PRESS RELEASES FROM THE DIGGERS AT ST GEORGE'S HILL, WEYBRIDGE

DICTATED AT 13.55 ON 4 APRIL 1999

300 Diggers reposess St George's Hill

On Saturday 3rd April 1999, 300 activists marched to St
George's Hill, Weybridge, Surrey to erect a memorial stone to
The Diggers, 350 years after the initial occupation of this
once common land. Following the rally to the original Diggers
site, the activists marched to a nearby part of the hill to
establish a communal settlement in the spirit of the original
Diggers.  The activists have been negotiating with Saint
George's Hill residents association, Saint George's Hill Golf
Club and North Surrey Water (alleged land owners) in their aim
to erect a memorial stone to commemorate the 350th anniversary
of the historic Diggers encampment.

The handcrafted memorial stone has been temporarily erected on
the newly occupied site and activists have pledged to stay
until a permanent and publically accessible home has been
agreed and established.

The activists have recently become aware that in 1952 land
elsewhere on the hill was donated to Elmbridge Council with
public right of way. However public access to this land has not
been secured. Activists are also questioning the legalities of
original enclosures of common land on Saint George's Hill and
elsewhwere.

Contact: Tony Gosling or Annie Merry 0961 460171.

Background info: www.tlio.demon.co.uk/diggers.htm

There is an acre of land for everyone in Britain. Millions of
homeless, tenants and mortgagees still struggle while the
priviliged 'own' more 'stolen' land than they could ever use.
The Diggers are committed to changing this.

"For action is the life of all, and if thou doest not act, thou
doest nothing' -- Gerrard Winstaley, 1649.



DICTATED AT 19.18 ON 4 APRIL 1999:

A meeting was held this afternoon with Mr Newberry from the
residents association and a representative of the landowners,
North Surrey Water. As a result, North Surrey Water agreed to
donate an appropriate site on the hill for the memorial stone,
subject to access details being finalised with the residents
association. North Surrey Water have accepted the historical
importance of this occupation.

ENDS



DICTATED AT 20.55 ON 5 APRIL:

CAMPAIGNER ATTACKED AT ST GEORGE'S HILL DIGGERS COMMUNITY

Surrey Police are investigating an unprovoked assault that took
place at the Diggers' encampment on the St George's Hill estate.

The incident happened around 4pm on Monday April 5th at the
entrance to the camp. A man known to be a local resident got
out of a black four-wheel drive vehicle and attempted to remove
some information boards at the gate. Mark Brown from the
Diggers camp asked him to stop, and was punched in the face and
knocked to the ground. The man then climbed back into the
vehicle and reversed at high speed towards a group of people by
the entrance to the site. No-one was injured by the vehicle.

This incident is reminiscent of events 350 years earlier when
the original Diggers were attacked by elements of the local
population.

Mr Brown said: "We are here in the spirit of the Diggers but I
never expected history to be repeating itsel so literally."

The camp welcomes visitors. Many local residents have visited
and are supportive but this is the only incident of this type.

Witnesses to the incident included former residents of the
estate Dr Mario Capozzi and Heather Kershaw, now living in
Weybridge [phone number 01932 859553]. Further details can be
obtained from the camp.

Camp contacts: Tony Gosling or Annie Merry 0961 460171.

Background info: www.tlio.demon.co.uk/diggers.htm or www.oneworld.org/tlio

ENDS

MESSAGE ENDS

markibrown@...



------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

The Land Is Ours activists, local residents and many others have taken up
occupation on St George's Hill in Surrey!

We have made an ecovillage amongst the mansions and will stay put until it
is possible for people from near and far to have public access to the Hill
to see the stone we carted up it, commemorating the group who in 1649 made
the first great stand against enclosure and landlordism in UK history.

The site is not only a protest, it is also a celebration of the positive
energy and practicality of a movement that will not lie down.

Please come and join us during the week or at the weekend.

camp mobile: 0961 460171
oxford contact: jon halle: 01865 432920

to get to the camp, go to weybridge station and follow the road along the
railway line on the South side. After about a kilometre you reach a major
t-junction. Turn right and then again right into Old Avenue. The camp is
abut a mile up Old Avenue, which becomes private halfway along. Smile at the
security guards as you pass please, they only get a pittance...

More information up to date:

http:///www.oneworld.org/tlio/diggers/

yours all,

jon halle



***********************************
Jon Halle

for wind generators, eco-links, etc check out:

Low Impact, 38 Cowley Rd, Oxford OX4 1HZ , UK
+1865 432920 http://lowimpact.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

J A Taylor,
Reference telematics & Scottish parliament paper:
http://www.scottish-devolution.org.uk/reports/others/tdi/tdi-00.htm
It has taken many days and numerous emails to find your paper through
the scottish office.  It is not indexed on the scottish office, does not
show on any keyword search i have tried (have not tried external search
engines), finally directed here by CRU, whose indexing ain't very
complete yet, and no crosslinking to speak of on the whole Scottish
office site.  If your paper is said to be (as is the case) 'published by
the scottish office', why is it so damned hard to find? Are you pleased
about such a state of affairs?  Especially considering the topic!

I look forward to reading the paper.  have only scanned the
reccomendations, looks ok.

all the best
ed iglehart
--
Visit the website: http://www.tipiglen.dircon.co.uk/

"To put the bounty and the health of our land, our only commonwealth,
into the hands of
people who do not live on it and share its fate will always be an error.
For whatever
determines the fortune of the land determines also the fortune of the
people.
If history teaches anything, it teaches that."
    -- Wendell Berry (http://www.tipiglen.dircon.co.uk/forward.html)

"Hence it is, that we every Day find Men in Conversation
  contending warmly on some Point in Politicks,
  which, altho' it may nearly concern them both,
  neither of them understand any more than they do each other."
--Benjamin Franklin (1729)
(http://www.tipiglen.dircon.co.uk/benfranklin.html)

Local People, Who Are We?

There are among us those whose ancestors fill the local graves,
And some who have found a home here, and are likely to be buried here,
There are some who have found work here, including
Some whose employers have posted them here.
We are all local people.(http://www.tipiglen.dircon.co.uk/credo.html)

May the present and coming times bring our shared goals closer to
realisation.
May we come to understand and share one another's goals where we do not
already. May the forests and communities grow and prosper together in
the
knowledge that we can create our own circumstances.



------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

Dear all
	 in the first Diggers350 e-newsletter
(27/1/99) mention was made of a play: 'White unto
Harvest'. Despite much searching I can't find any
reference to this (outside the obvious biblical
ones) on any electronic or paper medium, so if
anyone can help with info I'd be much obliged, ta
	 Russell
	 r.j.turner@...



------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

There is an original symbolic center of America marked by the Jefferson
Stone where the North/South line from the center of the White House (the
original U.S. meridian) and the East/West line from the center of the
Capitol intersect.  It was to have been the site for the Obelisk
honoring George Washington but it was too heavy and the Earth would not
support it.  It was put of center.  The original center stands
neglected.  It has been being revived since 1988 in a True Leveler
action (connecting to S.F. digger deeds).  There will be an inauguration
of the resurrected site in the Autumn of 2000.  I see this being
associated with the stone on St. George's Hill.  Let's communicate!
Arthur Lisch

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

Hope this is the right address for this sort of question!

Here in Leicester - various co-operative projects - we're excited about it
being the 350 Diggers anniversary but will find it hard to spare time away
to get to events down south.

Would like to mark it here if possible - were thinking of the idea of
showing the Winstanley film - we have access to a suitable sized venue.
is it possible to borrow a copy on video? At what charge? Any other
media-type resources available?

Hope to hear soon,



Mandy Taverner.


ascltd    (spil98@...)


------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

about fifty press releases have been faxed out to national/local press radio
and tv. more will be sent next monday

if there are any good targets please tell me/them , its been more of a
general release so far.

hopefully steve platts excellent articles will appear in full this week

looking forward now...


jon


------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

Apologies for the delay in posting these articles on Diggers 350. (An
attachment in Word format is provided for them that find that easier.) Since
they don't appear in the relevant publications until Wednesday at the
earliest, please don't distribute them too widely before then!

I am off to Peru for two months from Wednesday (thanks to everyone who's
helped/helping with contacts), so I'll be unsubscribing from the list until my
return. Send me a personal email if you need to get in touch with me. Good
luck with everything.

Steve Platt


DIGGERS THEN AND NOW
STEVE PLATT for GUARDIAN SOCIETY (issue of 24.3.99)

The woman in the white gloves and blue corduroy, who I'd met at the tenth tee
as she walked her dog around the edge of the golf course, was concerned that I
should not divulge her identity. "They wouldn't like it," she cautioned me
distractedly, glancing around nervously as if someone might be spying on her
as we spoke.

"They" were the other residents of what likes to describe itself as one of the
most exclusive private estates in Britain. "It" was the fact that one of their
number was talking to me, an outsider, about the existence of a public
footpath in the very heart of their private domain.

Not even the local council likes to talk about the 20 metre-wide strip of land
in its ownership that runs in a short semi-circular sliver around the north-
eastern ramparts of the ancient hillfort at the summit of St George's Hill,
near Weybridge, Surrey. It's not marked on any maps, nor signposted on the
ground. Parts of it appear to have been appropriated in the gardens of the
adjoining properties. Yet if you look closely for the gap in the hedge where
Caesar's Cottage butts onto Camp End Road (the developers of the hill got
their history wrong; despite the names, this was an iron age fort, not
Caesar's camp), you can trace the beginning of the path as it wends its way
around the foot of the ramparts.

Given to Elmbridge Borough Council in 1952 by the then owners of the estate,
this anonymous strip of land is about as near as St George's Hill gets these
days to the notion of public or common land. Gates and private security guards
bar the main entrances to the estate, on which it is a modest dwelling indeed
that measures its price in less than millions and where the tightest of
planning controls prohibit the construction of any property with less than an
acre of land around it. Recent would-be visitors to the hillfort footpath
report being told that no such public land exists on the estate and being
turned away at its exclusive gates.

But it was not ever thus. Until the developer, W G Tarrant, bought the one and
a half square miles that make up the St George's Hill Estate in 1912, the hill
was a popular centre for walking and other country pursuits. Many of the
rights of way that were extinguished then had previously been in use for
generations. Earlier still, this had been common land, compulsorily enclosed
by Act of Parliament in 1804 by the Duke of York (of nursery rhyme fame). And
earlier again, it had been the setting for probably the most famous land
occupation in English history.

Back in the English revolution, shortly after the beheading of Charles I, the
waste and common land of St George's Hill was squatted by Gerard Winstanley's
Diggers. Billed as "pioneers of communism" in an exhibition now running at the
Elmbridge Museum in Weybridge, they arrived on the site of these modern
millionaires' mansions on 1st April 1649 with the intention "that we may . . .
lay the Foundation of making the Earth a Common Treasury for All, both Rich
and Poor". Three hundred and fifty years later, a rag, tag and bobtail army of
Winstanley's political and spiritual descendants is returning to the hill with
a similar message.

The original Diggers were, for the most part, landless peasants who had fought
in Cromwell's army against the king. Calling themselves "True Levellers" (as
distinct from John Lilburne's less radical Levellers) because of their
rejection of the notion of private property, they came to plough and sow the
earth in common, claiming the untended land they believed to be rightfully
theirs. "Was the Earth made to preserve a few covetous, proud men to live at
ease, and for them to bag and barn up the treasures of the Earth from others,
that these may beg or starve in a fruitful land, or was it made to preserve
all her children?" asked Winstanley in The New Law of Righteousness.
Winstanley's modern-day equivalents share a similar disdain for the
concentration of land ownership in the hands of the few, but a greater
difficulty in raising the land issue to a central position in modern political
discourse. Whereas, right through to the early years of this century, the
question of land ownership was recognised as being key to any programme of
democratic or economic reform, today it is seen rather as a fringe issue.

That will not stop the modern Diggers trying. As part of the 350th anniversary
commemorations, the loose-knit "Diggers 350" campaign group is staging a
"pageant" and march on the hill on the weekend of 3rd April. Provided that the
golf club gives its consent, campaigners intend to erect a Diggers Memorial
Stone on the site before moving on to a long-term land occupation somewhere
nearby. (Participants who feel so inclined are being invited to "come along to
the 3rd April march with sleeping bags, tents and things to plant and grow"
and to "make sure there's someone to feed your cat for a few days".)

Those involved include The Land Is Ours landrights campaign, which first came
to St George's Hill four years ago, when it organised a short-lived squat of
the disused Wisley airfield nearby. The Surrey Herald reported at the time
that residents were "baffled" by their appearance, although the owners of the
golf club declared themselves to be "delighted" by the planting of two trees
on their land. Since then, The Land Is Ours has sharpened its campaigning
teeth with further land actions, including the occupation three years ago of
Guinness's Gargoyle Wharf development site in south London. This spring, in
alliance with campaigners who have come in particular from anti-roads,
squatting and other protest groups, it is promising a week of action leading
up to long-term land occupations in various parts of the country.

The current debate over the "right to roam" and other aspects of countryside
policy has shown how the ownership of land -- dating back in many cases to its
distribution at the time of the Norman Conquest -- remains central to many
important issues. For Diggers 350, these include rights of access to land for
low-cost housing, recreational and community uses, low-impact rural
development, self-sufficient or self-managing communities, permaculture
schemes, travellers sites, sustainable employment projects and much more.

Whether, within such a diversity of interests, there exists the potential to
build a significant land rights movement in Britain remains to be seen. It is
one thing to point out that just 1 per cent of the population owns 75 per cent
of the land; it is quite another matter to get the other 99 per cent to do
anything about it.

But there have been small straws in the land rights wind. Minor victories have
been won, for example, on the rural settlement front, where low-impact rural
developments such as the Tinker's Bubble community in Somerset have secured
(albeit so far only short-term) planning permission for their settlements. The
numbers involved may be small, but Gerard Winstanley's Diggers probably never
totalled more than a couple of hundred at St George's Hill, and Winstanley
himself was never in any doubt about the importance of symbolic actions, even
if a particular occupation of land ended in failure.

"And here I end, having put my Arm as far as my strength will go to advance
Righteousness," he wrote after the final eviction of the Digger communities in
1650. "I have Writ, I have Acted, I have Peace: and now I must wait to see the
Spirit do his own work in the hearts of others, and whether England shall be
the first Land, or some others, wherin Truth shall sit down in triumph."

He would, no doubt, be pleased to note that the Spirit is still doing his work
in some hearts -- and that, if nothing else, a public footpath in the middle
of one of the most exclusive estates in Britain, where once he sought to
plough and sow, is likely to be walked upon by a few more people than usual
next weekend.


The Diggers 350 commemorations include:
Thursday 1st April  Digger discussions and entertainment, 7pm, Weybridge
Library Hall, Church Street, Weybridge
Saturday 3rd April  March and pageant to St George's Hill and placing of
memorial stone, commencing 12.30pm, The Centre, Hepworth Way, Walton-on-
Thames.
Friday 9th - Saturday 10th April  'Hearts and Spades' Diggers conference with
Michael Foot, Weybridge and Walton (Details 01962 827289)
Until 10th April  Exhibition, The Diggers and St George's Hill, Elmbridge
Museum, Church Street, Weybridge



THE DIGGERS AND ST GEORGE'S HILL
STEVE PLATT column for TRIBUNE (issue of 26.3.99)

"To prove a legal title to land," as Lloyd George once said, "one must trace
it back to the man who stole it." One of the modern-day receivers of stolen
property, the Somerset estate holder, Ewen Cameron, was earlier this month
appointed to head the new Countryside Agency -- with responsibility, among
much else, for the introduction of the right to roam on open country.

Before Mr Cameron gets agitated about the fact that he is not among that
landed aristocracy that can trace its ancestry back to the original thieves,
and that he or his forefathers paid good money for his personal country pile,
let's remind ourselves that a stolen video is still a stolen video no matter
how many hands it passes through. And we are all the victims of the crimes
that put the ownership of our land in the hands of such a few. We have a right
to expect that these people repay their debt to society.

That is why, after the huge letdown of the appointment of a recent president
of the Country Landowners Association to oversee public access to mountain,
moor and heath, the news that this access will have some statutory basis came
as such a relief. We have had 50 years of legislation holding out the prospect
of voluntary access agreements, during which those who pinched the land from
the rest of us in the first place have kept their "Private" signs ever more
firmly in place.

If you don't have anything else planned this Easter weekend, you could do
worse than a spot of trespassing on some mountain or moorland that will soon
be open as of right. Alternatively, if you prefer to exercise your brain as
well as your legs on some of the wider issues of land use and ownership, both
today and in the past, you might like to join the motley band of modern-day
Levellers and Diggers who will be assembling at St George's Hill, near
Weybridge, Surrey, on Saturday 3rd April. There they will be marking the 350th
anniversary of the original Diggers' occupation of common land on the hill,
shortly after the beheading of Charles I, when Gerard Winstanley led a group
of mainly landless peasants to plough and sow the waste with the intention
"that we may . . . lay the Foundation of making the Earth a Common Treasury
for All, both Rich and Poor".

"Was the Earth made to preserve a few covetous, proud men to live at ease, and
for them to bag and barn up the treasures of the Earth from others, that these
may beg or starve in a fruitful land, or was it made to preserve all her
children?" asked Winstanley in The New Law of Righteousness. Faced with a
furious and often violent response from the landed interests of their day, the
Digger settlements in Surrey and elsewhere lasted barely a year. But their
belief in common ownership lived on, to the extent that a sympathetic
exhibition now running in the nearby Elmbridge Museum bills the Diggers as the
founders of British socialism and St George's Hill as the "birthplace of
communism".

In one of those ironies that surely prove that fate is not merely capricious
but deliberately cruel, St George's Hill today is one of the most exclusive
private estates in the country. Previously common land, it was stolen from the
rural poor by the (Grand Old) Duke of York by forcible Act of Enclosure in
1804. Today, its 800 acres, complete with élite golf and tennis clubs,
comprise a gated and guarded enclave in which planning rules prohibit the
erection of dwellings that occupy less an acre but did not prevent the
developer in the earlier half of this century from largely destroying one of
the best-preserved iron age hillforts in south east England.

That hillfort, however, at the highest point of the hill, is the site for a
surviving sliver of public land. A 20 metre-wide, crescent-shaped strip, which
follows the line of fort's north-eastern ramparts, it has a footpath along its
400-metre length. No matter what the security guards may tell you at the
estate entrances (and some visitors report them as trying to bar entry to
those who they do not like the look of), this little piece of England belongs
not to the estate or any of its millionaires' mansions, but to the local
council, to which it was donated in 1952.

It is worth a visit, in part because the leafy lanes of St George's Hill,
well-wooded now, quiet and free from the through traffic that tears apart so
much of once-rural Surrey, are as fine a stretch of tarmac as ever you are
likely to see. More, though, it's pleasant to think that the communal spirit
of Winstanley still stalks this private realm. "I have Writ, I have Acted, I
have Peace," he wrote after the final eviction of the Digger communities in
1650. "And now I must wait to see the Spirit do his own work in the hearts of
others, and whether England shall be the first Land, or some others, wherin
Truth shall sit down in triumph."

**************************************************

Walk a while with the spirit of Winstanley at St George's Hill on Saturday 3rd
April. March, pageant and placing of memorial stone, meet 12.30, The Centre,
Hepworth Way, Walton-on-Thames (details 01865 722016). Also "Hearts and
Spades" Diggers conference with Michael Foot, 9th-10th April (details 01243
532717) and Elmbridge Museum exhibition, Church Street, Weybridge, until 10th
April (01932 843573).



DO YOU DIG IT?
STEVE PLATT for MIDWEEK (issue of 29.3.99)

The Grand Old Duke of York used to own St George's Hill, near Weybridge,
Surrey. But it's not known whether he ever marched his men to the top of it or
marched them down again.

He probably did so at some point, because he was the aristocrat who
compulsorily enclosed the common land here by a private Act of Parliament in
1804. In doing so, he extinguished all those ancient commoners' rights to dig
turf, collect firewood, graze pigs and so on, which would have upset the local
commoners no end and required the Duke to march his men up and down the hill
on more than one occasion to make sure that no one was sneaking under the
fences of what was now his private domain.

You still have to sneak under the fences to get onto St George's Hill if the
security guards manning the gates at the main entrances don't like the look of
you. Because the St George's Hill Estate is now one of the most exclusive
private estates in the country. The most modest of dwellings here will set you
back several millions. And if you're interested in the sort of properties that
Cliff Richard and the other celebrity residents call home, you'll be looking
at the sort of mortgage loan that not even Peter Mandelson could have got
together from his Cabinet minister mates.

Actually, people don't so much buy houses on St George's Hill as the right to
build on the land on which they stand. The kind of people who live here have
so much money to throw around that they don't just buy new curtains and
carpets when they move in; they call in the demolition contractors and rebuild
the entire place.

This accounts for the fact that there are more hard hats and builders' vans in
the drives of the properties around the hill than there are at the Millenium
Dome. It's only when you look closely that you realise that these are not the
usual men from the Murphia, and that the decals on the ubiquitous white vans
advertise a higher class of building contractor altogether. "Marble Ideas Ltd:
Your Ideas Turned To Stone" announces the sign on one white van. "Markham
Automatic Gates" declares another. "Great Big Pigging Expensive Statues That
You Couldn't Fit In Your Garden, Let Alone Afford To Buy" says a third.

As you slip into the estate via an unmarked gap in the railings just across
from the lawn tennis club (never mind the lawn; this place has got its own
lake), you pass a building site which promises a "brand new detached family
home". This stretches the boundaries of what constitutes a "family home" to
the limit. How many children do you need to justify 25 bedrooms? What sort of
granny annexe requires its own gym and swimming pool? But with local planning
regulations which stipulate that each property must be built in no less than
one acre of land, there's a lot of space, as well as money, to play around
with.

I'm not sure whether it's comforting or disturbing to discover that neither
money nor space is any guarantor of good taste. The "brand new detached family
home" is about as architecturally imaginative as an out-of-town Tesco's. A
little way up the road, a dwelling named "Atlantis" has two concrete eagles
perched on its gateposts -- rather fitting really, since the house itself
looks like a terrace of 1960s council flats. Nearby, in quick succession, you
can find Georgian thatch, Tuscan pastiche and Tudor parodies standing side by
side with properties whose owners think nothing of siting a satellite dish in
the middle of the lawn or using car number plate plastic lettering to as
nameplates for their multi-million pound mansions. Some of the names at least
show a sense of humour. ("Wit's End"? Well, I liked it anyway.) Most are as
unimaginative as the architecture: "High Trees", "Hilltop", "Hillside", "Hill
Cottage". As for "Camelot", would that be the Court of King Arthur or a sign
that the owners won the lottery?

There are slightly desperate indications of insecurity here too. As if it's
not sufficient to live on a gated, guarded, private estate, some of the
residents have felt the need to stick up additional signs to emphasise the
point to their neighbours: "Private Drive, No Parking", "Private Road:
Residents Only", "Private Post Box: Use Your Own". (Incidentally, even though
this is a private estate, there must be more public postboxes -- with four
collections a day, no less -- per head of population here than anywhere else
in Britain. I counted at least six shared by at most 400 properties.)

At "The Warreners",  a vast rambling plot of land, like virtually all the
properties here set back so far from the road you might not realise that
there's a house there at all, they have even put in one of those curses of
suburbia, a fast-growing Leylandii hedge, to keep prying binoculars (the naked
eye would not be enough) from homing in on the house beyond. And near the golf
club, whose membership roll adds new meaning to the word "exclusive", deep
within a rhodedendron thicket where none would dream to venture were it not to
see what is written on the sign within, there is a post, a tangle of barbed
wire and a red and white plastic notice. "Private" it warns -- for the
benefit, presumably, of any wild bird or rabbit rash enough to think of
entering.

Next weekend, however, on Saturday 3rd April, this exclusive, private realm
faces its peace being disturbed by a motley army of modern-day "Diggers", who
are coming here to erect a memorial stone to an earlier band of Diggers who
squatted St George's Hill during the English revolution. On 1st April 1649, a
couple of months after Charles I had been beheaded, Gerard Winstanley led a
group of mainly landless peasants who had fought in Cromwell's army to the
slopes of St George's Hill. They came to claim the waste and common land, to
plough and sow their beans and barley, and to "lay the Foundation of making
the Earth a Common Treasury for All, both Rich and Poor".

The Elmbridge Museum in Weybridge, which is staging an exhibition to coincide
with the 350th anniversary of the Diggers arrival at St George's Hill,
describes them as "pioneers of communism". They called themselves "True
Levellers" (as opposed to the more moderate Levellers who had risen to
prominence in certain of Cromwell's regiments) because of their belief that
everyone should live in equality.

"Was the Earth made to preserve a few covetous, proud men to live at ease, and
for them to bag and barn up the treasures of the Earth from others, that these
may beg or starve in a fruitful land, or was it made to preserve all her
children?" asked Winstanley. He and his fellow Diggers liked neither the
wealthy landlords, who owned the land but would not allow the landless poor
access to it on which to grow their crops, nor the organised church, which
they saw as a perversion of God's creation. They made their feelings known
towards one of the local parsons at the time when, after being illegally
imprisoned at Walton church soon after moving onto St George's Hill, they
later blocked up his pulpit with thorns and briars.

The Diggers faced ferocious opposition from local landowners and dignitaries.
Even so, their colony survived for a year, first on St George's Hill and then
on other land nearby. Other Digger communities were also established in
different parts of the country. None could overcome the vested interests of
the rich and powerful, however, and eventually all that was left of their
movement was their writings and the power of their ideas. "Here I end, having
put my Arm as far as my strength will go to advance Righteousness," Winstanley
wrote after the final eviction of the Digger communities in 1650. "I have
Writ, I have Acted, I have Peace: and now I must wait to see the Spirit do his
own work in the hearts of others, and whether England shall be the first Land,
or some others, wherin Truth shall sit down in triumph."

St George's Hill slipped back into obscurity after that until, in 1912, it was
sold to a property developer, W G Tarrant, who decided to turn its 900 acres
of open heath, woods and hillside into a luxury estate for the rising
professional rich of London, 16 miles away. Tarrant had little regard for
either historical or environmental considerations. He dynamited thousands of
trees on the hill to make way for his golf course and houses. He eradicated
trackways and footpaths that probably dated back to before the Romans. And
when he grew tired of local archaeologists expressing concern over his
treatment of an iron hillfort on the site, he simply flattened large parts of
its ramparts so that they would have nothing left to express concern about.

He would not have had any time for either the original or the modern-day
Diggers, the latter of which are returning to the hill on 3rd April with the
intention of commemorating Gerard Winstanley in more than just spirit. Not all
of the things happening next weekend are on the publicised programme of
events, says one of the flyers calling the New Diggers to arms (or should that
be spades). "Come along to the 3rd April march with sleeping bags, tents,
spades and things to plant and grow," it urges. "And make sure there's someone
to feed your cat for a few days." It promises to be a lot of fun.



------------------------------------------------------------------------ZZXX
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

Hello everyone,

Apologies for not being able to make last Friday's meeting. This is to let
anyone doing publicity/press work re Diggers 350 that I am doing/have done
three confirmed articles in advance of the 1st April weekend. These are:

Guardian (main story, Society section, probably Wed 24 March)
Tribune (my column, 26 March)
Midweek (London commuter magazine [!] main story, 29 March)

I can let anyone who wants them have advance copies (there's some interesting
stuff in them about the Hill now), but please don't distribute widely before
the publication dates or it'll upset the publishers!

I'm afraid I'm going to be out of the country for the action itself. Shame. If
I can be of any help in the next week before I go, drop me a note.

Good luck all. Keep digging!

Steve Platt

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

I'm going to Peru in a week or so's time. Among other things, I'm hoping to do
some work on land rights/squatting etc. (For those who don't know, most of
modern Lima originated as squatter "shanty towns" and the city contains what
is probably the largest self-managed squatter settlement in the world --
350,000 people. Not so small and not so beautiful, unfortunately, but a
positive beacon of what the landless poor can do for themselves given the
chance.)

Does anyone have any contacts in Peru who is involved in these or similar
issues?
Any suggestions appreciated.

Muchas gracias,

Steve Platt

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

G'day

My name is Dave Sanders and I am one of the members of the Australian based

"League of Diggers and Levellers"

We shall be having a Diggers camp over our June long weekend. Just thought
I'd let people know.

Ta.

DS

Re-enactment Links
***********************
1066 The Medieval Society (Victoria)
1066@...

The 62nd New York Volunteers (Anderson's Zouaves)
http://members.tripod.com/~Meat_Possum/62nd.html

The League of Diggers and Levellers
http://members.tripod.com/~Meat_Possum/League.html

The Diggers appeared at the end of the English Civil war with a mission to
make the earth
"...a common treasury for all'.

In the spring of 1999 there are celebrations to remember the Diggers'
vision and their contribution.
Find out more about the Diggers and see illustrations at
http://www.tlio.demon.co.uk/diggers.htm

Catch up with the latest Diggers Newsletter at:
http://www.oneworld.org/tlio/


------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

Last call for the working week

The Diggers working week is for you - to get involved.  Come and paint,
hammer, sew, think, write, dream, dig....

From Saturday 20th March through until Sunday 28th March a venue near
Brighton will host the Diggers working week.  We will be assembling all the
components for a Summer of happenning land actions and activities - kicking
off with the Diggers commemorative occupation somewhere in Surrey, You dig?

Everybody is welcome (especially those bringing cake and chocolate).

To make this event a success we need you.  Come down for a day or for the
entire week.  Bring tools, ideas, motivation, paints and brushes, material
and anything else that springs to mind.

This is an RSVP event.  Get in touch with Ben on 0961 373 385 or
ben@...

Also: on Sunday 21st March we'll be going for a walk with the wonderful
trespassory South Downs Land Is Ours.  Bring packed lunch warm clothes,
sensible footwear and meet 10 am at Brighton station.


------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

Calling all long term land squatters.

We'll be meeting this Friday (12th March) at 2pm at the advisory service
for squatters, our usual venue.  It's part of a day long Diggers
meeting.


MEETING DETAILS
10am to about 8pm, then to the bup!
-----------------------------------
Advisory Service for Squatters
2 St. Pauls Road
London N1
(at the junction with Newington Green Road)

Train (N. London Line): Canonbury (5 mins walk) - usually no inspectors
Tube: Highbury & Islington - 25 mins walk or catch 30/277 bus
Buses: 30*, 38*, 56*, 73*, 141, 341*, 236, 277*. (*stop by the door)
--
Tony Gosling
tony@...
0117 955 6769

http://www.egroups.com/list/diggers350/
http://www.oneworld.org/tlio/

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

------- Forwarded message follows -------
URGENT * URGENT * URGENT * URGENT * URGENT * URGENT * URGENT * URGENT *
URGENT * URGENT *

                     CALLING ALL LONDONERS AND ANYONE ELSE IN THE AREA:

I'm sure most of you know that Crystal Palace is in the process of being
evicted...  We have still several digger friends in their bunkers
underground, and are holding a massive PARTY/family fun
day/carnival/anti-urban development rally on this SATURDAY 13th March
starting at MIDDAY - sorry about the lack of notice, but you know how it
is...

This is a pink and fluffy event, any face painters, jugglers,
stilt-walkers MOST welcome - we have (and need) soundsystems, we have a
classical concert going on,bring instruments and lots of entertainment
hopefully!  We are relying on YOUR SUPPORT to help us make this happen,
we intend to make it into National Media (with our fluffy hats on) and
would like a good party!

If you can help the organisation... ( I really know nothing about making
this sort of thing happen...) please call me on 0181.778.3115 - anyone
who answers will be able to take messages...  The Crystal Palace Protest
Office is a 24hr (bugged) line where other details can be found out -
0181.693.8200...

Please feel free to call if you can give me contact numbers, I look
forward to seeing LOADS of you on Saturday...bring a whistle, and lets
make loads of noise

Please spread the word to all your friends...

Crystal Palace is reachable by bus from all parts of London eg. 227, 63,
and MANY others... call for more info., also train to Crystal Palace (via
Beckenham Junction if necessary)

LETS SHOW THEM HOW MUCH SUPPORT WE HAVE...

yours in great hope,

emanwela

for - 'WAS the earth made to preserve a few covetous, proud men to live
at ease, and for them to bag and barn up the treasures of the Earth from
others, that these may beg or starve in a fruitful land; or was it made
to preserve all her children'

Only when the last tree is felled will they realise they can't breathe
money

--
Tony Gosling tony@... www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Congress/7727/
www.ecovillages.org/uk/network/index.html www.oneworld.org/tlio/
All sorted chat monitored: http://jya.com/stoa-atpc.htm

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

"Hence it is, that we every Day find Men in Conversation
contending warmly on some Point in Politicks,
which, altho' it may nearly concern them both,
neither of them understand any more than they do each other."
-- Ben  Franklin 1729
(http://www.tipiglen.dircon.co.uk/benfranklin.html)

23 March Castle Douglas Community Centre: Site visits from 3PM, Seminar
from 7:30PM
All welcome: Phone 01387 850 348 for details or email ed
(tipiglen@...).
--
Visit the website: http://www.tipiglen.dircon.co.uk/

"To put the bounty and the health of our land, our only commonwealth,
into the hands of
people who do not live on it and share its fate will always be an error.
For whatever
determines the fortune of the land determines also the fortune of the
people.
If history teaches anything, it teaches that."
    -- Wendell Berry (http://www.tipiglen.dircon.co.uk/forward.html)
Local People, Who Are We?

There are among us those whose ancestors fill the local graves,
And some who have found a home here, and are likely to be buried here,
There are some who have found work here, including
Some whose employers have posted them here.
We are all local people.(http://www.tipiglen.dircon.co.uk/credo.html)

May the present and coming times bring our shared goals closer to
realisation.
May we come to understand and share one another's goals where we do not
already. May the forests and communities grow and prosper together in
the
knowledge that we can create our own circumstances.



------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

Hi there,

The following chapter on the central importance of land, both for the
survival of poor people and the survival of the biosphere, is excerpted from
the short book `The Stewards Corporation: A System For Total Human
Development'.  The entire work, which describes a new kind of cooperative,
non-business and non-market, corporation-community which our movement of
poor people is organizing around, is accessable from the `contents' page at
the Stewards website at www.stewards.net  Many other works on Stewardship,
and on the self-organizing of the underclass majority as Stewards, are also
available at the site.

Solidarity,
Blessings of light,
Eric Sommer

"Organize the Planetary Underclass as the Stewards of the World."

----------------------------------------------

Chapter 14: THE CENTRALITY OF THE LAND

The land question is a survival question. The right to access the land and
use it to support their needs for food, shelter, and the other means of life
is crucial for all those who do not - or cannot - fit into the old economic
order.

In proportion as workers are swept down the socio-economic ladder by
ever-new waves of
technology and profiteering, the question of land access will become a
life-and-death matter for ever larger numbers of human beings. Driven
towards jobs with unbearably high stress and low wages on the one side, and
towards homelessness and the brutal life of the street on the other, the
land question will become a survival question for an ever-growing mass of
ordinary people in every society.

The general accumulation of social misery, crowding, and decay in both the
built and social environments to which working and poor people are consigned
in the world's cities lends further and growing poignancy - and urgency - to
the question of land.

It is worth emphasizing that it is, in large measure, the separation from
the land which makes us vulnerable to underclass status. When employers or
the state cannot - or will not - provide us with reasonable conditions and a
reasonable basis of life, the absence of a land base leaves us nowhere else
to turn. The absence of land access means that `if we would eat, we must
bend our knee, no matter what the terms'. Restoring the land link, through
Stewardship, is a key to restoring our power, dignity, and ability to work
together to care for one another together with the world.

In addition, we cannot ignore the ecological dimension. The question is not
only "who will have access to the land" but also "how will we live with the
land"? Continued despoliation of the worlds land, and continued
deforestation, put not only humanity but the integrity of the biosphere
itself at risk.

One important task for each Stewards Corporation is, therefore, to work for
access for all underclass and working-class people to the land on an
ecological or stewardship basis. The broader political aspect of this work
will be explored in greater depth in a forthcoming work on the stewards
party. What must be stressed here is the centrality for each stewards
corporation of establishing, at one or more places within its domain, a
`campus' or `campuses' for use by the corporation and its allies as a
`land-base'. Such a land-base is essential to support the stewards of the
Corporation - and their social houses, services, and guilds - in working
together in `stewardship-subsistence'. The phrase `stewardship-subsistence'
is meant to convey the idea of working together to produce the means of
meeting one anther's needs while simultaneously caring for the land and for
the earth.

Stewards and their charter bodies may in practice be based part-time,
full-time, or not at all on a campus or land base. But the availability of
the campus land, as a basis for the stability and viability of the stewards
- and of their houses, services, guilds, and polis - is crucial.

In addition, the personal and spiritual relationship to land cannot be
ignored. Direct access to nature - and to the rhythms and creatures of
nature - is an important support for the full all-around development of life
and of the physical, mental, emotional,  spiritual, social, and ecological
powers of human beings.

Land Management In The Corporation

In order to support its work of stewardship, of building a spiritual economy
through which working or underclass people can work together to care for one
another together and the earth, a Stewards Corporation must establish and
operate one or more rural campuses or land centers in its domain. The
following are suggested guidelines for the management of the Corporation's
relationship to the land. These guidelines are primarily social, while the
ecological, agrarian, and related aspects are dealt with in a short book by
Dr. Stuart Piddocke, `The Terrestre', and in other works which are
generally available.

The first suggestion is that all Corporation land shall be owned by the
Stewards Corporation - and therefore by its community of Stewards - as a
whole. This means that all legal title or legal rights in Corporation land
shall be vested solely in the Corporation community or in subsidiary
organizations directly under its control. This provision would apply to all
land rights, whether involving ownership, leasing, agricultural or water
rights, or any other land-use rights whatsoever.

This land ownership by the corporation is necessary to: a) ensure that all
Stewards of the Corporation enjoy land access; b) guarantee that the land is
treated in an ecologically viable and sustainable manner; c) provide land
for use by the houses, services, and guilds; and d) prevent the break-up of
the land through private sale, and the ensuing social fragmentation, which
would inevitably follow individual ownership. As suggested in the chapter on
the Polis, it may well be desirable to entrench in the Corporation's
constitution the principal that Stewards land is to be owned by the
Corporation.

The second suggestion is that the overall management of the Corporation's
land-base be the responsibility of a special charter body to be called `The
Corporation Land Management Service' or some similar name. This land
service, which like all charters would be created by the Polis, would have
responsibilities including:

      The acquisition of new land or land rights for the Corporation;
      General land-use planning; and
      The assigning of land-use rights within the Corporation.

The third suggestion regarding land is that Houses, Services, Guilds, or
other bodies within the Corporation may be assigned land-use rights of
various kinds by the land service. Houses, services,
guilds and other such bodies may not, however, hold legal title or legal
rights in land. Nor may their agents or those acting for them hold such
title on their behalf.

The fourth suggestion is that a written agreement or `land-use contract'
shall be issued by the Polis, or by the land management service, for any
transfer of land-use rights from the Polis to a house, service, guild, or
other body within the Corporation. This contract shall clearly state: 1) the
right or rights which are being transferred; 2) the body or bodies to whom
the right is given; 3) the area(s) of land to which the right is to apply;
4) the period of time for which the right shall exist; 5) whether,
and under what conditions, the land-use right may be transferred or sold to
another chartered body of the Corporation; and 4) all other terms and
conditions to which the polis and the body receiving the land-use contract
have agreed.

Land-use contracts would be binding within the Corporation, and the
rights,obligations, and other provisions set out in them would be
enforceable through the independent Corporation judiciary or adjudication
service.

The fifth suggestion regarding land is that land-use rights within the
Corporation be reserved for the Polis, Houses, Services, Guilds, and other
charter bodies of the Corporation. There should be no right within the
Corporation for individuals to hold land and thereby to potentially deprive
other Stewards of the life-support and stewardship-subsistence which it
provides

The ABC of Land Prices

The fifth suggestion regarding land is that the campuses or land bases of a
Corporation be usually located in rural areas. One reason for this
suggestion is that rural land can support physical, mental, emotional, and
spiritual health and development in a way that crowded urban conditions cannot.

Another reason for preferring rural land is that it is generally far less
expensive than city land. In the city of Vancouver in British Columbia,
Canada, for example, a 1/4 acre house lot typically costs between $200,000
and $400,000 cn. Such a lot, together with the house on it, is ordinarily
bought on credit through a mortgage, with a down payment of $20,000-$40,000,
by a single family or home buyer. The same amount of money,
$200,000-$400,000, with a down payment of $20,000-$40,000, will buy 200 to
400 acres of land in rural British Columbia. This is 800 times as much land
for the same price!

It is important to recognize, of course, that just as city land differs in
price from one area of the city to another, so does rural land differ in
price depending on such factors as: the demand for it; the regulations
governing its use; and the degree of its usefulness for agriculture or other
purposes.

The primary stewardship strategy regarding the care and use of land is one
of using land for subsistence, for supporting the life needs of its stewards
while caring for the earth, not for commercial production of food for the
marketplace. This strategy positions stewards, and their Corporations, to
acquire inexpensive land which is life-supporting but not suited for
commercial food production.



The Importance of Proximity

The sixth suggestion regarding land, and one of the reasons for acquiring
land in the first place, is that habitations and other buildings be
constructed as close together as is practicable. There are several benefits
from such close proximity of buildings and  eople. To begin with, the
`transaction costs' for accessing people or resources are dramatically
reduced when they are close at hand. The phrase `transaction costs' may be
broadly interpreted to mean all of the costs in time, money, material,
energy, or stress necessary to access a potentiality. If my friend lives
across town, for example, the time, money, energy, and stress necessary to
see him or her is significantly greater than if he or she lives next door.
If the book I want to look at, or the machine I want to use, or the people I
need to work with are next door, the transaction costs - in time, money,
matter, energy, and stress - are similarly reduced. Close proximity makes
many things which would otherwise be costly - even
prohibitively costly to access - affordable in terms of transaction costs.

A related consideration is that sharing of products, services, or resources
becomes far more feasible when people are close at hand, thereby reducing
both monetary costs and the strain on the environment.

In addition, by clustering people in a small area of the Stewards land base,
the rest of the land is freed for agricultural or recreational use or for
maintenance in its natural state.

Finally, and most fundamentally, arranging to live in relatively close
proximity, whether in the city or the country, is a key step by which
Stewards become able to work together to meet one anther's needs while
caring for the planet. Being `next door' makes all things easier.




------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

DIGGERS WORKING DAY - Friday 12th March
---------------------------------------
The FINAL DIGGERS MEETING before the WORKING WEEK near Brighton starting
20th March (contact Ben on 0961 373385) will be a WHOLE DAY affair with
various groups including theatrical, practical, logistics, being sorted
out.  Includes long-term occupations meeting at 2pm.
This will take place downstairs at the Advisory Service for Squatters.

10am to about 8pm, then to the bup!
-----------------------------------
Advisory Service for Squatters
2 St. Pauls Road
London N1
(at the junction with Newington Green Road)

Train (N. London Line): Canonbury (5 mins walk) - usually no inspectors
Tube: Highbury & Islington - 25 mins walk or catch 30/277 bus
Buses: 30*, 38*, 56*, 73*, 141, 341*, 236, 277*. (*stop by the door)


--
Tony Gosling tony@... www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Congress/7727/
www.ecovillages.org/uk/network/index.html www.oneworld.org/tlio/
All sorted chat monitored: http://jya.com/stoa-atpc.htm

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

Elmbridge Museum (Weybridge).******  FREE ADMISSION. *****  01932 843573

St. George's Hill & The Diggers


Between 26 February and 10 April 1999 Elmbridge Museum will be hosting
an exhibition on St. George's Hill and the
Diggers. Today St. George's Hill is known as being the most exclusive
residential estate in Britain: few people know that it
has in the past functioned as an Iron-Age stronghold, a centre for
country walks and, most strange of all, the birthplace of
communism.

The exhibition is timed to co-incide with the 350th anniversary of the
occupation of the hill by the 'Diggers', a group of
revolutionaries today regarded as the first communists. The Diggers, led
by Gerrard Winstanley, occupied the hill in a bid
to change the nature of society. They wanted to make the earth a "Common
Treasury for All" and for everyone to live in
equality and freedom. They soon found their views were too radical for
the local population and after a series of violent
raids they were forced to leave the hill.

Long before the brief occupation by the Diggers the hill was the site of
an Iron-Age Fort, for many years wrongly believed
to be where Julius Caesar camped before leading his Roman army across
the Thames. This important site took advantage
of the hill's strategic position between the Rivers Mole, Thames and
Wey. Many finds from the period of the fort will be
included in the exhibition.

In the Twentieth Century St. George's Hill was converted from a local
beauty spot and wilderness into a prestigious
housing estate. The exhibition will use original estate maps and other
material to show how local builder WG Tarrant
fulfilled his dream of building Britain's premier housing development.
Reproductions of the plans will be available to
members of the public.


The exhibition is open to the public from 27 February to 10 April at the
museum in Church Street, Weybridge, Surrey.
Admission is Free.


Living History Day     March 20.             Children's Workshop
March 27

More information can be found by ringing Michael or Neil at the museum
on 01932 843573.


------------------------------------------------------------------------
Internet FileZone: Always FREE!
Instantly store & access your valuable PC files on the net,
from any Web browser.
SIGN UP NOW - http://offers.egroups.com/click/235/0

eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com






------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

Elmbridge Museum (Weybridge).******  FREE ADMISSION. *****  01932 843573

St. George's Hill & The Diggers


Between 26 February and 10 April 1999 Elmbridge Museum will be hosting
an exhibition on St. George's Hill and the
Diggers. Today St. George's Hill is known as being the most exclusive
residential estate in Britain: few people know that it
has in the past functioned as an Iron-Age stronghold, a centre for
country walks and, most strange of all, the birthplace of
communism.

The exhibition is timed to co-incide with the 350th anniversary of the
occupation of the hill by the 'Diggers', a group of
revolutionaries today regarded as the first communists. The Diggers, led
by Gerrard Winstanley, occupied the hill in a bid
to change the nature of society. They wanted to make the earth a "Common
Treasury for All" and for everyone to live in
equality and freedom. They soon found their views were too radical for
the local population and after a series of violent
raids they were forced to leave the hill.

Long before the brief occupation by the Diggers the hill was the site of
an Iron-Age Fort, for many years wrongly believed
to be where Julius Caesar camped before leading his Roman army across
the Thames. This important site took advantage
of the hill’s strategic position between the Rivers Mole, Thames and
Wey. Many finds from the period of the fort will be
included in the exhibition.

In the Twentieth Century St. George’s Hill was converted from a local
beauty spot and wilderness into a prestigious
housing estate. The exhibition will use original estate maps and other
material to show how local builder WG Tarrant
fulfilled his dream of building Britain’s premier housing development.
Reproductions of the plans will be available to
members of the public.


The exhibition is open to the public from 27 February to 10 April at the
museum in Church Street, Weybridge, Surrey.
Admission is Free.


Living History Day     March 20.             Children's Workshop
March 27

More information can be found by ringing Michael or Neil at the museum
on 01932 843573.


------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

try
http://www.tipiglen.dircon.co.uk/ogilvie.html
http://www.tipiglen.dircon.co.uk/ogcontnt.html
from ed

--
Visit the website: http://www.tipiglen.dircon.co.uk/

"To put the bounty and the health of our land, our only commonwealth,
into the hands of
people who do not live on it and share its fate will always be an error.
For whatever
determines the fortune of the land determines also the fortune of the
people.
If history teaches anything, it teaches that."
    -- Wendell Berry (http://www.tipiglen.dircon.co.uk/forward.html)
" Now it ought not to be wondered at, if
People from the Knowledge of a Man's Interest do sometimes
make a true Guess at his Designs; for, Interest, they
say, will not Lie."
--Benjamin Franklin (1729)
(http://www.tipiglen.dircon.co.uk/benfranklin.html)
Local People, Who Are We?

There are among us those whose ancestors fill the local graves,
And some who have found a home here, and are likely to be buried here,
There are some who have found work here, including
Some whose employers have posted them here.
We are all local people.(http://www.tipiglen.dircon.co.uk/credo.html)

May the present and coming times bring our shared goals closer to
realisation.
May we come to understand and share one another's goals where we do not
already. May the forests and communities grow and prosper together in
the
knowledge that we can create our own circumstances.



------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

ST GEORGES HILL - A planning history - The 1993 Elmbridge development
plan has a stipulation that no building plot on St George's Hill should
be less than an acre, "in order to maintain the tenor of the
neighbourhood" - sorry, I'll read that again: "in order to protect the
wooded environment".

This ruling (which is similar to US 'zoning' regulations reponsible for
thousands of square miles of low density wealthy suburban sprawl)
derives from a 1900 Act of Parliament, and from convenants which,
according to Peter Newbury of the residents association, "date back to
the year dot".

The year dot turns out to be 1912 when one Tarrant assembled the land
and developed it, rather like the plotland developers, but for a
different market.

--
Tony Gosling
tony@...

DIGGERS 350 CELEBRATIONS EMAIL LIST
Ideas for Long Term Land Squats and general Digger discussions:
Post to all subscribers: <diggers350@egroups.com>
Join list: <diggers350-subscribe@egroups.com>
Message archive and other email list information is found at
http://www.egroups.com/list/diggers350/

OUR NEED - OUR RIGHT - HOMES FOR ALL!
DIGGERS 350 - Gerrard Winstanley and The Diggers 1649-1999
Winstanley's pamphlets - printed on illegal presses during the English Civil War
now on the web with Digger pictures:  www.tlio.demon.co.uk/diggers.htm
DIGGERS 350 CELEBRATION DETAILS:  www.oneworld.org/tlio/

THE LAND IS OURS
A Landrights Movement for Britain
office@...      http://www.oneworld.org/tlio/
email your UK address and tel. no. to the office for our free newsletter
Box E, 111 Magdalen Road OXFORD OX4 1RQ England
Tel. +44 (0)1865 722016

"...not only this Common, or Heath should be taken in and Manured by the
People, but all the Commons and waste Ground in England, and in the whole World,
shall be taken in by the People in righteousness, not owning any Property; but
taking the Earth to be a Common Treasury, as it was first made for all."  -
The Diggers' Manifesto - The True Levellers’ Standard Advanced, 1649

Tony's research web pages:   www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Congress/7727/






















advertising is legalised lying........


------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

DIGGERS LIST, IS IT WORKING!?!?!?
---------------------------------
Please let me know at - tony@... - if the list is working out okay.
I don't seem to have had any messages on it.  Is it clear ?? that all
you have to do is post your message to:

diggers350@egroups.com

for them to be distributed on the list?  More details in the sig below.
------------------------------------------------------------------------


HILLFORT PATH - PUBLIC LAND ON THE HILL!
----------------------------------------
We have been told about some land on St. George's Hill which was DONATED
to the local council back in 1952.  The usual crap apparently ensued
with pressure by the alleged owners of the Hill on the council NOT to
tell local people about either the land or the public footpath which
runs along it.  The council seem to have done exactly what the estate
wanted, riding roughshod over the wishes of the generous previous owner
and the local population whose interests they are ostensibly there to
serve.  Local people walking along this public path might THREATEN the
exclusivity of the St. George's Hill estate!  God Forbid!!

On a visit to the hill last week it appears that a large chunk of the
donated land has now been BUILT ON!!  By a private house developer.
We also asked the St George's Hill private security guards if there was
any public land on the estate.  They assured us there was NO SUCH PUBLIC
LAND, SO WE WERE NOT ALLOWED IN!  Needless to say we found another way
in just to check that they were indeed talking utter rubbish!

Part of the Diggers Celebrations therefore will be to inform the locals
of this public land & footpath around the ramparts of the Iron Age
Hillfort which they don't currently have any access to.  The hillfort
incidentally, was almost destroyed when the Hill was developed in the
twenties.  Exhibition in Elmbridge museum now open, not to be missed if
you're in the area:
27 Feb - 10 Apr - Exhibition: The Diggers and George Hill, Elmbridge
Museum, Church St., Weybridge - 01932 843573


------------------------------------------------------------------------

DIGGERS WORKING DAY
-------------------
The FINAL DIGGERS MEETING before the WORKING WEEK near Brighton starting
20th March (contact Ben on 0961 373385) will be a WHOLE DAY affair with
various groups including theatrical, practical, logistics, being sorted
out.
This will take place downstairs at the Advisory Service for Squatters.

10am to about 8pm, then to the bup!
-----------------------------------

Advisory Service for Squatters
2 St. Pauls Road
London N1
(at the junction with Newington Green Road)

Train (N. London Line): Canonbury (5 mins walk) - usually no inspectors
Tube: Highbury & Islington - 25 mins walk or catch 30/277 bus
Buses: 30*, 38*, 56*, 73*, 141, 341*, 236, 277*. (*stop by the door)


see you there!
--
Tony Gosling
tony@...

DIGGERS 350 CELEBRATIONS EMAIL LIST
Ideas for Long Term Land Squats and general Digger discussions:
Post to all subscribers: <diggers350@egroups.com>
Join list: <diggers350-subscribe@egroups.com>
Message archive and other email list information is found at
http://www.egroups.com/list/diggers350/

OUR NEED - OUR RIGHT - HOMES FOR ALL!
DIGGERS 350 - Gerrard Winstanley and The Diggers 1649-1999
Winstanley's pamphlets - printed on illegal presses during the English Civil War
now on the web with Digger pictures:  www.tlio.demon.co.uk/diggers.htm
DIGGERS 350 CELEBRATION DETAILS:  www.oneworld.org/tlio/

THE LAND IS OURS
A Landrights Movement for Britain
office@...      http://www.oneworld.org/tlio/
email your UK address and tel. no. to the office for our free newsletter
Box E, 111 Magdalen Road OXFORD OX4 1RQ England
Tel. +44 (0)1865 722016

"...not only this Common, or Heath should be taken in and Manured by the
People, but all the Commons and waste Ground in England, and in the whole World,
shall be taken in by the People in righteousness, not owning any Property; but
taking the Earth to be a Common Treasury, as it was first made for all."  -
The Diggers' Manifesto - The True Levellers’ Standard Advanced, 1649

Tony's research web pages:   www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Congress/7727/

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

worth a look?
http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Quad/6460/doct/PP/PPindex.html
--
Visit the website: http://www.tipiglen.dircon.co.uk/

"To put the bounty and the health of our land, our only commonwealth,
into the hands of
people who do not live on it and share its fate will always be an error.
For whatever
determines the fortune of the land determines also the fortune of the
people.
If history teaches anything, it teaches that."
    -- Wendell Berry (http://www.tipiglen.dircon.co.uk/forward.html)
Local People, Who Are We?

There are among us those whose ancestors fill the local graves,
And some who have found a home here, and are likely to be buried here,
There are some who have found work here, including
Some whose employers have posted them here.
We are all local people.

May the present and coming times bring our shared goals closer to
realisation.
May we come to understand and share one another's goals where we do not
already. May the forests and communities grow and prosper together in
the
knowledge that we can create our own circumstances.



------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

http://www.tipiglen.dircon.co.uk/manifesto.html

all the best

ed iglehart

--
Visit the website: http://www.tipiglen.dircon.co.uk/

"To put the bounty and the health of our land, our only commonwealth,
into the hands of
people who do not live on it and share its fate will always be an error.
For whatever
determines the fortune of the land determines also the fortune of the
people.
If history teaches anything, it teaches that."
      -- Wendell Berry

Local People, Who Are We?

There are among us those whose ancestors fill the local graves,
And some who have found a home here, and are likely to be buried here,
There are some who have found work here, including
Some whose employers have posted them here.
We are all local people.

May the present and coming times bring our shared goals closer to
realisation.
May we come to understand and share one another's goals where we do not
already. May the forests and communities grow and prosper together in
the
knowledge that we can create our own circumstances.



------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

Some thoughts on inclosure....


"The choice between collective ownership and private ownership of land
is a straight choice between equity and greed.  Those without land are
forced into a cash-based world of institutionalised bribery.

Winstanley saw it all in 1649 and he foresaw the implications for today.
Back then it was land and the landlords, now it is genetic engineering
and the lifelords.

Over the centuries private property rights have been extended to areas
where they are entirely inappropriate.  The private ownership of land
was one of the first, and most fundamental threats to our well-being and
liberty.  Next in line is the ownership of life itsself"

Tony Gosling
The Land Is Ours


--
Tony Gosling
tony@...

OUR NEED - OUR RIGHT - HOMES FOR ALL!
DIGGERS 350 - Gerrard Winstanley and The Diggers 1649-1999
Winstanley's pamphlets - printed on illegal presses during the English Civil War
now on the web with Digger pictures:  www.tlio.demon.co.uk/diggers.htm
DIGGERS 350 CELEBRATION DETAILS:  www.oneworld.org/tlio/

DIGGERS 350 CELEBRATIONS LIST
Ideas for Long Term Land Squats and general Diggers discussions:
eMAIL diggers350@egroups.com to join or post

THE LAND IS OURS
A Landrights Movement for Britain
office@...      http://www.oneworld.org/tlio/
email your UK address and tel. no. to the office for our free newsletter
Box E, 111 Magdalen Road OXFORD OX4 1RQ England
Tel. +44 (0)1865 722016

"...not only this Common, or Heath should be taken in and Manured by the
People, but all the Commons and waste Ground in England, and in the whole World,
shall be taken in by the People in righteousness, not owning any Property; but
taking the Earth to be a Common Treasury, as it was first made for all."  -
The Diggers' Manifesto - The True Levellers’ Standard Advanced, 1649

Tony's research web pages:   www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Congress/7727/

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/diggers350
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

The Diggers appeared at the end of the English Civil war with a mission to make
the earth 'a common treasury for all'.
In the spring of 1999 there are celebrations to remember the Diggers vision and
their contribution.
Find out more about the Diggers and see illustrations at
http://www.tlio.demon.co.uk/diggers.htm

Group Manager: diggers350-owner@egroups.com

To subscribe, send a message to diggers350-subscribe@egroups.com or go to the
e-group's home page at http://www.egroups.com/list/diggers350