Monolith Monologue
Created | Updated May 19, 2005
It all started last summer, when we went to Orkney on holiday. The Orkney Islands have some splendid archaeology dating from various ages from Neolithic onwards. Amongst the remains are a whole collection of hut circles, standing stones and stone circles. There are also some really good chambered cairn tombs. As I wasn't sure about the logic of constructing a chambered cairn tomb in the garden (and altering my will to ensure that suitable rituals were performed as I was interred in it) I decided on several spurs of moments that what we really needed in the garden was a standing stone.
Thus the monolith project was born.
The initial conceptual designs were created (drawn in beer with a finger on a pub table) and submitted to the higher design authority. Light-of-my-life was eventually persuaded, but only once I assured her that she could have some say in siting the monolith in the garden.
The materials of construction, I reasoned, should ideally be local. Slate was one option, local granite another, but on balance I decided that St Bees red sandstone would be the ideal. This also met with a grunt of qualified approval from the planning and siting authority person. (I think she just thought I was being stupid, and that if she humoured me for a while the idea would fairly soon go away). I toyed with the idea of foraging on the beach for a suitably eroded piece of rock that would look well ancient, but this presented some difficulties. The main difficulty would be transport from the beach to home, and the secondary difficulty was that whilst there were some really nice stone features on the beach (mainly slightly north of Nethertown, between here & St Bees), it would be sodding difficult to procure a suitable sized & shaped lump without doing some serious drilling, chiselling or demolition work on the beach. Transport along, and off, the beach would also be quite tricky.... and potentially expensive. I was sure the mondeo suspension wouldn't be up to it. I did go and walk the beach a couple of times with my number one monolith selection assistant, to look for the ideal piece, but the dog seemed much more interested in seaweed and dead things instead.
Next option for monolith procurement was to get a rock from a quarry. The Moorhouses business at Bigrigg does a fine line in St Bees sandstone pieces, and also has it's own quarry. (I understand that they currently have a big contract exporting St Bees sandstone in machined pieces for building renovation somewhere in Canada.)
There's a bit of a digression here... Light-of-my-life wanted to order a standing stone from a catalogue. "Monoliths 'R us" maybe. I had this vision of the Next van arriving outside (as it frequently does) and a pocket-sized monolith being left on the doorstep because we were out. Light-of-my-life also suggested that we look up "monolith supply uk" on Google and see if there was a monolith supplier out there somewhere. Light-of-my-life did look. She assures me that there is, on the world-wide web, a monolith supplier. She wanted me to look too... but I didn't, and I haven't, and I (probably) won't. It somehow didn't fit my aesthetic and romantic monolith vision if Amazon deliver a lump of stone wrapped in a couple of jiffy bags. I also suspected that it would need more than a couple of quid postage: never mind the cost of actually buying the stone (carefully selected for you from the sun-kissed sands of an exotic foreign shore). And it would probably come from Barnsley or somewhere. Worse still, it could be a foreign monolith. There was also another idea that had some attraction for a few moments...... which is a bit of a digression within this digression (Bear with me).
On a previous holiday years ago, I took a couple of the kids camping on Skye. I think it was Hannah & Alastair, with a tent and the jolly red bus. Alastair must have been about eight or ten. It rained a lot and was misty. On one occasion we went right to one tip of the island to look at the cliffs, and the view, and the lighthouse. It had to be done. One bizarre thing was that close to the small cottages at the foot of the lighthouse was a graveyard where, whilst there were several gravestones, maybe 20 or so, there were only about 6 styles of headstone, and each stone of each style was absolutely 100% identical.... even down to the names and details written on the stone. Spooky. There was also a notice board beside this small fenced-off graveyard which gave us the history. Apparently the graveyard had been created a few months previously for a film scene, and the graves weren't real graves, the names were all fictitious (.....any resemblance to living or real deceased persons is accidental and not intentional, so please don't be upset or sue us....). Closer inspection of the gravestones showed that they were all fibreglass, and hollow. The film was called "Breaking the Waves" about some woman who lives on a Scottish island, who marries a fisherman, who is away a lot, and she gets a bit loose.... We did rent it and watched it. It wasn't especially good, and, if the graveyard featured in the film at all, then I must have missed it. The link here of course, is that it might just be possible to have a huge, but lightweight, monolith carefully moulded from fibreglass or something. I then had visions of not just a monolith, but a large dolmen, a stepped pyramid, possibly a small henge. (I also decided that if no-one was already running a fibreglass reproduction archaeology business, then maybe I might just start. I reckon that I could persuade you American types to fork out considerable numbers of your dollars for reproduction Stonehenges, real honest-to-god surplus lengths of Hadrians wall, genuine (but lightweight) Roman bath houses, and portable Neolithic chambered cairns where their pet's remains will never ever be subject to decay due to the focussing of the energy in the Ley Lines along which it can be aligned with the built in compass and digital Ley-Line detector... maybe Amazon will distribute them for me. )
Anyway, I decided that this was all a splendid idea, but fibreglass just wouldn't do, and the stone had to be local-ish. There was also some macho ideal of harnessing well-oiled slaves to the ropes wound from the hair of virgins, and having Ginger Baker beating the huge drum fashioned from the belly skin of white wolves, whilst the slaves grunt and tug in Unison. (Unison being the slaves trade union which campaigns for their rights, and an irksome loincloth allowance.)
I realise in looking back at this that one thing missing from this diatribe so far is any idea of scale. Well, I wanted a big one. Once erect, (fnarr, fnarr), it had to be taller than me.
So, now you have the scope of the project.... here goes......
In September last year, after coming back from Orkney, the weather was pretty dry. So I went up to the Moorhouses depot at Bigrigg and asked the nice chap in the office if they had any spare monoliths lying about. At first he thought I wanted a shaped and machined piece, and I could see the glint of financial profit registering in his eyeballs. He thought I was a bit odd, but after a few minutes explanation, he got the idea, and directed me to the spoil heap at the back of the yard. I spent a happy half-hour clambering about on heaps of stone, narrowing down the choices. Eventually I settled on a splendid piece: about 11 or 12 feet tall, and about 30 inch by 18 inch cross section. (See how generously old-fashioned American I can make the units). It narrowed quite a lot at the top, but that gave it character. With some trepidation I asked the guy how much he wanted for the stone, and my second question would have been about delivery prices. His first question was where did I want it?... and then suggested £25 delivered. I thought that was really good (bloody amazing), and failed to haggle at all. The only issue here was that he would bring it on his trailer, but it was up to me to arrange to get it off the trailer at my end.
With the aid of two cans of lager and a calculator, I worked out that the lump of stone must weigh somewhere around three-quarters of a ton, possibly slightly more. The next move was to talk to John-the-farmer about the load capacity of the forks on the front of his tractor, and if he'd be willing to wear the oiled loincloth. He was amused too.
So the magic day arrived, I spilt the blood of a chicken, and watched with immense pride & pleasure as the monolith was delivered onto two bits of wood on the drive. At last I owned a monolith worthy of the name, albeit horizontal, and not yet connected to the ley lines.
There were a couple of last minute haggling matches over the precise siting of the stone, but I did manage to ensure that it would be lined up between St Bees Head, and the rising sun on the longest day, and then I dug the hole. I reckoned that the hole allowed about 3 inches all round, and was about 3ft deep. It was a really satisfying rectangular hole, cleanly cut into the turf: a very nice hole indeed.
I then spent a while borrowing the monolith moving gear. This included
** Big bits of wood
** More big & long bits of wood for levers
** round bits of wood for rollers
** small shiny bits of wood because they look nice
** some rope
** some riggers slings
** a couple of crowbars
** a turfer (explanation required? A sort of mechanical levering pulling thing)
** loincloths in various sizes
** a couple of car jacks
Using differential calculus I had determined that the number of slaves required approximated the population of a small Pacific island, and the task of moving the monolith was put off a few times. Eventually, armed with courage, a sunny day, and two sons, we decided to make the move. We managed to jack & lever the stone onto rollers and gradually shoved & pulled it onto the lawn. Achieving movement across the lawn was a major milestone: I wasn’t sure that we would manage it, but we did. We managed to grunt & swear quite effectively too. Next big achievement was in realising that we could turn corners using the levers, and levering whilst we shoved or pulled. I kept having visions of the old school text book pictures of ancient Egyptians in head-dresses moving stones around the desert. We had to do some forwards & backwards manoeuvres to get the stone around the end of the garage and lined up with the hole (real three-point turns with a monolith!) , and the mode of transport did highlight the unevenness of the lawn…… but eventually we got there, with the stone perfectly lined up with the hole and almost ready for the tricky bit of raising it to the vertical. I reasoned that we might really need another boxfull of slaves to achieve erectness, so at this point I was quite happy to sit on the monolith, ruminate a while, and drink beer.
I did just say “almost” ready for raising to vertical. The base of the monolith (M1) is rectangular (~0.6m x 0.4m maybe (slipping back to real units here)), so naturally the hole was also rectangular, with some allowance for fit. The only trouble was that the orientation of the monolith on its side was not right for our approach to the hole. We had two choices: either several more monolith three-pointers and approach the hole from one of the other sides, or turn the stone over a quarter-roll. We decided on the second option, and there was good reason for that choice. Approaching the hole from the other side would have meant less room for the necessary ropes, anchors and other tackle for the big job of the transfer from horizontal to vertical. So we happily set about to turn the stone onto it’s back. It wasn’t actually too difficult, we were pretty adept with the levers and things by then…. The only trouble was that as it landed on its back, about the top third of the monolith broke off. It was a bit of a pisser as they say in the vernacular. (Vernacular: mountainous region of southern Spain where they drink dark red wine & shag goats).
There was a pause at this point.
I was cross. The kids were highly amused.
There was a debate (amongst others, I wasn’t taking part) that the monolith had now become a polylith, but that the bottom biggest bit would do just as well, and furthermore would now be easier to raise to the vertical. However, I have my pride, I’d quickly sussed out that this remaining monolith was damaged, and had lost all it’s earthy powers. More importantly, once stuck in the hole, it would fail against the base criteria by being shorter than me.
So whilst the frenzy was still upon us, and the knowledge was still with us, I whipped the slaves back into action and moved and installed the biggest part of monolith 1 (M1) onto a couple of minor sandstone supports next to the pond. It makes a very attractive garden bench next to the pond, and it definitely doesn’t blow over when it gets windy. The smaller part of M1 has been installed, on it’s side and partially buried, in a flowerbed where it looks like bedrock, or a big stepping stone.
So we needed another stone to fill the hole. However, time being what it is, and Cumbrian weather occasionally being inclement, the summer dry spell came to an end. We had a very pleasing hole in the lawn where, especially after it rained, I would occasionally find frogs trapped in the bottom. One innovation became the frog-ladder. Another game was to tempt the poor dog with a ball or stick, and see if you could trick her into falling into it. Light-of-my-life sometimes mentioned the hole, and I tried not to sulk.
By the start of spring 2003, we still had the hole (I could admit falling into it maybe just once whilst cutting the lawn), and I still had the urge for a monolith (M2). The weather in March was dry, Easter was looming, and I felt drawn to those stone heaps at Bigrigg.
I took a couple of extra days off before Easter, and spent another morning clambering over the Bigrigg monolith mines with my dowsing rods, trying to feel the energies. Ultimately I found just the thing. I recognised M2 just as soon as I saw it. It was a more delicately formed stone than the first bruiser, about the same height, but a smaller cross section. I examined it anxiously for flaws, and decided it would do. With a bit of negotiation at the office, I reminded them that the last one had cost me £20, so this one should too, and the deal was done.
M2 was delivered the very next day (happy Thursday!) to the same spot on the drive from where M1 had started its inauspicious journey. It was a slightly harder job raising enthusiasm amongst the slave team for this second round, but they were encouraged by the presence of the Aussie fellow (daughter’s boyfriend), and M2 began the roller and lever journey.
With some small luck (rather than actual forethought and planning) I had avoided the difficulty encountered last time. M2 was delivered to the drive with widest face at top & bottom, whereas M1 had been delivered with narrowest face at top & bottom. So we very happily manoeuvred M2 up to the hole. It went a lot quicker than M1 had done. I reckon that M2 would be maybe two-thirds the weight of M1 which helped: the rest I put down to our monolith moving experience. So in little time, we had M2 perfectly lined up with the hole, ready for the next stage.
I must admit to having some hazy ideas about erection of half-tonne monoliths from horizontal to vertical. Some of the ideas involved tractors with front-loaders. I recalled history picture-books illustrations of slaves, head-dresses, and huge earth ramps. I wasn’t sure that Light-of-my-life would approve the ramp, and I wasn’t into head-dresses. Instead I had a collection of sawn up lumps of railway sleepers, some big concrete blocks, a couple of car jacks, and the coalhouse door.
You will recall that we used to have a coalhouse. It was described on our house deeds as a stone-built pigsty (though we never had pigs in it). We used it as a coal store when we had a need for coal. We (#1 son & I) demolished the coalhouse when the extension was built. In the best possible hoarding traditions I saved the coalhouse door in the full knowledge that it would one day come in useful for someone struggling with his erection. On one side it was painted white, on the other it was black (probably the coal). Best of all, it was jolly sturdy.
We reassessed the risk assessment, and the work safety plan, and began the task. By an iterative process of jacking and moving concrete blocks into position we lifted one end. Eventually we had the coalhouse door in position underneath the stone, with the rollers ensuring that the stone was always supported as the top end was jacked, and the door lifted onto more supporting blocks. (I was quite pleased with this elegant arrangement: it worked really well).
Over maybe an hour, we lifted M2 from horizontal up to approaching 45 degrees. The bottom end of the stone was starting to slip into the hole very nicely, though possibly too far over the hole at this point. I reckoned a little more lifting and we (4 of us) would simply be able to shove the thing up. The problem started when one of the slaves overstepped his bounds by looking at the previously un-inspected underside of the stone. (The stone was delivered, and had been moved, the same way up as it had been lying at the Bigrigg monolith mines). “Here Dad,” he said “what are those wires dangling from under the stone?”.
I had a look. One red, one yellow wire, about 6 inch long and twisted together with bared copper ends. They disappeared into a (now) very obvious cleanly bored hole on the underside of the stone. The hole would be about 2 inch diameter. “It must be for the dynamite from the quarry.” I said. When I turned around the slave workforce had fled.
Bastards. I think whole ethnic villages in the upper Nile region would be wiped out for less than that. It had been trailered from Bigrigg, and we’d managed to shove the thing across the lawn, with levering, banging and sweating, and it hadn’t gone off. Surely a little more lifting wouldn’t hurt? Eventually, but only after shouting and foot stamping (mine), I persuaded the workforce that they could at least ensure that the stone was stable. So with a bit more jacking, and a lot of shoving, we did get the stone base reasonably well into the hole, with the bottom end right up against one side of the hole, and the stone leaning against the top of the hole on the other side. Since the hole was carefully engineered for the bigger-based M1, the stone was now just about stable, but leaning over at maybe 20-30 degrees from the vertical. The slaves all buggered off again, and I packed the remaining area of the hole with bricks, bits of railway sleeper and wood, and propped the top end.
The next day was Good Friday, so I couldn’t contact the monolith suppliers about the unexploded nature of the monolith until the following Tuesday. When I did eventually manage to get someone at the Bigrigg office on the phone, they said they were only there to pick up some paperwork, and there would not be anyone else in for a week since they were all on holiday. Super.
They thought it was hilarious at work…… “Has it gone off yet?”
I actually got to quite like the leaning nature of the monolith, but it wasn’t perfect yet. I also started to wonder about lowering monoliths back to horizontal. I hadn’t figured this in my thinking at all. I had just about decided that the only way would be to drill, saw, or cut it in half… or maybe just explode it where it stood.
Sometime over the next week it rained, and then something else became clear. The hole with the wires dangling out actually went right through the stone. I was only now that the stone had got wet that I could see it on the top side. Interestingly, I have since confirmed with someone who knows all about these things, that explosives for quarrying are packed into holes in the stone using a gloopy glue stuff mixed with the fines from the hole drilling. Hence the hole packing is exactly the same colour as the stone itself. A couple of weeks went by. I kept putting off ringing the Bigrigg crowd. When I realised that the hole went right through, I had decided (convinced myself) that there was nothing to “go off”. Instead I gradually started scratching away the clay-like hole filling. Quite quickly I found the ends of the wires on the topmost side and they had the remains of what was (presumably) a detonator cap. Eventually, I scraped right the way though the hole, and pulled the wires out. At this point I realised that this was meant to be: I had a monolith with a hole! I could line it up with the setting sun and the solstice; identify the star in the sky where all life originated; determine in which direction lies the holy grail; regain my hair on my head by spitting right through it (I have tried this, and I can’t); and listen to the sounds of mother earth complaining about hippies by putting my ear to it. M2 was going to be the best monolith ever. Even those in Orkney didn’t (I think) have holes through them. The only slight problem remaining was attaining the vertical orientation.
The enthusiasm of the two remaining slaves seemed to have gone. Light-of-my-life didn’t seem to care. I kicked the props out just to prove it wouldn’t fall over (and worried). Jamie insisted on a written Method Statement before assisting in further attempts at hoisting the stone towards the vertical. A couple more weeks went by and the slaves used the leaning monolith as a cricket wicket.
I did devise a plan, and borrowed the turfer again and some hefty ropes. Using sound simple engineering principles of levers and things, I worked out where I needed, and how I could make, a ground anchor, and then where the pull should be applied. Then I tied lots of ropes to lots of things… including a bit around the top of the monolith and (whispering minor incantations) gradually turfed the thing up a few degrees. Then I jammed it from behind, rerigged all the ropes, and turfed a few more degrees. One more time and it was almost vertical. Ultimately I insisted the slave team leave the TV set, and help for the last bit. We even used a spirit level to check for vertical-ness in the end. Once vertical it was fairly easy to balance, so we did whilst we fired up the cement mixer, poured some good concrete around the base, and puddled it in.
The final act was a couple of days afterwards when I located the turf I had cut out of the lawn the previous September, and fitted bits around the monolith base. It looks really good. Even Light-of-my-life says so…. and it is taller than me.
M2 has one flat saw-cut face, so the next game will be carving the runes. I haven’t worked out exactly how to do that yet, nor worked out the script other than the first three lines:
M2
MV
MMIV
Thus the monolith project was born.
The initial conceptual designs were created (drawn in beer with a finger on a pub table) and submitted to the higher design authority. Light-of-my-life was eventually persuaded, but only once I assured her that she could have some say in siting the monolith in the garden.
The materials of construction, I reasoned, should ideally be local. Slate was one option, local granite another, but on balance I decided that St Bees red sandstone would be the ideal. This also met with a grunt of qualified approval from the planning and siting authority person. (I think she just thought I was being stupid, and that if she humoured me for a while the idea would fairly soon go away). I toyed with the idea of foraging on the beach for a suitably eroded piece of rock that would look well ancient, but this presented some difficulties. The main difficulty would be transport from the beach to home, and the secondary difficulty was that whilst there were some really nice stone features on the beach (mainly slightly north of Nethertown, between here & St Bees), it would be sodding difficult to procure a suitable sized & shaped lump without doing some serious drilling, chiselling or demolition work on the beach. Transport along, and off, the beach would also be quite tricky.... and potentially expensive. I was sure the mondeo suspension wouldn't be up to it. I did go and walk the beach a couple of times with my number one monolith selection assistant, to look for the ideal piece, but the dog seemed much more interested in seaweed and dead things instead.
Next option for monolith procurement was to get a rock from a quarry. The Moorhouses business at Bigrigg does a fine line in St Bees sandstone pieces, and also has it's own quarry. (I understand that they currently have a big contract exporting St Bees sandstone in machined pieces for building renovation somewhere in Canada.)
There's a bit of a digression here... Light-of-my-life wanted to order a standing stone from a catalogue. "Monoliths 'R us" maybe. I had this vision of the Next van arriving outside (as it frequently does) and a pocket-sized monolith being left on the doorstep because we were out. Light-of-my-life also suggested that we look up "monolith supply uk" on Google and see if there was a monolith supplier out there somewhere. Light-of-my-life did look. She assures me that there is, on the world-wide web, a monolith supplier. She wanted me to look too... but I didn't, and I haven't, and I (probably) won't. It somehow didn't fit my aesthetic and romantic monolith vision if Amazon deliver a lump of stone wrapped in a couple of jiffy bags. I also suspected that it would need more than a couple of quid postage: never mind the cost of actually buying the stone (carefully selected for you from the sun-kissed sands of an exotic foreign shore). And it would probably come from Barnsley or somewhere. Worse still, it could be a foreign monolith. There was also another idea that had some attraction for a few moments...... which is a bit of a digression within this digression (Bear with me).
On a previous holiday years ago, I took a couple of the kids camping on Skye. I think it was Hannah & Alastair, with a tent and the jolly red bus. Alastair must have been about eight or ten. It rained a lot and was misty. On one occasion we went right to one tip of the island to look at the cliffs, and the view, and the lighthouse. It had to be done. One bizarre thing was that close to the small cottages at the foot of the lighthouse was a graveyard where, whilst there were several gravestones, maybe 20 or so, there were only about 6 styles of headstone, and each stone of each style was absolutely 100% identical.... even down to the names and details written on the stone. Spooky. There was also a notice board beside this small fenced-off graveyard which gave us the history. Apparently the graveyard had been created a few months previously for a film scene, and the graves weren't real graves, the names were all fictitious (.....any resemblance to living or real deceased persons is accidental and not intentional, so please don't be upset or sue us....). Closer inspection of the gravestones showed that they were all fibreglass, and hollow. The film was called "Breaking the Waves" about some woman who lives on a Scottish island, who marries a fisherman, who is away a lot, and she gets a bit loose.... We did rent it and watched it. It wasn't especially good, and, if the graveyard featured in the film at all, then I must have missed it. The link here of course, is that it might just be possible to have a huge, but lightweight, monolith carefully moulded from fibreglass or something. I then had visions of not just a monolith, but a large dolmen, a stepped pyramid, possibly a small henge. (I also decided that if no-one was already running a fibreglass reproduction archaeology business, then maybe I might just start. I reckon that I could persuade you American types to fork out considerable numbers of your dollars for reproduction Stonehenges, real honest-to-god surplus lengths of Hadrians wall, genuine (but lightweight) Roman bath houses, and portable Neolithic chambered cairns where their pet's remains will never ever be subject to decay due to the focussing of the energy in the Ley Lines along which it can be aligned with the built in compass and digital Ley-Line detector... maybe Amazon will distribute them for me. )
Anyway, I decided that this was all a splendid idea, but fibreglass just wouldn't do, and the stone had to be local-ish. There was also some macho ideal of harnessing well-oiled slaves to the ropes wound from the hair of virgins, and having Ginger Baker beating the huge drum fashioned from the belly skin of white wolves, whilst the slaves grunt and tug in Unison. (Unison being the slaves trade union which campaigns for their rights, and an irksome loincloth allowance.)
I realise in looking back at this that one thing missing from this diatribe so far is any idea of scale. Well, I wanted a big one. Once erect, (fnarr, fnarr), it had to be taller than me.
So, now you have the scope of the project.... here goes......
In September last year, after coming back from Orkney, the weather was pretty dry. So I went up to the Moorhouses depot at Bigrigg and asked the nice chap in the office if they had any spare monoliths lying about. At first he thought I wanted a shaped and machined piece, and I could see the glint of financial profit registering in his eyeballs. He thought I was a bit odd, but after a few minutes explanation, he got the idea, and directed me to the spoil heap at the back of the yard. I spent a happy half-hour clambering about on heaps of stone, narrowing down the choices. Eventually I settled on a splendid piece: about 11 or 12 feet tall, and about 30 inch by 18 inch cross section. (See how generously old-fashioned American I can make the units). It narrowed quite a lot at the top, but that gave it character. With some trepidation I asked the guy how much he wanted for the stone, and my second question would have been about delivery prices. His first question was where did I want it?... and then suggested £25 delivered. I thought that was really good (bloody amazing), and failed to haggle at all. The only issue here was that he would bring it on his trailer, but it was up to me to arrange to get it off the trailer at my end.
With the aid of two cans of lager and a calculator, I worked out that the lump of stone must weigh somewhere around three-quarters of a ton, possibly slightly more. The next move was to talk to John-the-farmer about the load capacity of the forks on the front of his tractor, and if he'd be willing to wear the oiled loincloth. He was amused too.
So the magic day arrived, I spilt the blood of a chicken, and watched with immense pride & pleasure as the monolith was delivered onto two bits of wood on the drive. At last I owned a monolith worthy of the name, albeit horizontal, and not yet connected to the ley lines.
There were a couple of last minute haggling matches over the precise siting of the stone, but I did manage to ensure that it would be lined up between St Bees Head, and the rising sun on the longest day, and then I dug the hole. I reckoned that the hole allowed about 3 inches all round, and was about 3ft deep. It was a really satisfying rectangular hole, cleanly cut into the turf: a very nice hole indeed.
I then spent a while borrowing the monolith moving gear. This included
** Big bits of wood
** More big & long bits of wood for levers
** round bits of wood for rollers
** small shiny bits of wood because they look nice
** some rope
** some riggers slings
** a couple of crowbars
** a turfer (explanation required? A sort of mechanical levering pulling thing)
** loincloths in various sizes
** a couple of car jacks
Using differential calculus I had determined that the number of slaves required approximated the population of a small Pacific island, and the task of moving the monolith was put off a few times. Eventually, armed with courage, a sunny day, and two sons, we decided to make the move. We managed to jack & lever the stone onto rollers and gradually shoved & pulled it onto the lawn. Achieving movement across the lawn was a major milestone: I wasn’t sure that we would manage it, but we did. We managed to grunt & swear quite effectively too. Next big achievement was in realising that we could turn corners using the levers, and levering whilst we shoved or pulled. I kept having visions of the old school text book pictures of ancient Egyptians in head-dresses moving stones around the desert. We had to do some forwards & backwards manoeuvres to get the stone around the end of the garage and lined up with the hole (real three-point turns with a monolith!) , and the mode of transport did highlight the unevenness of the lawn…… but eventually we got there, with the stone perfectly lined up with the hole and almost ready for the tricky bit of raising it to the vertical. I reasoned that we might really need another boxfull of slaves to achieve erectness, so at this point I was quite happy to sit on the monolith, ruminate a while, and drink beer.
I did just say “almost” ready for raising to vertical. The base of the monolith (M1) is rectangular (~0.6m x 0.4m maybe (slipping back to real units here)), so naturally the hole was also rectangular, with some allowance for fit. The only trouble was that the orientation of the monolith on its side was not right for our approach to the hole. We had two choices: either several more monolith three-pointers and approach the hole from one of the other sides, or turn the stone over a quarter-roll. We decided on the second option, and there was good reason for that choice. Approaching the hole from the other side would have meant less room for the necessary ropes, anchors and other tackle for the big job of the transfer from horizontal to vertical. So we happily set about to turn the stone onto it’s back. It wasn’t actually too difficult, we were pretty adept with the levers and things by then…. The only trouble was that as it landed on its back, about the top third of the monolith broke off. It was a bit of a pisser as they say in the vernacular. (Vernacular: mountainous region of southern Spain where they drink dark red wine & shag goats).
There was a pause at this point.
I was cross. The kids were highly amused.
There was a debate (amongst others, I wasn’t taking part) that the monolith had now become a polylith, but that the bottom biggest bit would do just as well, and furthermore would now be easier to raise to the vertical. However, I have my pride, I’d quickly sussed out that this remaining monolith was damaged, and had lost all it’s earthy powers. More importantly, once stuck in the hole, it would fail against the base criteria by being shorter than me.
So whilst the frenzy was still upon us, and the knowledge was still with us, I whipped the slaves back into action and moved and installed the biggest part of monolith 1 (M1) onto a couple of minor sandstone supports next to the pond. It makes a very attractive garden bench next to the pond, and it definitely doesn’t blow over when it gets windy. The smaller part of M1 has been installed, on it’s side and partially buried, in a flowerbed where it looks like bedrock, or a big stepping stone.
So we needed another stone to fill the hole. However, time being what it is, and Cumbrian weather occasionally being inclement, the summer dry spell came to an end. We had a very pleasing hole in the lawn where, especially after it rained, I would occasionally find frogs trapped in the bottom. One innovation became the frog-ladder. Another game was to tempt the poor dog with a ball or stick, and see if you could trick her into falling into it. Light-of-my-life sometimes mentioned the hole, and I tried not to sulk.
By the start of spring 2003, we still had the hole (I could admit falling into it maybe just once whilst cutting the lawn), and I still had the urge for a monolith (M2). The weather in March was dry, Easter was looming, and I felt drawn to those stone heaps at Bigrigg.
I took a couple of extra days off before Easter, and spent another morning clambering over the Bigrigg monolith mines with my dowsing rods, trying to feel the energies. Ultimately I found just the thing. I recognised M2 just as soon as I saw it. It was a more delicately formed stone than the first bruiser, about the same height, but a smaller cross section. I examined it anxiously for flaws, and decided it would do. With a bit of negotiation at the office, I reminded them that the last one had cost me £20, so this one should too, and the deal was done.
M2 was delivered the very next day (happy Thursday!) to the same spot on the drive from where M1 had started its inauspicious journey. It was a slightly harder job raising enthusiasm amongst the slave team for this second round, but they were encouraged by the presence of the Aussie fellow (daughter’s boyfriend), and M2 began the roller and lever journey.
With some small luck (rather than actual forethought and planning) I had avoided the difficulty encountered last time. M2 was delivered to the drive with widest face at top & bottom, whereas M1 had been delivered with narrowest face at top & bottom. So we very happily manoeuvred M2 up to the hole. It went a lot quicker than M1 had done. I reckon that M2 would be maybe two-thirds the weight of M1 which helped: the rest I put down to our monolith moving experience. So in little time, we had M2 perfectly lined up with the hole, ready for the next stage.
I must admit to having some hazy ideas about erection of half-tonne monoliths from horizontal to vertical. Some of the ideas involved tractors with front-loaders. I recalled history picture-books illustrations of slaves, head-dresses, and huge earth ramps. I wasn’t sure that Light-of-my-life would approve the ramp, and I wasn’t into head-dresses. Instead I had a collection of sawn up lumps of railway sleepers, some big concrete blocks, a couple of car jacks, and the coalhouse door.
You will recall that we used to have a coalhouse. It was described on our house deeds as a stone-built pigsty (though we never had pigs in it). We used it as a coal store when we had a need for coal. We (#1 son & I) demolished the coalhouse when the extension was built. In the best possible hoarding traditions I saved the coalhouse door in the full knowledge that it would one day come in useful for someone struggling with his erection. On one side it was painted white, on the other it was black (probably the coal). Best of all, it was jolly sturdy.
We reassessed the risk assessment, and the work safety plan, and began the task. By an iterative process of jacking and moving concrete blocks into position we lifted one end. Eventually we had the coalhouse door in position underneath the stone, with the rollers ensuring that the stone was always supported as the top end was jacked, and the door lifted onto more supporting blocks. (I was quite pleased with this elegant arrangement: it worked really well).
Over maybe an hour, we lifted M2 from horizontal up to approaching 45 degrees. The bottom end of the stone was starting to slip into the hole very nicely, though possibly too far over the hole at this point. I reckoned a little more lifting and we (4 of us) would simply be able to shove the thing up. The problem started when one of the slaves overstepped his bounds by looking at the previously un-inspected underside of the stone. (The stone was delivered, and had been moved, the same way up as it had been lying at the Bigrigg monolith mines). “Here Dad,” he said “what are those wires dangling from under the stone?”.
I had a look. One red, one yellow wire, about 6 inch long and twisted together with bared copper ends. They disappeared into a (now) very obvious cleanly bored hole on the underside of the stone. The hole would be about 2 inch diameter. “It must be for the dynamite from the quarry.” I said. When I turned around the slave workforce had fled.
Bastards. I think whole ethnic villages in the upper Nile region would be wiped out for less than that. It had been trailered from Bigrigg, and we’d managed to shove the thing across the lawn, with levering, banging and sweating, and it hadn’t gone off. Surely a little more lifting wouldn’t hurt? Eventually, but only after shouting and foot stamping (mine), I persuaded the workforce that they could at least ensure that the stone was stable. So with a bit more jacking, and a lot of shoving, we did get the stone base reasonably well into the hole, with the bottom end right up against one side of the hole, and the stone leaning against the top of the hole on the other side. Since the hole was carefully engineered for the bigger-based M1, the stone was now just about stable, but leaning over at maybe 20-30 degrees from the vertical. The slaves all buggered off again, and I packed the remaining area of the hole with bricks, bits of railway sleeper and wood, and propped the top end.
The next day was Good Friday, so I couldn’t contact the monolith suppliers about the unexploded nature of the monolith until the following Tuesday. When I did eventually manage to get someone at the Bigrigg office on the phone, they said they were only there to pick up some paperwork, and there would not be anyone else in for a week since they were all on holiday. Super.
They thought it was hilarious at work…… “Has it gone off yet?”
I actually got to quite like the leaning nature of the monolith, but it wasn’t perfect yet. I also started to wonder about lowering monoliths back to horizontal. I hadn’t figured this in my thinking at all. I had just about decided that the only way would be to drill, saw, or cut it in half… or maybe just explode it where it stood.
Sometime over the next week it rained, and then something else became clear. The hole with the wires dangling out actually went right through the stone. I was only now that the stone had got wet that I could see it on the top side. Interestingly, I have since confirmed with someone who knows all about these things, that explosives for quarrying are packed into holes in the stone using a gloopy glue stuff mixed with the fines from the hole drilling. Hence the hole packing is exactly the same colour as the stone itself. A couple of weeks went by. I kept putting off ringing the Bigrigg crowd. When I realised that the hole went right through, I had decided (convinced myself) that there was nothing to “go off”. Instead I gradually started scratching away the clay-like hole filling. Quite quickly I found the ends of the wires on the topmost side and they had the remains of what was (presumably) a detonator cap. Eventually, I scraped right the way though the hole, and pulled the wires out. At this point I realised that this was meant to be: I had a monolith with a hole! I could line it up with the setting sun and the solstice; identify the star in the sky where all life originated; determine in which direction lies the holy grail; regain my hair on my head by spitting right through it (I have tried this, and I can’t); and listen to the sounds of mother earth complaining about hippies by putting my ear to it. M2 was going to be the best monolith ever. Even those in Orkney didn’t (I think) have holes through them. The only slight problem remaining was attaining the vertical orientation.
The enthusiasm of the two remaining slaves seemed to have gone. Light-of-my-life didn’t seem to care. I kicked the props out just to prove it wouldn’t fall over (and worried). Jamie insisted on a written Method Statement before assisting in further attempts at hoisting the stone towards the vertical. A couple more weeks went by and the slaves used the leaning monolith as a cricket wicket.
I did devise a plan, and borrowed the turfer again and some hefty ropes. Using sound simple engineering principles of levers and things, I worked out where I needed, and how I could make, a ground anchor, and then where the pull should be applied. Then I tied lots of ropes to lots of things… including a bit around the top of the monolith and (whispering minor incantations) gradually turfed the thing up a few degrees. Then I jammed it from behind, rerigged all the ropes, and turfed a few more degrees. One more time and it was almost vertical. Ultimately I insisted the slave team leave the TV set, and help for the last bit. We even used a spirit level to check for vertical-ness in the end. Once vertical it was fairly easy to balance, so we did whilst we fired up the cement mixer, poured some good concrete around the base, and puddled it in.
The final act was a couple of days afterwards when I located the turf I had cut out of the lawn the previous September, and fitted bits around the monolith base. It looks really good. Even Light-of-my-life says so…. and it is taller than me.
M2 has one flat saw-cut face, so the next game will be carving the runes. I haven’t worked out exactly how to do that yet, nor worked out the script other than the first three lines:
M2
MV
MMIV
