Beaker Button Blog

I get asked a lot why the shop name is Beaker Button, so I thought I'd tell you all here.  Some of you will already know that I have a degree in archaeology.  When I was a child my Dad used to tell my brother and I stories about history and prehistory and I have very strong memories of the Beaker people (nothing to do with The Muppets!)  I also spent nearly 10 years working at Stonehenge and the Beaker people are thought to have built at least one of the phases of Stonehenge.  So who are the Beaker people I hear you ask? In my Dad's version they were a prehistoric people, named for the particular pottery beakers they made, who came to England and duffed up the local Neolithic population.  They built burial mounds, took over ancient monuments and generally lived it up until the next lot (the Celts) came over and duffed them up. Archaeologists, however, think they were a lot more peaceful and that Beaker people integrated well with the local population, helping ...

There was sun today.  You know, the big shiny round thing in the sky that used to come out and brighten the world.  Well it came out today and I decided to make the most of it.  I wanted sea and Mum and Alex are always up for going to the beach so we picked a bit of coast on the map between Milford-on-Sea and Lymington called Keyhaven and headed out with a picnic.  It was a beautiful drive down through the New Forest with ponies, buzzards and trees to look at. As we drove through Milford-on-Sea I spotted an English Heritage sign and we worked out that it must refer to Hurst Castle.  Hurst was originally one of Henry the Eighth's castles.  It sits at the end of a spit of land which you have to walk along to get to it. Hurst Castle and the light house Keyhaven nature reserve seems to be popular with all sorts of people.  We saw kite surfers, walkers with and without dogs and people like us on day trips.  Mum decided to stay in the car and ...