Why not call them or email them? There’s probably some sort of contact info in the preserve’s public info.
It’s not usually solid bedrock; it’s soil with rocks in it, and quite possibly a hardpan (packed clay) layer. Either’s going to be an obstruction to a hand-pushed rod, and both can be dug with sufficient determination – just work your digging tool around the individual rocks and pry them out.
Burying cats and dogs up in the woods I use rocks for a cairn over the top. This isn’t usually currently done with humans.
– underground tree roots are also an obstruction to a rod.
Not only that, but seeing as it appears to still be under a family-run foundation, the best way to approach them might be to just compliment them for what appears to be a landscaped feature, ask if indeed it was, and if so if the area has any special significance to them because it looks so nice. Or something along those lines.
Sorry, I’m not getting this. I opened the link, but the point I care about is in the middle of a big blank area on their map. Google Maps tells me the spot is at 39.770156, -76.058699. My hiking software tells me 39.77018, -76.05871. The most accurate way I can describe it is that the pine trees form concentric rings and there’s a tree at the center. However, on Google Maps, the satellite view is not taken from directly above the spot, and the trees are seen as if leaning, with the height of the trees and the distances between them being comparable, so there’s a bit of a parallax issue. How should I be able to use what3words to get high accuracy here?
Only if all the soil makes it back in. I’ve found that often someone digs a hole, refills it with the backfill, hits top of grade and, not wanting a pile, rakes or spreads the remaining dirt around the area. Then the soil in the hole settles after a time and leaves you with a depression.
The What3words site narrows locations down to a 3 meter square, so for example the square at the center of the ring of trees is tiles.drifters.meeting, linked below. The square just south of that is thick.wriggle.founder. It would be interesting if you can zoom in to the specific square on the what3words grid, and that way people can see exactly which tree and spot next to it. what3words /// The simplest way to talk about location
@Napier: if it looks like the link to what3words /// The simplest way to talk about location is taking you to a blank area, click on the circle at the bottom right and it will change to satellite view, so that the ring of trees and the specific 3 m. square corresponding to the spot you want to pinpoint should be visible.
BTW I’m not sure what satellite view what3words is using. It looks like a different time of year compared to google and bing maps.
OK, I got what3words /// The simplest way to talk about location as a result. What was the point of that? It looks like a way to replace latitude and longitude with a string of three words, though I’m not sure because the link looks different as text versus when pasted. What was wrong with latitude and longitude?
There’s nothing wrong with latitude and longitude, but what3words can get in closer. When I entered the latitude and longitude coordinates, 39.770156, -76.058699, one time Google Maps took me to the center of the tree, and another time it went to a spot on the southwest edge of the tree. With what3words, users could be directed to any of 12-15 specific 3 meter squares on the perimeter of the tree.
We recently had a new power line run to the house. They were able to dig a trench for it with just a small backhoe. They didn’t hit solid ledge, nor hardpan. But they did haul away a decent sized truck load of rocks large enough that “it’s not good to have these above your conduit”, and replaced them with soil.
That was considered an excellent outcome by the contractors. They thought they might need to bring in the jackhammer truck.
I’ve buried my cats in holes we dug. Like everyone else in New England, we have a rock wall on the property line. Each cat’s grave has contributed a couple of large rocks to that wall, rocks that had to be pried out of the hole.
It could be a modern grave there, sometime in the past year to 15 or so years depending on when they stopped plowing the area. I don’t know about PA, but in Maryland you are allowed to be buried on private property with certain rules. It’s possible that someone that own the property died and they wished to be buried there. Not everyone wishes to have any kind of marker.
I do agree that if it’s an older grave and the field has been plowed there would be no evidence of any depression after any kind of time. That and farmers, even if they keep the stones, tend to move them out of their way.
If you’re really interested I’d contact the organization that owns the area and ask. Or look up the people who owned the land and see if they have died and see if you can find a burial place for them. You can also contact the local historical society and see if they have any kind of cemetery records and see if any match that area.
When I first moved to the mountains, I found a hole that was grave sized. Not filled in though. I actually called the police. “If there is not a body in it, it is not a grave”. Anyway, thinking back now I think it was a perk test for a septic system. Donno really.
This doesn’t help with the overall question about what it is, but this site has some additional imagery. The oak seems to appear in 2008. I’m not sure if it was transplanted or the growth is natural but it looks tiny for a few years, then, boom, quite a big larger.
Search for glenroy on this site for some more historical imagery. The 1975 image is interesting. The pines appear to be freshly planted in 1975 and there’s a vivid outline of the precise shape of the layout. It’s obviously man made. There even seems to be something in the spot where the oak later appears, perhaps a tree was originally planted there but didn’t survive and wasn’t replaced until 2008, perhaps someone was buried there in 1975, perhaps that’s just where the guys planting the trees sat for lunch and wore down the grass.
Here’s something else I noticed that probably means absolutely nothing…
Go back to the first site and look at the “Southeast PA 2005” imagery. It must be wintertime because the evergreens stick out against the other brown trees. Look to the property just to the southeast, it looks like some barns and maybe a house, and it has evergreens around it too. In the 1975 image, you can see those were also recently planted. In fact, anywhere you see evergreens in the 2005 image, they all appear to be recently planted in the 1975 image, even the evergreens half a mile or more away.
I assume the same family owned all the land and, somewhere around 1975, someone went on a tree planting spree and, as part of it, made the weird semi circle site you’re asking about.
I happened to meet one of the people who work there as he was preparing to mow around the site in question, and spent a while peppering him with questions, which he was most gracious about (he even gave me stickers).
He said the grave was one of earliest members of the Thouron family in this area, who had been the owners. I’m thinking it was Sir John Thouron, who died in 2006 or 2007, but will get more info soon. Sir John Thouron was a landscaping and gardening expert of some kind, who had done work for the English Royals, if I’m keeping track properly.
And I realized there today that I didn’t give a glowing enough description of this landscaping here. It’s a bullseye pattern on a round hilltop, but even more elaborately the ground has been shaped so that each of the concentric rings you can walk on is level – you’re not walking around leaning even though the hill slopes, because the path itself, about 8’ wide of it, has been leveled.
Yes. Sir John was the landscaping expert. Did some work for the British Embassy in DC.
His son, also named John (but with a different middle name) died the year before he did, which further muddles things.
ETA: And this seems like it might be on point as to the landscaping around the site in general:
The transplanted Scotsman spent decades developing his internationally recognized gardens at his 220-acre estate and horse farm, Doe Run (acquired before 1960 as Glencoe Farms), in the Brandywine Valley of Pennsylvania. These included an Alpine and cottage gardens, wildflower pastures, and a perennial border near the house with almost 2,000 varieties of plants.
There’s a bit of mystery for me on this one. His estate at Doe Run was near Unionville, a few miles from the area I’m looking at. Researching Doe Run is difficult, though, because it’s also the name of a long road through the area, and AFAIK his Doe Run estate isn’t called that anymore. “Doe Run” references turn up all over the place, but mostly in re the road. Moreover, although the Preserve’s web site talks about Thouron, the references I find online looking for Thouron himself, or the family, may refer to this Doe Run some miles distant but not to the Preserve. To confuse things even further, the Preserve is named “Glenroy”, though the village it borders is called “Glen Roy”, and there’s that odd faint similarity to “Glencoe” as a name for his Doe Run.