St Thomas’s Head and the Archaeology of the Mundane

Abstract

ABSTRACTSt Thomas’s Head on the North Somerset coast was a relatively minor military installation particularly used during the Cold War for trialling explosive weapons technology in the Bristol Channel. The development and longevity of its life as a military site was a direct result of two special landscape qualities (physical seclusion and an exceptionally high tidal range), but in contrast the site’s physical fabric consists of the most ordinary, mundane and ephemeral structures and signage. Although recent years have witnessed similarly modern remains being reassessed as heritage, particularly those of industrial and Cold War sites, traditional notions regarding the appreciation of ruins remain a hindrance to their appreciation. The ordinariness of the human landscape on St Thomas’s Head, especially in contrast to its natural qualities, stands as a barrier to understanding it as a product and a reflection of the Cold War and as the working environment of its community of former employees who are commemorated only in the site’s ephemeral, ‘unlovely’ architecture. This article examines how ‘ordinary’ physical remains can be vital for understanding and experiencing a place, in terms of landscape, conflict archaeology and social archaeology.