi Cakes, interesting stuff.

May I remind UK readers though that the official line here is not to try it yourself but to alert English Heritage or Historic Scotland or CADW and leave it to them?

I've tried to research methods myself, most particularly regarding substances that won't harm lichens, but have drawn a blank amongst lichenologists. EH have done a lot of work on the subject but I don't think they have ever used your method. I'm sure they'd be grateful to hear from you.

[ocd]

I visited Helman Tor this morning and found that someone had tried to remove the graffiti. It's still possible to see the graffiti, which is a shame but hopefully it will fade with time.
The christian graffiti hasn't been touched, as well as painted white crosses in various places there is also a stone that's had a cross carved into it.

Thanks christians very respectful.

I spoke to a man from the council who said the site is privately owned and there is only permissive access only, I may get in touch with cornwall county council aswell.

I was thinking of nipping over to truro cathedral and painting some nice white pictish spirals all over the church - are there any good deals on white paint at B&Q at the moment?

ocd

[Sorayna]

I hope I will visit it someday....

[ocd]

soryana

It's a quite place with few visitors, a good logan stone and lots of cup and bowl marks.

Lots of energy there too

unfortunately the photos I have of the site are too big to get on the forum.

ocd

[Cakes]

You can resize photos in three ways.

You can make the whole photo smaller. You can also lower the number of pixels per square inch. I do those with serif photoplus, it is free here:
http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/

You can crop the photo. I do that with the corel my PC came with but here is info on more free programs:
http://www.consumers...are/review.html

Nigel, on 30 May 2007, 8:05, said:

I've tried to research methods (for paint removal) myself, most particularly regarding substances that won't harm lichens, but have drawn a blank amongst lichenologists. EH have done a lot of work on the subject but I don't think they have ever used your method. I'm sure they'd be grateful to hear from you.

That is real nice research you have been doing, Nigel. and we took your advice and linked EH with that thread here.

[rowan]

I've just found this thread through Google and when I went to register so I could post here I found I was already a member  

Anyway, I live near Helman Tor and am very annoyed about the crosses, and even more so now I read about the racist graffiti - I've not been to the Tor this year so didn't know about it.

I emailed English Heritage some time ago and was also told it was privately owned, but they suggested I write to the  English Heritage Inspector of Ancient Monuments at the regional office in Bristol.  I could not find an email address for them so emailed their Customer Services and asked them to forward the email to the relevant erson. Will post here if/when I get a reply.

I've also just emailed the Environment and Heritage Service of Cornwall County Council http://www.historic-...a2m/aboutus.htm about it.  

How can we find out who owns the Tor?  I'd quite like to write to them too.

I found something a while ago about a local church that has a procession to the Tor every Good Friday carrying a huge wooden cross with them and then holding service at the top, I wonder if they are the graffiti 'artists'?  If I can find the link again I'll post it here.

xxx

PS, Just found this page, very interesting www.cornwallwildlife.org and email on its way to Cornwall Wildlife Trust.

[Pete G]

Hi Rowan,
Ancient monuments inspector is amanda.chadburn@english-heritage.org
Pete

[rowan]

Hello stranger, how's things?!  Thanks for the address, will send email now  

[Pete G]

Hi Rowan,
don't expect a reply anytime soon.
The usual state is that you will get an out of office auto email then a referal email then a third saying EH hope you are happy with the result and that your query has now been resolved...
PeteG