Displaying items by tag: Smeeton
Who Were The Beaker People?
The Bell-Beaker culture, sometimes shortened to Beaker culture, Beaker people, or Beaker folk, c. 2900 – 1800 BC is the term for a widely scattered archaeological culture' of prehistoric western Europe starting in the late Neolithic or Chalcolithic and running into the early Bronze Age. They were called Beaker because of the shape of their pottery vessels.
The Beaker People were farmers and archers were also the first metalsmiths in Britain, working first in copper and gold, and later in bronze, given its name to the Bronze Age.
The Burial Ground.
A burial ground of Beaker People was found in 1975 situated to the south west of Smeeton Westerby on Smeeton Hill The hill is 500 feet high and on the west side of the hill lies the Beaker Burial Ground. No trace of a burial mound is visible on the ground but the situation would be ideal for one.
The site was discovered during drainage excavations work when at one point the contractor had to excavate a hole by hand to replace a broken section of pipe. It was during this work that the burial site was discovered and human bones and pottery were unearthed. The drainage work carried on and the burial site continued to be disturbed and some artefacts were removed although the majority were subsequently recovered.
Leicestershire Museums were notified and on 3rd September 1975 a team from the museum attended the site. They enlarged the hole and discovered a crouched burial. A crouched burial was a new form of burial rite, called the Beaker burial which began to appear around 4700 years ago, the burial is crouched inhumation where the body is interred, usually on its side with the hip and knee joints bent through an angle of more than 90 degrees, accompanied by a particular pottery known as a beaker. The burial was removed to Leicester Museum;
Beaker Close in Smeeton Westerby is a reminder of this important archaeological find.
Written by David Adams
Acknowledgements
R A Rutland, ‘A Beaker Burial at Smeeton Westerby, Leicestershire 1875’
Spoilheap Archaeology
Wikipedia
Mary Ellen ‘Nellie’ Taylor (Suffragette) 1863 - 1937
For 10 years the Taylors (Thomas, Nellie and their three children) lived at Westerby House, Smeeton Westerby.
On March 5th 1910 Nellie Taylor organised a WSPU (The Women's Social and Political Union) meeting in the Kibworth Village Hall when an audience consisting mainly of women listened to speeches by two famous suffragettes, Alice Pemberton-Peake and Dorothy Pethwick. From 1910 to 1912 Dorothy Pethwick was the WSPU organiser in Leicester.
This brief note is about Smeeton Westerby resident Captain Thomas Smithies Taylor (born 5 July 1863), who founded a company that was to dominate lens manufacturing in the inter-war period. Through his camera lenses, the world quite literally saw the twentieth century.