Author: Burnham, Andy
Date: 2019-01-01
Publisher: Watkins Media
Rights: Watkins Media Limited 2018

THE OLD STONES OF THE SOUTH, MIDLANDS & EAST OF ENGLAND

A Field Guide to Megalithic and Other Prehistoric Sites

The Megalithic Portal

Edited by Andy Burnham

THE OLD STONES OF THE SOUTH, MIDLANDS & EAST OF ENGLAND

This ebook covers the Neolithic and Bronze Age remains of southern and central England, from Wiltshire to the west and Derbyshire in the north, over to Kent and Essex in the east – yes, there are megalithic sites in Essex … read on to find out where! Wiltshire needs no introduction, but don’t forget the lesser-known sites there such as Merlin's Mound, which was recently confirmed as a prehistoric sibling to Silbury Hill. Unlike most books on megalithic sites, we haven't overlooked the southeast of England, where there are an unexpected number of beautiful long and round barrows, including one with its own protected view of St Paul's Cathedral. And if you want your fill of megalithic sites, there is no need to travel any further afield than Derbyshire, where there are many lovely sites to visit, from the massive henge of Arbor Low to the charming little woodland circle of Doll Tor to the fascinating complex of Barbrook, with one of the Peak District’s best-preserved stone circles.

The Old Stones of the South, Midlands & East of England is part of a series covering the megalithic and other prehistoric sites of Britain and Ireland. The series is published together as The Old Stones: A Field Guide to the Megalithic Sites of Britain and Ireland, available as a book and an ebook.

Contents

Editor’s Introduction

South of England

Top 10 Pieces of Music Inspired by Prehistory
Andy Burnham

Stonehenge: Model of a Geocentric Universe?
Jon Morris

Stonehenge and the Neolithic Cosmos
N.D. Wiseman

Feasting and Monument Building
Barney Harris

Cat’s Brain: A House for the Living?
Andy Burnham

Development of the Avebury Landscape
Joshua Pollard

Unique Transfigurative Rock Art?
Terence Meaden

Archaeoacoustics
Steve Marshall

Midlands & East of England

Dorstone Hill: A Unique Configuration of Monuments
Andy Burnham

Looking to the Land of the Ancestors
Vicky Tuckman

A Phenomenology of Shadow
Daniel Brown

Icknield Way: Ancient Track or Medieval Fantasy?
Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews

Must Farm: An Extraordinary Fenland Survival
Jackie Bates

Chalk Artefacts
Anne Teather

Insights from a Bronze Age Timber Circle
Andy Burnham

Editor’s Introduction

Andy Burnham, founder and Editor of the Megalithic Portal

This is the first book written by and for prehistoric site enthusiasts. It is a truly collaborative project – just like the Megalithic Portal website itself – that brings together photographs, site information, theories and expertise from the thousands of people that use and post on the site. Focusing on sites from the Neolithic and Bronze Age, this is the most comprehensive guide ever created to the best ancient places to visit in Britain and Ireland, offering an up-to-date look at the archaeology, including many extraordinary discoveries and theories that have been featured on the pages of the Megalithic Portal over the years, as well as a taster of the more mysterious side of things.

Just as the Portal is a collaborative effort, so no one person’s ideas or theories are given more weight in this book. Instead, we celebrate the advances in archaeological practice, theory, dating and analysis that have taken place in the last 25 years. Geophysics, excavation and dating techniques have progressed in this time. There has also been an increased recognition of the importance of accepting non-academic viewpoints, whether from schoolchildren, community volunteers or some of the more leftfield theorists. Alternative ways of exploring and appreciating sites and wider landscapes – previously the realm of a radical fringe – have filtered into the mainstream. Landscape archaeology has in many cases accepted – if not wholeheartedly embraced – phenomenology and multi-sensory approaches, which anyone can try with an open mind and a bit of practice. Advances in technology offer new ways of experiencing sites, for example through augmented reality that merges GIS (geographical information system) landscape models with 3D reconstructions of structures.

Recently, I've been rereading early 1990s editions of 3rd Stone magazine, styled “for the new antiquarian”, the realm of ley hunters and earth mysteries researchers. Have we moved on in 25 years? Ideas of alignments between sites, of stone shapes matching the landscape, of the importance of colour, sound and experiencing sites in different frames of mind have filtered through to theoretical archaeology, to be discussed openly in papers and at conferences – even if they don’t always get past the gatekeepers of archaeology books and magazines for consumption by the “general public”.

About the Megalithic Portal

The Megalithic Portal is completely independent, with no outside funding save for what we can raise with a bit of advertising on the site, and now through royalties from this book, all of which are being ploughed back into the dayto-day running and further development of the website and our other projects. For the last 10 years we have run as a membership society, similar to any other archaeology society, except with an international reach and outlook. We hold meetings by phone conference and our society members hail from all over Europe, as well as North America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and beyond.

Ardlair recumbent stone circle Cows represent one of the biggest challenges faced by the megalith enthusiast!

One of the inspirations for the Megalithic Portal was my own experience, in the 1980s and early 1990s, of reading about sites in books or magazine articles with no accurate location details. Even now, articles and papers often don’t give proper location information. I started compiling links to sites on the early web in 1996. People began to offer their own information and photos, and a collaborative project was born. The Megalithic Portal was formed in 2001 to continue this process. Much of the site’s content has been created by a group of several hundred dedicated volunteers, but there is a huge range in involvement, from those sending in a couple of photos or sites, to people who have contributed more than 10,000 of these.

About this Book

This book is not just made up of my own favourite sites but has been compiled in a collaborative way, just like the Megalithic Portal itself. Contributions in the form of articles, which appear throughout the book, have come in from scores of writers, from archaeologists to alternative theorists to keen site visitors. Many of Britain and Ireland’s top prehistorians have kindly contributed pieces about their research.

I have included opinions from a wide range of people who have original ways to approach ancient sites. While I don’t personally go along with all of the ideas proposed, I feel it’s important to at least give them an airing and let you, the reader, make up your own mind. Sometimes thinking about a problem in a new and creative way can lead to unexpected breakthroughs and we should not be closed minded to different ways of experiencing ancient sites.

The Megalithic Portal photo gallery contains images from several thousand different contributors. Each photo has a voting button allowing visitors to “like” a specific site. This anonymous voting data provided the basis of a longlist for sites to include in the book, from which a team of Megalithic Portal members selected the final list of sites to include for each region. With the voting data in mind, as well as their local knowledge, the team identified the very “best” sites and gave these a star rating. The voting data also provided the basis for most of the Top 10 and 15 lists you will see throughout the book. After all this, we are confident this is the most comprehensive and democratically selected list of prehistoric sites that has ever been put in a book like this, grouped into regions for convenient visiting and browsing.

Site descriptions have been compiled from the available sources, including excavation reports and blogs from all over the various countries and regions. I must here send thanks to the various online national site databases: Canmore (Historic Environment Scotland), PastScape (Historic England), Coflein (Wales), the National Monuments Service Historic Environment Viewer (Republic of Ireland), the Northern Ireland Sites and Monuments Record, and the Manx Museum for their information and help, which has been invaluable. Some of the online entries are quite complex and hard to interpret so I hope our pithy summaries are helpful. Again, these entries have been checked and amended by Megalithic Portal members from all over the UK and Ireland. The vast majority of pictures in the book have been sent in by Megalithic Portal contributors. People have been so generous with their photos, taking time to look through their personal archives. Images have come from members as far afield as New Zealand and Japan. It has been tricky to keep track of exactly how many sites we’ve included – in the spirit of the “countless stones” of folklore, we kept getting different totals. However, I can confidently say we feature over 1,000 sites, with more than 600 with a full profile, plus some 400 “Nearby” listings, covering five countries and not forgetting the Isle of Man!

Each site listing includes an eight-figure Ordnance Survey map reference, and gives the OS paper map sheet the site is found on. For the UK the map sheets are: E – Explorer (orange); OL – Outdoor Leisure (yellow); L – Landranger (pink); and D for the Discoverer maps of Northern Ireland. In the Republic of Ireland, the D is for Discovery Map, whose numbering is shared with the North. For Sat Nav and GPS users we also give latitude and longitude locations for sites.

We have not given full directions to each site as we could fill up a book just with these! The Megalithic Portal (www.megalithic.co.uk) has a page for each of the entries in this book (directly linked from the ebooks), where you will find more information. You can search by site name or by map reference using the box at top left of any Megalithic Portal page. We also have a great app that allows you to search for sites by name or on a map. Each page links to various online map services and satellite images. Look on the web pages for the Nearby Sites list to find the more obscure sites that we couldn’t fit in. You will also find visitor comments and source references at the bottom of each site page. If you know any sources of information we don’t currently list or have any comments about sites featured in this book or on the website, please do submit them.

The Megalithic Portal includes a wide range of ancient sites, so I should mention some that we haven’t had space to cover in this book: Iron Age features, such as hill forts, brochs and souterrains; Palaeolithic and Mesolithic find spots and camps; early Christian crosses and other early medieval sites; holy wells and sacred springs; modern stone circles; natural features that may have been revered by or inspired prehistoric people.

As this is a “field guide” we have only included a very few (particularly interesting) sites where there is little or nothing to see on the ground. In fact there are many more lost sites that have been destroyed. The Raunds Area Project in Northamptonshire, for example, found more than 20 vanished mounds, barrows, avenues and causewayed enclosures in the Nene valley, near Wellingborough. We list the ones we know about on the website and welcome photos of the surrounding landscape – even if there are no prehistoric remains still to be seen. Visiting sites that are no longer there, imagining what they were like or how they were used, is true “hardcore” site visiting and for this we salute you!

For reasons of space we have had to limit ourselves to the UK, Isle of Man and Ireland. We haven’t included sites on the Channel Islands, as these have more in common with the sites of France, and that’s something for another day. We did originally look at including parts of continental Europe but felt it would be impossible to do justice to the many thousands of megalithic sites in countries such as Germany, Denmark, France, Spain and Portugal, and in eastern Europe. There are also many ancient sites in the USA and the rest of the Americas. Not forgetting India, China and … why am I trying to list them all? The Portal features sites from 136 countries – including Liechtenstein, which I recently had to add so one of our contributors could post an entry.

SAFETY

Do not rely purely on modern technology for navigation; always carry a backup map and compass. Know your limits and take care around ancient monuments, which can be dangerous places with unseen holes, cliffs and other pitfalls. Take a torch with you and suitable rations if trekking long distances. Wear appropriate footwear and clothing.

In this ebook we have embedded a link in the title of each megalithic site. These lead directly to the relevant pages on the Megalithic Portal web resource, so if you have an Internet connection you can click on these for more information and photos of each site.

How to Get Involved

We have tried to ensure the information in this book is as accurate as possible, but if you find any errors please do let us know so that we can update future editions. We would also love to hear from you on the website. At the Megalithic Portal we aim to be a sounding board for discussion, as well as a repository for accurate and up-to-date information on specific sites and monuments – and all of this requires constant input from our contributors. We strive to be fair to everyone and create an atmosphere where views can be challenged and disagreed with constructively and respectfully. We have, for example, a Sacred Sites and Megalithic Mysteries forum where we encourage discussion of all manner of experiences and theories relating to ancient sites. Just be respectful to others, even if you disagree with their ideas, and you’ll be welcome.

Also on the site is a visit log feature, where you can keep a record of all the ancient sites you have visited, along with your comments and personal ratings as you go. This can be found on the right-hand side of each site entry, along with the link to submit photos of your own.

These days, electronic devices such as smartphones are available to all, and these have changed the way we interact with the outdoors, whether with augmented reality, audio guides, geocaching, Pokémon Go or simply being able to access information while on the move. Academic papers are increasingly put online and even traditional closed journals are getting in on the the act, offering free trial periods or codes to get through their paywalls. Many archaeology site databases are now available online. But better linking of information sources is still badly needed and that’s something that we try to do at the Megalithic Portal. Official site databases could be better at curating links, and projects should plan for the long-term availability of their data. I have lost count of the number of projects that forget to renew their web addresses, while entire online archives disappear as researchers lose funding, move on or just go for a redesign. Keeping knowledge free and available amounts to the “archaeology of the internet”. But to get off my soapbox, it’s amazing that this unprecedented amount of information is available to everyone – it’s there to be made use of. And don’t forget traditional libraries, archives and just getting out there to do your own research.

CODE OF CONDUCT

Much damage is done accidentally by people who mean no harm. Think twice, and don’t do anything which would cause degradation to the monument. For more details on visiting sites, see the Megalithic Portal Charter, linked at the bottom of any page on the website.

• Check access. Exclusions to the “right to roam” include private gardens and cultivated farmland (unless on footpaths or field margins).

• Get permission to visit sites on private land. This is usually granted if asked for politely – many landowners appreciate their sites as much as we do, but repeated unauthorized visits could lead to access being denied to all.

• Don’t climb on the stones or on rock art. o Don’t try to remove lichen or dig near an ancient site.

• Don’t use wax candles or nightlights inside tombs. You can get very effective LED candles that are much cleaner and safer.

• Don’t light fires close to sites. o Do not move, mark or alter the site in any way, even temporarily.

• Don’t hide caches immediately in or around sites or use metal detectors.

• Any artefacts found should be reported to the local museum or via the Portable Antiquities Scheme (finds.org.uk).

• Do not fly drones around ancient sites without permission – for aerial photography try a kite or long pole instead.

• All in all, please be respectful, keep dogs under control and don’t “hog” the monument for your own rituals/purposes if there are others around.

This book is testament to the passion for prehistoric sites held by so many. Everyone can play a part in adding to our knowledge of ancient sites, and anyone can put time into researching, finding, photographing, monitoring and tidying them. I can only imagine what our stone-raising ancestors would have made of people all over the world communicating and rather obsessing over their efforts with seemingly magical writing devices, 5,000 years into the future! It’s a strange but humbling thought.

For a free extra year’s membership of the Megalithic Portal Society (two years for the price of one), go to: www.megalithic.co.uk/double

SOUTH OF ENGLAND

Top 15 Stone Circles in England

1. Stonehenge (Wiltshire) p.91

2. Avebury (Wiltshire) p.102

3. Castlerigg (Cumbria) p.177

4. Arbor Low (Derbyshire) p.139

5. Nine Ladies (Derbyshire) p.139

6. Stanton Drew (Somerset) p.78

7. Nine Stones Close (Derbyshire) p.138

8. Rollright Stones (Oxfordshire) p.117

9. Long Meg and Her Daughters (Cumbria) p.183

10. Mitchell’s Fold (Shropshire) p.133

11. The Hurlers (Cornwall) p.50

12. Boscawen-ûn (Cornwall) p.38

13. Swinside (Cumbria) p.174

14. Doll Tor (Derbyshire) p.138

15. Merry Maidens (Cornwall) p.36

Wiltshire

STONEHENGE

Stone Circle | Nearest Town: Amesbury

Map: SU 1222 4219 | Sheets: E130 L184 | Lat: 51.17881N | Long: 1.82656W       Barney Harris

The world’s most famous and iconic stone circle, Stonehenge has all the facilities required to entertain over 1.3 million visitors every year, including a café, a shop, and a museum with nearly 300 ancient artefacts and an exhibition exploring the stones, the people and the wider archaeological landscape, as well as reconstructed Neolithic houses. There is full disabled access to the stone circle by shuttle bus and tarmac paths, and you also have the option of walking to the circle past the Greater Cursus and numerous barrows. Don’t go expecting to have the stones to yourself, but, despite the crowds and the fencing, the spectacular arrangement of uprights and lintels remain hugely impressive.

BEGINNINGS (3000–2620BC): THE DITCH AND THE BANK

Approaching Stonehenge, visitors first pass through one of its earliest features: the ditch and bank. Roughly circular and running for around 320m (1,050ft), the ditch encloses a space of just over 9ha (2.2 acres) – an area slightly larger than a modern rugby field – and its construction involved the removal of around 1,200m^3 (42,377ft^3) of solid chalk, weighing an astonishing 3,250 tonnes (3,582 tons). As the ditch was dug, the resulting chalk spoil was piled up to create a 6m (20ft) wide bank on the inside of the ditch, which stood around 2m (6½ft) high. The banks of henge monuments are usually positioned outside the ditches, so this inverted arrangement at Stonehenge is unusual. Two gaps – one to the south, the other to the northeast – were left in the ditch and bank, presumably to facilitate access to the enclosure within. Radiocarbon dates obtained from material at the bottom of the ditch indicate that it was completed by around 2950BC.

The ditch was dug using pick axes fashioned from red-deer antlers, known as antler picks. When William Hawley excavated roughly half the ditch in the 1920s he recovered scores of worn-down antler picks from the ditch floor, along with other offerings – including at least one cow bone, now known to have already been 100 years old by the time it was left in the ditch. Hawley also noted that the ditch had the appearance of a series of conjoined pits, or segments. He reasoned that each segment could have been dug by a different group or “work gang”. Recent experiments have shown that two individuals can shift around 0.5m^3 (17.6ft^3) of chalk per hour using just antler picks and baskets. The ditch at Stonehenge would have therefore taken 10 people around a month to complete, though more people could easily have been involved.

AUBREY HOLES AND WOODEN STRUCTURES

Around the same time as they were digging the ditch, the builders of Stonehenge also dug a circle of 56 oval holes, known as the “Aubrey Holes” after John Aubrey, the first person to record them. The Aubrey Holes ran around the inside of the enclosure ditch and their location is shown today by concrete markers. Upon excavation, they were found to contain cremated human remains. Crushed chalk rubble was also recovered from the bottom of the holes, evidence that they probably once contained heavy bluestone pillars (bluestone is a catch-all term used to describe a variety of mostly igneous rocks deriving from Wales). Around the same time various timber structures – of unknown form and purpose – were installed in and around the enclosure and its entrances.

CHANGE OF FOCUS (2620–2480BC): SARSEN CIRCLE, TRILITHON HORSESHOE AND DOUBLE BLUESTONE CIRCLE

Some 400–500 years after the ditch was dug, as many as 15 enormous sarsen slabs were transported to Stonehenge, sculpted into regular blocks using hard, rounded “hammerstones” and built into the trilithon horseshoe, a towering, open-ended arrangement of five free-standing trilithons located at the centre of the site. Unlike the bluestones, which all derive from the west of Britain, sarsen is a hard sandstone that occurs just north of Stonehenge and in isolated patches across southern England. Today, two concentric circles of holes (known as the Q and R holes) and broken bluestone pillars surround what remains of the sarsen horseshoe. These are probably the remains of a double bluestone circle built around the same time, but since dismantled. The sarsen circle – a now partially ruined 30m (98ft) diameter ring of 30 sarsen uprights supporting 30 lintels – encircled both the sarsen horseshoe and bluestones settings. Strikingly, many of these sarsens were connected using mortice and tenons, a jointing method associated with woodworking.

ALTAR STONE, HEEL STONE, SLAUGHTER STONE AND STATION STONES

Four sarsen Station Stones (of which only two now remain) were positioned just inside the enclosure so that they marked the corners of a near-perfect rectangle that enclosed all the central stone settings. The Slaughter Stone, now fallen, originally stood alongside another two stones in the middle of the northeastern enclosure entrance to create a short façade. The Heel Stone, the heaviest stone at Stonehenge, weighing nearly 30 tonnes (33 tons), was also erected, about 25m (82ft) outside the northeast entrance. Archaeologist Mike Pitts has suggested that it was here all along, part buried with another stone (stone 16) in two pits that align with Stonehenge’s famous solstice alignment; and he wonders if this was what drew the builders of Stonehenge to the site in the first place. The Altar Stone (one of the only non-local sandstones present at Stonehenge – it likely came from the Senni Beds around the Brecon Beacons) was given pride of place at the centre of the monument, just in front of the Great Trilithon. In the 500 years that followed this intensive episode of construction, the bluestones were rearranged multiple times and a 2.5km (1.5 mile) long avenue was carved into the chalk, connecting Stonehenge to the former site of Bluestonehenge (see page 95) and the River Avon.

GREATER CURSUS AND THE GREATER CURSUS BARROWS

Some 700m (½ mile) north of the stone circle is the Greater Cursus, a Neolithic earthwork enclosure 100–150m (328–492ft) wide that runs roughly east–west for 2.7km (1¾ miles), the ditch and banks still visible. The western end, with its two round barrows, can be viewed on the walk to or from the stone circle to the visitor centre. South of the Greater Cursus and running in parallel is a line of fine Bronze Age round barrows, built around 1,000 years after the cursus. Some of the barrows have names – the Monarch of the Plains, or Amesbury 55, for instance, which is a large bell barrow, 2.8m (9ft) high and 58m (190ft) across. There’s also a twin bell barrow, Amesbury 44, with two closely spaced (or “confluent”) barrow mounds surrounded by a single ditch.

CURRENT THEORIES ABOUT STONEHENGE

It is now known that Stonehenge began life as Britain’s earliest and largest cremation cemetery. All but eight of the excavated Aubrey Holes contained cremated human remains and as many as 150–240 individuals were buried at Stonehenge over the course of the third millennium BC. It was not until around 400 years after the first bluestones were brought to Stonehenge that its architecture began to reflect an increased concern with celestial bodies, a change that has led some to label Stonehenge an observatory. Certainly, these later stone settings emphasized an important axis (or line) that ran right through the middle of Stonehenge; at its northeastern end the Heel Stone “hides” the rising midsummer sunrise, while the uprights of the Great Trilithon frame the midwinter setting sun to the southwest. Archaeoastronomers have confirmed that a second alignment – this time with the major summer and winter full moons – was created by the long sides of the rectangle delineated by the Station Stones.

More recent thinking has highlighted Stonehenge’s importance as part of a wider network of prehistoric monuments scattered around the local landscape. The association between stone and death at Stonehenge is mirrored at another nearby monument that is also connected to the River Avon by its own avenue: Durrington Walls (see page 98). Rather than stones, this enormous henge contained a giant timber circle with its entrance aligned to the midwinter sunrise and midsummer sunset, the exact opposite of Stonehenge. Excavations here by the Stonehenge Riverside Project also revealed the presence of a sizeable Neolithic village that later became a giant feasting site. Durrington Walls was thus a place for the living and Stonehenge a place for the dead; people congregated around the timber circles of Durrington Walls to feast and celebrate life before proceeding down the river to Stonehenge to remember the dead among the stones.

The vast amount of labour required to build Stonehenge (over 30 million hours at the last count) has also led some to conclude it is the best evidence yet for the existence of a prehistoric hierarchy or ancient elite. Certainly, it is difficult to understand why a single group of people would spend so long building something like Stonehenge, but more recent evidence points to the possibility that this effort may have in fact been shared across many groups from around Britain. Isotopic analysis of cow bones found at Stonehenge has revealed that animals were likely brought to Wiltshire from as far away as Scotland. Equally, petrographic analysis of some of the sarsen stone at Stonehenge has shown it was brought west from Kent. Far from being the product of a centrally controlled chiefdom, Stonehenge could have emerged out of the joint efforts of many smaller groups coming together for the common good.

Nearby | At SU 1420 4137, around 2km (1¼ miles) ESE of Stonehenge, Bluestonehenge (or Bluehenge or Riverhenge) is a previously unknown monument discovered in 2009 by a team of archaeologists. Its location was highly significant, sitting beside the River Avon at the beginning of the ceremonial avenue that led all the way to Stonehenge. The monument probably originally comprised 26 bluestone pillars arranged in a circle, but all that remains today is stone-holes – so there’s nothing to see on the ground.

Top 10 Pieces of Music Inspired by Prehistory

Andy Burnham, founder and Editor of the Megalithic Portal

1. “Tumulus” by Drombeg, from the album Earthworks (2016): piano, electronics and field recordings expertly mixed by Thom Brooks, who is based in Co. Kerry, Ireland.

2. “Nine Stones Close” by Nick Jonah Davis, from the album Of Time and Tides (2011): this ace fingerpicking guitarist is from Nottingham, so not a million miles from the Derbyshire site.

3. Symphony No. 9 by Ralph Vaughan Williams: the second movement alludes to Tess’s arrest at Stonehenge in Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles. It was composed in 1956–7 and first performed under the baton of Sir Malcolm Sargent in 1958 only four months before Vaughan Williams’ death.

4. “Stanton Drew” by folk band Titus (2011): a song about the legend of the fiddlers playing past midnight into the Sabbath and everyone being turned to stone! While I was previewing this the next song that came up was The Wedding at Stanton Drew by Bully Wee Band, another folk tune about exactly the same legend. It does involve fiddles, after all, so you can see the attraction for folk musicians.

5. “The Imagined Sound of Sun on Stone” by Sally Beamish (2000): a piece for saxophone and chamber orchestra. Sally describes visualizing the beam of light that enters Maeshowe as like a stylus playing the sound out of the stone.

6. “King of Boys” by Steve Martin & Edie Brickell, from the album Love Has Come for You (2013). Steve the comedian, on banjo, and Edie the singer-songwriter, both from Texas, teamed up to make this album. This track about the prehistoric gold cape found in Mold, North Wales (now in the British Museum) was written as lighthearted challenge from Steve to stretch Edie’s songwriting skills.

7. “A Circle inside a Circle” by James Holden, from the album The Inheritors (2013): with a cover clearly inspired by the rock art of Northumberland, you could call this folk-techo with a nod to Steve Reich. One for those who like their electronic music a bit organic and unprocessed, When alternative music blog The Quietus calls an album an “exhausting, complex and disorientating listen”, you know you’re in for something wild.

8. “Woodhenge” by Mike Oldfield, from the album Platinum (1979): ambient music with gentle marimba rhythms, the B side to the vinyl single release of the Blue Peter theme.

9. “The Ring of Brodgar” by Dawn & Dusk Entwined, from the album A L’aube des Jours Anciens (2011): fitting the stormy weather typically experienced at this Orkney site, this is slow, moodily orchestrated rock with doomladen drumming from the French outfit who disbanded in 2012.

10. “Doggerland” by Ian Anderson, from the album Homo Erraticus (2014): one for the deep prehistorians as Doggerland would have been well and truly flooded under the North Sea by the time the first standing stone was erected. Ian also wrote and performed the song “Dun Ringill” with Jethro Tull, from the album Stormwatch (1979) about an Iron Age “broch-like structure” (to be completely accurate – as we at the Megalithic Portal try hard to be). The lyrics also mention waiting in stone circles.

Stonehenge: Model of a Geocentric Universe?

Jon Morris, author of Stonehenge: Solving the Neolithic Universe

When the sun leaves the north for the winter, the land becomes cold. For the people who built Stonehenge, knowledge of solar movement may have been seen as fundamental to their very existence. It could even be that the site acted as both a depository of knowledge and as the setting for a spectacular public educational display.

The concept of a geocentric universe appears to have been embodied in the layout of Stonehenge, if its various elements are taken to signify a circular Earth (the sarsens), a circular heavens (the inner and outer henge banks and the Aubrey Holes), the points of the sun’s movement (the Station Stones) and the polar axis (the Heel Stone, the Slaughter Stone and the Avenue). This layout appears to have been adjusted to make it more precise, with some of the Avenue’s stones removed around the time the sarsen ring was built, while the Heel Stone and the Slaughter Stone were retained. These two remaining, or possibly repositioned, stones are in the correct positions to represent the polar axis relative to the true cardinal directions. When the horizon is even slightly elevated (as at Stonehenge) and without magnets, only tracing a line to the Pole Star enables an exact cardinal layout. Aligning a tree pole with the Pole Star (Thuban), and dropping a plumb bob to the centre of the stone circle, would have given a precise setting to true north when the shadow from the pole aligned with the plumb bob at midday. Is it possible that Stonehenge was built to provide a working model of the sun’s movements? One stone pair (Stones 53 and

54) have a socket that could have held a tree pole pointed at the Pole Star. A second pole, with a ball suspended from the end, could then have been rotated around it, and mirrors placed to focus sunlight onto the ball as shown in the diagram below. (Crude mirrors could have been fashioned from tin that has since degraded.) If the device enabled the ball to be rotated, raised and lowered according to the seasonal position of the sun, it could have been used to create a ball of light to simulate the sun, demonstrating its movement in an apparently geocentric universe to a crowd gathered in the Avenue.

The outer bluestone circle exists in just the right place to provide solid support points for mirrors to be tilted for each season. Other stones are positioned in locations needed for a geocentric device. Stonehenge’s entire plan layout can thus be shown to function as an idealized geocentric description of the universe. To prove that this works and show that the ideas are new, I applied for a UK patent for the idea (GB2486636), which was granted in April 2018.

Morris, J. 2013. Stonehenge: Solving the Neolithic Universe. North Charleston: CreateSpace

Possible set-up of mirrors, pole and ball to demonstrate the movements of the sun

Stonehenge and the Neolithic Cosmos

N.D. Wiseman, who researches the UK Neolithic from the United States

While Stonehenge had for generations been researched in isolation, the past two decades have seen the monument emerge as a centrally located, culturally fluid metaphor for a sun-based belief system we scarcely imagined could have existed.

During its history, Stonehenge steadily evolved as functions changed, and though certain beliefs transferred through the 2,000-year life of the monument, new ones were introduced. The monument went from being a moon-ruled, regional cemetery to embodying a precise definition of the cosmos itself, with the fabled stone setting positioned at the centre of the universe – not only as a symbolic omphalos, but physically, across the known world.

As a final statement of the Neolithic era, Stonehenge unified all the diverse concepts of previous generations. The ever-moving minuet of sun, moon, Earth and those who dwell there now existed in a harmonic environment that referenced life, death and renewal.

The sun was the father of life, the stone circle was his earth-wife, the cup-shaped trilithon horseshoe was her womb. At summer solstice, the Heel Stone created a phallic shadow deeply piercing the horseshoe, while the Altar Stone was where that shadow fell. In December, stone 16, with its bulging midriff, was a mother heavy with child looking southwest, bidding her husband farewell. The harbinger of life’s eternal cycle, she will deliver her bounty at vernal equinox, nine months after the father’s solstice visit.

These and many other ideas are detailed in the following book, written for the curious layperson: Wiseman, N.D. 2015. Stonehenge and the Neolithic Cosmos. Cape Cod: The Vinland Press

WINTERBOURNE STOKE

Barrow Cemetery | Nearest Village: Winterbourne Stoke

Map: SU 1017 4171 | Sheets: E130 L184 | Lat: 51.17453N | Long: 1.8559W

The Winterbourne Stoke barrow cemetery features examples of pretty much every kind of barrow, from a Neolithic long barrow (with multiple burials) through the various Bronze Age types. The long barrow is next to the Winterbourne Stoke roundabout – you can see it from the road – and there are also pond, ditch and bell barrows. Eleven of a total of around 27 barrows are aligned with the earlier long barrow. Five of the round barrows here are very early, dating from about 2100BC, and contained inhumations (burials) rather than cremations. The King Barrow is one of the best known, 51m (167ft) across and 3m (10ft) high, excavated by Sir Richard Colt Hoare in 1812. He gave it the name (it’s also known as Barrow 16 and Winterbourne Stoke 5) due to the fancy grave goods that were found there, including a bronze awl with a bone handle, two bronze daggers and sherds of pottery from Brittany, as well as an elm tree-trunk coffin. Some of the finds from Colt Hoare’s many excavations here can be seen at Salisbury Museum.

MAP

NEW KING BARROWS

Barrow Cemetery | Nearest Town: Amesbury

Map: SU 1345 4222 | Sheets: E130 L184 | Lat: 51.17905N | Long: 1.80896W      Barney Harris

Known simply as the Seven Barrows in the 1600s, the New King Barrows gained their modern name when John Aubrey likened the way they were positioned beside one another to the arrangement of royal graves at Westminster Abbey. This north–south alignment of round barrows lies within a wooded area on King Barrow Ridge, just over 1km (0.6 miles) east of Stonehenge. The barrows are visible as grass-and-tree-covered, circular mounds that range from 2–4m (6ft 7in–13ft) in height and 20–40m (66ft–131ft) in diameter. They were likely built during the earlier Bronze Age (c.2000–1500BC), a period when people started to become less nomadic and began farming and grazing the land more intensively. They built scores of other round barrows, often in groups or lines, within which they buried their dead with grave goods such as bronze axes, flint tools and gold items. Today, well over 900 such barrows exist within just the military training area on Salisbury Plain.

The barrows were excavated in the late 20th century after they were damaged by uprooted trees. These limited excavations revealed that they were made mostly of soil and stacked turves (layers of grass), with a thick layer (or “capping”) of white chalk rubble cast over the top. In some cases the chalk had been dug out of a circular ditch that surrounded the mound. Analysis of the turves showed that humans had managed the grazing of the land for around 30 years before they were built. BC

WOODHENGE

Henge | Nearest Town: Durrington

Map: SU 1505 4338 | Sheets: E130 L184 | Lat: 51.18941N | Long: 1.78602W      Barney Harris

Woodhenge was an arrangement of six concentric, oval rings of timber posts (the positions of which are marked today by concrete bollards), surrounded by a circular ditch and bank measuring 85m (279ft) across. It is situated around 200m (656ft) to the south of Durrington Walls (see below), close to the River Avon, and was built at around 2300BC. A gap in the ditch and bank at Woodhenge to the northeast looks directly toward Durrington Walls, hinting at some kind of relationship between the two. The third ring from the outside contained the largest timber posts, some of which measured around 1m (3ft 3in) in diameter. There are convincing parallels between Woodhenge and Stonehenge: for example, the longest axis of the oval timber settings at Woodhenge shares the same orientation as the principal axis as Stonehenge (midsummer sunrise–midwinter sunset).

DURRINGTON WALLS

Henge | Nearest Village: Durrington

Map: SU 1501 4375 | Sheets: E130 L184 | Lat: 51.19277N | Long: 1.78658W      Barney Harris

Dating to around 2600BC, Durrington Walls is one of Britain’s largest henge monuments. The roughly circular ditch and bank, parts of which are still visible today, follow the contours of a natural combe (small valley) down to the River Avon. They enclose an area of some 17ha (42 acres), a space equivalent to 24 modern football fields. The bank – composed entirely of chalk rubble – originally stood around 4m (13ft) tall and reached a maximum width of 30m (98ft). Its construction entailed the removal of around 70,000m^3 (2.47 million ft^3) of solid chalk bedrock, weighing well over 150,000 tonnes (165,346 tons). There are at least two, possibly three, short gaps in the earthworks, which are thought to have served as entrances into the site. The southeastern entrance has been investigated most thoroughly and in 2005 it was discovered to have been linked to the River Avon by an approximately 20m (66ft) wide, flint nodule-cobbled avenue, the only one of its kind in the UK. The remains of two timber circles have also been located at the site and are contemporaneous with the earthworks. The best-preserved of these, known as the Southern Circle, comprised six concentric rings of large timber posts and measured just under 40m (131ft) in diameter. The width of some of the Southern Circle’s post-holes showed that the timbers used to construct the circle could be enormous, in some cases measuring over 1m (3ft 3in) in diameter.

There are numerous architectural features at Durrington Walls that link it to Stonehenge. For example, the avenue from the River Avon to Durrington Walls was aligned on the midsummer sunset, whereas at Stonehenge the approach from the avenue is directed toward the midwinter sunset. The diameters of the inner four timber circles within the Southern Circle at Durrington Walls also roughly match those of the innermost four bluestone and sarsen stone settings at Stonehenge.

BULFORD STONE Alt Name: Tor Stone
Standing Stone | Nearest Village: Bulford

Map: SU 1736 4318 | Sheets: E130 L184 | Lat: 51.18755N | Long: 1.75297W

The Bulford Stone is a sarsen stone, 2.8m (9ft) long, lying in a 30m (98ft) diameter ring ditch. Excavation revealed the hole the stone originally stood in, and also the pit it probably came from in the first place, suggesting that sarsens were perhaps as common on Salisbury Plain as they were on the Marlborough Downs. An almost-central burial was found to contain a small food vessel and the cremated remains of one adult along with selected unburnt bones from a second adult. Grave goods included bone spatulae, a wild boar’s tusk and a miniature “megalith” carved from limestone, as well as rock crystal which may have come from South Wales – or possibly the Alps. A second food vessel cremation was added later.

Feasting and Monument Building

Barney Harris, PhD candidate at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London

Feasting remains a widespread phenomenon across cultures. As well as reaffirming existing social bonds or forming new ones, the act of feasting has been – and still is – used to mobilize labour for the creation or renovation of buildings and monuments. As recently as 2006, ethnographers on the Sumatran island of Sumba recorded large-scale feasting during stone-pulling ceremonies, where boulders weighing in excess of 10 tonnes (11 tons) were transported using simple ropes and wooden sledges. Could feasting have formed an important part of megalithic and earthwork monument building in Neolithic Britain?

The later Neolithic site of Durrington Walls, Wiltshire (see page 98) is one of the few contexts where feasting is apparent in the archaeological record. In 2005, archaeologists discovered the remains of houses at the site, which lies just 2.8km (1¾ miles) northeast of Stonehenge. These buildings formed part of a late Neolithic village – one of the largest in northwestern Europe at the time – that predated the construction of the henge at Durrington Walls. As well as the remains of their houses, the inhabitants left behind vast quantities of pig and cow bone, pottery and flint tools. Radiocarbon-dating has shown that this activity occurred around the same time that Stonehenge was built, leading some to suggest that this was where the builders of Stonehenge once lived and feasted.

Certainly, analyses of the animal bones at Durrington Walls have indicated that the site was used to host enormous, lavish feasts, attracting visitors from across Britain – events that may have provided the numbers of people needed to shift the enormous stones of Stonehenge. Guests apparently brought their own cattle to the event, as chemicals within the bones showed much of the meat eaten was not raised locally. It is likely these animals were transported while still alive – both for practical reasons and because bones from all parts of the body were present, rather than just those from meaty joints.

Patterns of burning on the pig bones revealed that comparatively wasteful methods of cooking, such as barbecuing, were favoured, and the presence of large dumps of bones with no rodent gnawing marks indicated the leftovers were probably buried soon after eating had ceased. Analysis of fatty residues preserved on the inside of pottery fragments indicate cow’s milk, cheeses or butters may also have been consumed. The pigs’ teeth were found to be relatively small and unworn, providing further evidence for extravagance, as it demonstrated that many were slaughtered before reaching full maturity. The teeth also revealed that many pigs were slaughtered during the autumn/ midwinter period, indicating this may have been an important time of year for feasting – a fact which further emphasizes links to Stonehenge, whose architecture is aligned toward the midwinter solstice setting sun.

If the evidence from Durrington Walls is anything to go by, places such as Stonehenge were constructed willingly by a well-fed set of honoured guests, rather than by an oppressed gang of labourers.

MARDEN HENGE Alt Name: Hatfield Earthworks
Henge | Nearest Village: Marden

Map: SU 0908 5820 | Sheets: E130 L173 | Lat: 51.32283N | Long: 1.87108W      Barney Harris

Enclosing an area of some 14ha (35 acres), Marden Henge ranks as one of Britain’s “mega-henges”, alongside Durrington Walls, Dorchester and Avebury. It is situated roughly halfway between the great monumental complexes at Stonehenge and Avebury. Dating to around 2400BC, the enormous enclosure bank and ditch are more irregular than that at Durrington Walls, comprising a series of straight sections rather than smooth arcs. Two entrances into the enclosure exist: one to the southeast and one to the north, where excavations in 1969 located the skeleton of a young woman along with pottery, antler picks and flint tools. A gravel-covered avenue links the southeastern entrance to the River Avon. In 2010, not far from this entrance, archaeologists located the remains of a single Neolithic building. The purpose of the structure is puzzling, but the remains of a large central hearth led the excavators to suggest it may have functioned as a sweat lodge.

Cat’s Brain: A House for the Living?

Andy Burnham, founder and Editor of the Megalithic Portal, with thanks to Jim Leary

In summer 2017, Dr Jim Leary and a team from the University of Reading excavated a long barrow site a few kilometres east of Marden Henge known as Cat’s Brain. It’s been accepted for decades that Neolithic long barrows are burial monuments; however, many don’t contain much in the way of human remains, and none at all were found at Cat’s Brain. Instead of a tomb, the dig revealed evidence of a huge timber hall, 20 × 10m (66 × 33ft) across at the front, with giant posts and horizontal beams as foundations. The slots for these were particularly deep across the front, suggesting a frontage designed to impress. So a substantial gathering place, or, as Jim Leary suggests, possibly a ceremonial house, storehouse for sacred artefacts, dwelling place of the ancestors (complete with bones) – or, indeed, all these things. But one that looked more like a “house of the living” than of the dead, and imbued with great power and community identity.

During construction, two decorated chalk blocks were deliberately deposited in a post-hole. They have carved lines and hollows – and there is no doubt these were made deliberately. This is similar to the art found in Sussex flint mines such as Harrow Hill (see page 124) and on plaques discovered at various sites (see page 52). This form of graffiti-like art is coming to seem more significant the more that’s found of it, and suggests the act of building a monument, or mining chalk, or stone for axes had an importance beyond the mere practical.

Frequently timber “houses” like these were in use for only two or three generations (the lifetime or memory of one individual perhaps?) before being deliberately burned down or abandoned. At Cat’s Brain, deep ditches were dug either side, suggesting that quarried chalk was piled over the crumbling building, transforming it into the permanent memorial we know as an earthen long barrow.

MAP

AVEBURY

Stone Circle | Nearest Village: Avebury

Map: SU 1026 6996 | Sheets: E157 L173 | Lat: 51.42855N | Long: 1.85381W      Joshua Pollard

Writing in the 17th century, John Aubrey said that Avebury “does as much exceed in greatness the so renowned Stonehenge, as a cathedral doeth a parish church”. Many visitors will agree. While Avebury does not have the architectural sophistication of Stonehenge, nor its sublime grandeur, it stands as one of the most impressive prehistoric monuments in Europe. Like Stonehenge, this is a complex monument built in a series of stages over perhaps a millennium, from the early–mid third to the early second millennium BC. The henge encloses a low ridge to the east of the Winterbourne stream, overlooked by low hills on most sides. Its structure is best conceived as a series of nested spaces, the “deepest” and perhaps most sacred of these being defined by the central settings within the Inner Circles. Outwardly it is defined by a massive earthwork, 420m (1,378ft) in diameter. Set inside the bank and ditch is the Outer Circle (the largest stone circle in the world), itself enclosing two Inner Circles (Northern and Southern) with substantial megalithic settings at their centres (the Cove and former Obelisk). Several additional megaliths are scattered along the low ridge running north–south through the henge.

There have been various campaigns of excavation, the most notable being in 1865 by A.C. Smith and W. Cunnington, from 1908–22 by Harold St George Gray, and 1937–9 by Alexander Keiller. The latter were on an ambitious scale, and tied to a programme of restoration, which included the raising of fallen and buried stones and marking of others long taken away, and the removal of several buildings inside the circles. Keiller’s work effectively created the Avebury we see today.

BANK AND DITCH

Typical of many henges, the earthwork enclosure is formed of an external bank and internal ditch, broken by four entrances through which modern roads now run. This is known to be of two-stage construction, though it remains uncertain when the initial earthwork was created (estimates would place it somewhere between 3000 and 2600BC). The bank and ditch we see today date to the 26th century BC. A true sense of the original scale of the earthwork can only be appreciated when it is realized that the bank has settled and slumped and the ditch half-filled with silt. Gray’s excavations showed the ditch against the southern entrance to be 10m (33ft) deep, reaching the top of the water table. The builders would have used antler picks and perhaps wooden digging sticks to cut through the chalk.

OUTER CIRCLE

The Outer Circle follows the inner edge of the ditch, and on present evidence looks to have been created soon after this was dug. Comprising an estimated 98 stones, each standing 2–4m (6ft 7in– 13ft) high, it represents one of the largest single exercises in megalith building in Neolithic Europe. The stones are graded, with the largest and most geometric blocks set at the entrances. As with all the Avebury megaliths, the stones are unshaped and likely chosen for their size, natural shape and perhaps connections to particular parts of the landscape.

INNER CIRCLES

The Southern and Northern Inner Circles are set along the natural ridge enclosed by the henge, and being on higher ground afford better views of the surrounding landscape than other spaces within the monument. Though much smaller than the outer circle, they are still colossal at around 100m (328ft) in diameter, and make use of particularly large sarsen blocks.

OBELISK, Z-FEATURE AND COVE

Contained within the Inner Circles and so set in the “deepest” space in the monument are further megalithic settings: the Obelisk and what is known as the Z-feature in the Southern Inner Circle; and the Cove in the Northern. They are notable for the size of their stones, and in being square elements within a monument otherwise made up of circles. The western stone of the Cove is now known to be deeply set in the ground, and to comprise a block of c.100 tonnes (110 tons) – by weight perhaps the largest megalith in Britain. While long-since destroyed, according to antiquarian records, the Obelisk was around 7m (23ft) long. Recent geophysical survey shows the Obelisk to have been enclosed by a square arrangement of megaliths c.30m (98ft) across, with stones much larger than those reerected by Keiller on the restored western side. There is tantalizing evidence that the whole was constructed around the site of a much earlier Neolithic house, and that this relatively modest wooden structure provided the focus for unfolding monumentalization that would ultimately lead to the Avebury we see today. The Inner Circles and their internal settings may be among the earliest elements of the site.

The henge is often assumed to have been a centre of gathering and worship. Curiously, little in the way of later Neolithic artefacts have been found during excavation. Either the monument was kept “clean” or it was visited by only a few: in this sense being a reserved sacred space within the landscape. By the early Bronze Age deposits of human bone were being placed in the henge ditch, suggesting a deep connection to ancestral rites and worship.

Nearby | At SU 0867 7144, some 2km (1¼ miles) WNW of Avebury, the early Neolithic enclosure on Windmill Hill is among the largest sites of its kind, its scale reflecting its importance and the level of participation in its construction and use. It may even be regarded as the precursor to the Avebury henge. The enclosure is made up of a series of three concentric circuits of ditches, the outer 360m (1,181ft) across, enclosing 8.5ha (21 acres). As is characteristic of so-called causewayed enclosures, the ditches are interrupted by numerous causeways rather than being continuous. The enclosure was constructed in stages during the 37th century BC. Excavations during the 1920s, 1950s and 1980s discovered rich collections of animal bone and artefacts, much of it carefully deposited in the ditches. Human remains were also present. While the primary focus of the site was gathering and feasting, it looks as though Windmill Hill was also a place of settlement, of mortuary and ancestor rituals, and many other activities that made up the diversity of early Neolithic life.

Development of the Avebury Landscape

Joshua Pollard, Reader in Archaeology at the University of Southampton

The Avebury monuments cluster around the headwaters of the upper Kennet valley in north Wiltshire, close to the northern edge of the Wessex chalk uplands. Much of the archaeological fame of this region resides in its spectacular late Neolithic monuments. The Avebury henge (see page 102), its megalithic avenues (see page 107), Silbury Hill (see page 108) and the West Kennet palisaded enclosures (see page 110) are among the largest megalithic, earthen and wooden constructions found in the Neolithic of Atlantic Europe.

While monument building here reached its apogee in the centuries around 2500BC, the origins of this remarkable ceremonial complex, and the pre-eminent status of this landscape, must be sought in developments during the earlier Neolithic. On present evidence, the first farming communities in the region look to have been established close to 4000BC. By the 37th century BC they were well established, and the wider Avebury landscape – taking in the chalk downlands to the south, west and east – relatively well populated. Key monuments such as the Windmill Hill enclosure (see opposite) and the West Kennet long barrow (see page 109) – one of 30 or so long barrows in the wider landscape – belong to this time. Both stone-chambered and earthen/chalkmounded examples are present; the latter more common in the western half of the region. Many were tombs of sorts, others, such as South Street, near Avebury Trusloe, had no funerary function. By virtue of its scale and the wealth of material found in its ditches, particularly animal bone, the enclosure on Windmill Hill was a major, extra-regional focus for gatherings and feasting events, establishing a tradition of collective ceremonial activity that was to continue and grow.

During the first half of the third millennium BC, both settlement and monument building were more focused on the valley floor around the Winterbourne and head of the River Kennet. At the heart of the area is the Avebury henge, which seems to have the longest history of construction and use of the region’s ceremonial sites. Its stone circles and avenues make use of the local sarsen stone: a silcrete rock that was originally widely distributed across the Avebury landscape.

By 2500BC the pace of monument building had markedly increased. This repeats a picture found across Wessex, and could mark a response to the ideological challenge posed by the introduction of the new ways of life and beliefs of Continental Beaker groups. The numbers of Beaker newcomers are likely to have been small to begin with, but their impact would prove profound and lasting. Building ever-larger monuments like Silbury Hill may have been a way of reinforcing existing belief systems and ancestrally sanctioned authority in the face of these new world views. Over the space of a few generations many of the elements of the Avebury henge, Silbury Hill, the Sanctuary (page 112) and the West Kennet palisaded enclosures were created. Separate sites were integrated into a single ceremonial complex through the creation of linking avenues connecting Avebury with the Sanctuary and the Longstones); while the Sanctuary, West Kennet palisades and Silbury Hill are visually linked and connected to a degree by the River Kennet. This may have served to structure landscape-scale as opposed to site-specific ceremonial activity, and, by tying together places with history, enforced a particular narrative of the landscape and its occupation. The process would have involved participation from far and wide, and stretched resources to the limit. It likely culminated with the building of the colossal mound of Silbury Hill.

Communities were still being drawn into the region during the early Bronze Age (2200–1500BC), as testified by the 300 or so round barrows that cover a variety of burials, and by the ongoing deposition of human remains within Avebury henge. Much of this remarkable history of ceremonial activity remains visible in the landscape, even though ploughing, stone breaking and decay have taken their toll. Avebury preserves a distinct sense of place and a connection to an intriguing past. Archaeological fieldwork is ongoing, with new geophysical surveys across the landscape, and a programme underway to investigate prehistoric settlements. The Living with Monuments project has highlighted the scale of settlement within the region, showing this was by no means a reserved “ritual” landscape. A connection existed between monument building and routine living, and certain locations with long histories of Neolithic settlement, such as on Overton Hill and at Avebury itself, were later monumentalized.

Unique Transfigurative Rock Art?

Terence Meaden, archaeologist and former Professor of Physics at Dalhousie University, Canada

My contention is that there is a master carving at Avebury Cove in which, with a changing viewpoint of a single carved surface, transfiguration takes place between (a) a fine human face sculpted in profile facing the winter solstice sunset, and (b) a hare seen in spring boxing mode when this same rock surface is viewed perpendicularly. The pecked carving is subtle, being highly refined. The head of the hare becomes the eye of the human when viewed edgewise. The back of the hare is the cheek of the human face.

Sunlight direction is optimal for viewing this rock art in the morning after 11 am, when the deep carving around the human eye can be seen to be particularly impressive and skilfully executed. This may be the only sculpture in the world in the prehistory and history of art that exhibits this extraordinary duality.

See page 363 for reference.

The dual hare/face-profile sculpture on one of the stones at Avebury Cove

LONGSTONE COVE Alt Names: Adam and Eve Stones, Beckhampton Avenue | Standing Stones | Nearest Village: Avebury

Map: SU 0891 6931 | Sheets: E157 L173 | Lat: 51.42273N | Long: 1.87324W      Joshua Pollard

Known colloquially as Adam and Eve, the Longstones mark the end of Avebury’s second megalithic avenue: the Beckhampton Avenue. Confirmed through excavation in 1999, the Beckhampton Avenue was very similar in form, date and surely function to the better preserved West Kennet Avenue. Eve is the one remaining visible stone of the Beckhampton Avenue. Adam is the remaining side stone of a box-like setting of large stones analogous to the Avebury Cove. This setting may both mark and memorialize the site of an earlier earthwork enclosure, which was briefly used, then deliberately levelled, during the late Neolithic.

WEST KENNET AVENUE

Stone Rows | Nearest Village: Avebury

Map: SU 1069 6928 | Sheets: E157 L173 | Lat: 51.42243N | Long: 1.84764W      Joshua Pollard

The West Kennet Avenue runs for 2.4km (1½ miles) from the southern entrance of the Avebury henge to the Sanctuary (see page 112) on Overton Hill. Until the 17th century much of its course remained quite visible, but, as with Avebury, stone removal, burial and breaking eradicated much. Its northern third was excavated and restored by Alexander Keiller in 1934–5, and this is the best section to visit. For most of its course the Avenue comprises paired standing sarsen stones set 15m (49ft) apart, the pairs being spaced at 20–30m (66–98ft) intervals. There are indications that in its mid-section, as it approaches the dry valley around the hamlet of West Kennet, the form of the Avenue changes to a single row of stones, potentially incorporating a short gap. It may have been created in stages. There are hints of a low turf bank contained within the lines of stones along at least part of its length. The best estimates for the date of the Avenue are within the range 2500–2200BC – it was certainly present by the time burials with Chalcolithic/early Bronze Age beakers were placed against some of the stones. Traces of axe polishing can be seen on two of the stones (19b and 32a).

Curiously, but with seemingly deliberate intent, at either end the Avenue fails to align properly with the monuments it “connects”. Its northern end is offset to the southern entrance of the henge, while at the Sanctuary it runs askew to the axis of the timber circles, and entry into that monument was blocked by a large stone. Perhaps it was never intended for human procession, but acted as a spirit pathway.

Nearby | At SU 1098 6931, 290m (950ft) east of West Kennet Avenue and on the valley floor south of Avebury, Falkner’s Circle is named for the Mr Falkner who first recognized it, in 1840. He saw one standing stone, two prostrate, and nine “hollow places” where stones had stood, forming a circle c.40m (131ft) in diameter. Only the standing stone now remains, partially buried in an old hedge line. Excavations in 2002 identified stone-holes and stone destruction pits relating to some of the missing megaliths. Unlike at the Sanctuary (see page 112), there was no timber phase to this monument. Had the one standing stone not survived, it is unlikely the circle would have been recognized. This raises the possibility of other, now fully cleared, small stone circles existing undetected within the landscape. A possible long barrow, now plough-flattened, lies to the north.

MAP

SILBURY HILL

Prehistoric Mound | Nearest Village: Avebury

Map: SU 1001 6853 | Sheets: E157 L173 | Lat: 51.4157N | Long: 1.85744W Joshua Pollard

Silbury Hill is a remarkable monument, whose simple external geometry conceals a complex sequence of construction. It occupies a low-lying position among a number of springs that feed into the River Kennet. During the Neolithic, when the water table was likely higher, it may even have marked the source of that river. In its finished form it is the largest prehistoric mound in Europe, being 130m (427ft) in diameter and 40m (131ft) high. Through recent investigations we know its construction spans the 25th and 24th centuries BC, placing it at the end of the late Neolithic. Despite the mound’s resemblance to a giant barrow, there is no indication that it ever covered a burial. The monument seems to have developed almost organically, starting as a small, low gravel mound, which was subsequently enlarged and contained within a henge-like earthwork. This was then enveloped within progressively larger mounds. Much of the body of the mound comes from chalk quarried from a substantial encircling ditch. On the west side is a tank-like extension to the ditch whose function remains unknown. Whatever the precise purpose of Silbury, its connection to the source of the Kennet seems explicit. Silbury continued to exert an influence on later developments in the landscape. The Roman road from Mildenhall (Cunetio) to Bath (Aquae Sulis), passes the mound, and a large Romano-British settlement and shrine complex developed in its shadow. The summit of the mound looks to have been fortified during the late Saxon period.

WEST KENNET LONG BARROW

Long Barrow | Nearest Village: Avebury

Map: SU 1050 6774 | Sheets: E157 L173 | Lat: 51.40858N | Long: 1.85042W      Joshua Pollard

To walk into the West Kennet long barrow is to enter a built space more than 5,500 years old. The barrow was constructed during the mid-37th century BC, around the same time as the Windmill Hill enclosure (see page 104). At 100m (328ft) long it is, along with the nearby East Kennet long barrow, one of the largest monuments of its kind. It is certainly exceptional in terms of the size and accessibility of its sarsen stone chambers. Other Cotswold-Severn barrows were constructed with very constricted passages and chambers. West Kennet looks to be a space in which gatherings and ceremonies would have taken place alongside burial.

The chamber area extends 12m (39ft) into the mound. Excavations in the 19th century by John Thurnam and then in 1955–6 by Richard Atkinson and Stuart Piggott uncovered the remains of around 36 individuals within the chambers, with adults and infants of both sexes buried here. The bodies had been allowed to decay, and the skeletal remains reordered, with certain elements (notably skulls and long bones) removed for use in ceremonies elsewhere. There was some variation in the kinds of people buried in each of the five chambers: adult males and a child in the west; male and female adults exclusively in the northeast; a majority of children in the southeast; and people of mixed age and sex in the southwest and northwest. The main phase of burial may have lasted only 30 years. After a hiatus, the chambers were deliberately infilled with deposits of pottery, worked flint, animal and further human bone, this activity taking place over 1,500 years. Large stones were used to block entry into the barrow during the middle or late Neolithic, creating today’s impressive façade.

Nearby | Around SU 110 682, 678m (2,224ft) ENE of West Kennet long barrow, on the River Kennet valley floor, are two late Neolithic palisaded enclosures. Although nothing is now visible on the ground, they were both substantial timber-walled enclosures, with massive trimmed oak posts within deep palisade trenches. The eastern (Enclosure 1) straddles the River Kennet and encloses within its two circuits an area of 4ha (10 acres); Enclosure 2 lies immediately to the west, and south of the river, and encloses 5ha (13.5 acres). Within Enclosure 2 are smaller circular monuments, and two other circular structures lie to the south, connected to it by radial palisade lines. When the enclosures were investigated in 1987–92, large quantities of animal bone and grooved ware were discovered, hinting at feasting here. The date is uncertain, with radiocarbon dates from charcoal suggesting they were created in the late 4th millennium BC, while those from animal bone imply contemporaneity with Silbury Hill (dating to between the 25th and 24th century BC, see page 108).

At SU 1163 6684, 1.4km (almost 1 mile) ESE of West Kennet long barrow, is the East Kennet long barrow. There is no public access, but you can see it from the byway to the south of the village. Covered in trees, it’s longer than West Kennet, at 105m (344ft) and up to 6.5m (21ft) high. It has never been excavated but is assumed to contain a chamber or chambers.

THE POLISHER

Axe Polisher | Nearest Village: Avebury

Map: SU 1283 7150 | Sheets: E157 L173 | Lat: 51.44234N | Long: 1.81679W

Above Avebury on sarsen-littered Fyfield Down (the stones are known as Grey Wethers for their resemblance to sheep) is a wonderful thing: a stone used to polish stone axes. It may or may not have begun life as a standing stone. The markings are a rare survival in the UK – although another example can be seen in the West Kennet Avenue – and looking at the grooves and smoothed bowl-shaped area created by sharpening and polishing axes, it’s possible to feel a direct connection with the people who once used the stone.

Archaeoacoustics

Steve Marshall, author of Exploring Avebury: The Essential Guide

How did prehistoric people perceive sound? Many megalithic structures have strange and interesting acoustic properties, so were these deliberately engineered? The study of prehistoric sound is an exciting and relatively new field of archaeology that is making some fascinating discoveries around the world.

Rupert Till, of Huddersfield University, has studied the acoustics of decorated Paleolithic caves, and ancient structures such as the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum on Malta. Some of Till’s work was conducted in the USA using a full-size concrete replica of Stonehenge to explore acoustic effects of the monument as it was when newly built. The acoustics of other megalithic sites around Britain have been investigated by Aaron Watson, Paul Devereux and others; Simon Wyatt has replicated the musical instruments of prehistory, such as Neolithic clay drums and swan bone flutes.

My own work is centred on Avebury. The sarsen standing stones of Avebury’s monuments are extremely reflective to sound, producing clear and impressive echoes. How would these have been interpreted by Neolithic people? Perhaps echoes were regarded as the voices of ancestral spirits?

Only one stone survives of Avebury’s Beckhampton Cove, once a rectilinear setting of four great sarsen stone slabs. On building a full-size model from sheets of chipboard, it was found that sound made inside the cove was reflected out by two splayed side stones. To a listener outside of the structure, the source of the sound could be heard but not seen, giving the impression that one of the end stones was “speaking”. Was the cove perhaps used as an oracle?

The West Kennet long barrow, also near Avebury, has extraordinary acoustic properties. Its inner chambers of sarsen stone produce musical resonances that can alter and enhance the male speaking voice. It also has an infrasonic resonance of below 10 Hz that is too low to be heard but can be felt, producing strong impressions of an unseen “presence”. My experiments have shown that by deliberately exciting the barrow’s infrasonic resonance, altered states of consciousness can potentially be produced. Could this effect have been exploited in prehistory, perhaps in rites of initiation?

Whirling a bull roarer just outside the entrance makes West Kennet resonate with infrasound: those inside the barrow feel its immediate effects. I have used the bull roarer in the same way at other passage graves, including Newgrange, Fourknocks, Maeshowe and Barclodiad-y-gawres, and the Dolmens of Antiquera in Spain. No prehistoric wooden bull roarers have been found in Britain – they would anyway have quickly rotted in the damp climate. However, I have shown that knapped flint “knives” will also function as bull roarers, producing sound when attached to a string and whirled. Many thousands of these objects, showing no signs of use as knives, have been found at prehistoric sites around Britain and Ireland.

Marshall, S. 2016. Exploring Avebury: The Essential Guide. Stroud: The History Press
www.exploringavebury.com

THE SANCTUARY

Stone Circle | Nearest Village: East Kennet

Map: SU 1183 6802 | Sheets: E157 L173 | Lat: 51.41112N | Long: 1.8313W

Set on the southern spur of Overton Hill, today the Sanctuary’s presence is marked by a series of concrete markers. Until the early 18th century, the site survived as a concentric stone circle, made up of two rings of sarsen stone, around 40m (131ft) in diameter. It was connected to the Avebury henge via the West Kennet Avenue (see page 107). The Sanctuary was located and excavated by Maud Cunnington in 1930. In addition to the stone-holes of the two rings, she found post-holes belonging to a multi-ring timber structure. Grooved ware pottery shows this to be late Neolithic, and it shares similarities with the Southern Circle at Durrington Walls and Woodhenge (see page 98) though on a more diminutive scale. Although arguments have been made for this being a special-purpose building, the timber rings were likely free-standing and perhaps joined by lintels. While not used as a dwelling, the timber settings are perhaps best thought of as a shrine that draws upon the idea of a large hall or house. The stone circles seem to have replaced the timber rings.

The building of the timber and stone monuments came after a lengthy history of activity on this part of Overton Hill, which goes back to the early Neolithic. From the Sanctuary many of the region’s key monuments can be seen, including the West Kennet long barrow, Silbury Hill and the site of the West Kennet palisaded enclosures.

Nearby | At SU 1196 6816, to the immediate east and northeast of the Sanctuary, are the well-preserved early Bronze Age round barrows known as the Seven Barrows. They were all dug into during the 19th century, revealing both cremation and inhumation burials. In the southernmost was a rich burial in a tree-trunk coffin with a bronze dagger, axe and pin.

MERLIN’S MOUNT Alt Name: Marlborough Mound
Prehistoric Mound | Nearest Town: Marlborough

Map: SU 1836 6865 | Sheets: E157 L173 | Lat: 51.41657N | Long: 1.73737W

Permission is needed to visit this mound in the grounds of Marlborough College. It’s had quite a life, being used as the motte of Marlborough Castle and the centrepiece of a 17th-century garden. There was debate for a long time as to whether it might be older than the Norman Conquest – perhaps even as old as the mound at Silbury. Recent archaeological investigation has shown this to be the case, dating it to the Neolithic (2400BC). As with its larger sibling, no one knows why it was built, but it’s interesting to note that it sits in a similarly low-lying area to Silbury Hill, close to rivers and springs. Jim Leary’s Round Mounds project has been busy investigating other mottes and garden mounds, making other intriguing discoveries such as the Iron Age date of the Shipsea mound in East Yorkshire.

MAP

DEVIL’S DEN

Burial Chamber | Nearest Village: Fyfield

Map: SU 1521 6965 | Sheets: E157 L173 | Lat: 51.42565N | Long: 1.78262W

This burial chamber was reconstructed in 1921, when the remains of the mound, about 70m (230ft) long, could still be seen. Now all that’s left are the two uprights and capstone, and two fallen stones. The chamber was at the southeastern end of the barrow, which was aligned southeast–northwest. It’s a fine example of a classic dolmen, the fat capstone at a slight angle and one of the uprights leaning quite dramatically. There are cup-marks on the top of the capstone.

WAYLAND’S SMITHY

Long Barrow | Nearest Village: Compton Beauchamp

Map: SU 2809 8539 | Sheets: E157 L174 | Lat: 51.56669N | Long: 1.59613W

One of Britain’s most famous prehistoric monuments, Wayland’s Smithy is a reconstructed long barrow, just off the Ridgeway and not far from the Uffington White Horse. In the 1960s excavations demonstrated two phases of construction here: first, there was an earthen mound aligned north–south, containing a wooden mortuary enclosure, which held the remains of at least 14 people; this was later covered by a trapezoidal chalk mound, with a façade of large sarsens to the south and a passage leading to a central chamber and two side chambers. The site looked very different in the 19th century, with the chambers exposed – if you see an old photograph of the site, or the model constructed by Alfred Lewis in 1860, you might be surprised. The story goes that if you leave your horse here overnight with a coin for payment, Wayland, the legendary master blacksmith, will shoe it for you.

Nearby | The National Trail known as the Ridgeway runs for 140km (87 miles) from Overton Hill near Avebury to the Ivinghoe Beacon near Ivinghoe, following the chalk escarpment that bisects southern England. Various ancient monuments lie along its course, including Wayland’s Smithy, Uffington Castle hill fort and the Uffington White Horse. Although it’s claimed to be, in part at least, the oldest continuously used road in Europe, with some of the route dating back at least 5,000 years, the section near Uffington Castle is unlikely to have been in use in later prehistory as it cuts across the ditches of a Bronze Age field system and a Romano-British farmstead. See page 148 for similar doubts concerning the authenticity of the Icknield Way as a long-distance prehistoric route.

Top 10 Prehistoric Sites in England with Sea Views

1. Chûn Quoit (Cornwall) p.39

2. Innisidgen Upper & Bant’s Carn (Scilly) p.35

3. Lacra (Cumbria) p.173

4. Carn Gluze (Cornwall) p.37

5. Belle Tout (Sussex) p.125

6. Mulfra Quoit (Cornwall) p.41

7. Stalldon (Devon) p.55

8. Long Stone (Mottistone) (Isle of Wight) p.123

9. Seahenge (Norfolk) p.152

10. Formby Point (Lancashire) p.157

Oxfordshire

DORCHESTER CURSUS

Cursus | Nearest Village: Dorchester-on-Thames

Map: SU 5685 9595 | Sheets: E170 L164 | Lat: 51.65946N | Long: 1.17953W

There’s a lot of archaeology at Dorchester-on-Thames, from Neolithic earthworks to Iron Age settlements. Gravel extraction and the construction of the bypass have damaged much of the Dorchester Neolithic cursus and what remains is visible as cropmarks. Originally, two parallel banks and ditches about 60m (197ft) apart ran broadly in parallel for at least 1.6km (1 mile) northwest– southeast. Recent work by Oxford Archaeology has shown that the Dorchester Cursus extended further to the north than previously realized.

DEVIL’S QUOITS

Stone Circle & Henge | Nearest Village: Stanton Harcourt

Map: SP 4112 0476 | Sheets: E180 L164 | Lat: 51.74004N | Long: 1.40588W

An interesting monument and a triumph of the art of reconstruction, although the setting, close to a noisy landfill site and recycling centre, is not ideal. In the 17th century John Aubrey mentions three stones remaining here, one of which was taken by a farmer around 1680 to make a bridge (and later returned to the circle). The site was extensively damaged by gravel extraction, and also by the construction of an airfield during World War II, when the henge’s original external bank was levelled for the construction of the runway. By 1940, only one stone remained, with some others buried near their former positions while the airfield was in use. Excavations in 1940, 1972, 1973 and 1988 provided a complete plan of the 79m (259ft) circle, with its stone-holes, and the position of a central setting of posts. The henge, with a ditch diameter of 120m (394ft) and entrances to the ESE and WNW, is late Neolithic; the date of the circle is less clear. Between 2002 and 2008 both circle and henge were fully restored and now once again 36 gravel conglomerate stones stand within the henge, bright and fresh-looking and almost golden in colour.

“A fine place in the sunshine on a cold day, the gulls wheeling above us and a glimpse at what a newly built circle might have looked like.” Jackie Bates

HOAR STONE (ENSTONE) Alt Name: The Old Soldier
Chambered Tomb | Nearest Village: Enstone

Map: SP 3779 2375 | Sheets: E191 L164 | Lat: 51.911N | Long: 1.45204W

Discreetly sited in a copse beside the road, this is a very ruinous but impressively atmospheric tomb. Green with moss, there are only three stones remaining, one nearly 2.7m (9ft) tall, the others 1.5m and 0.9m (5ft and 3ft) respectively. In 1925 there were six stones and a mound, but there’s no sign of the mound or the three missing stones now. At Midsummer’s Eve, it is said, the largest stone goes down to the village to drink, or alternatively to the brook at Woodford. Another story relates that the stones are an old man, his horse and his dog, all turned to stone; and still another has it that a ghost has been seen walking from the tomb north toward the village.

Nearby | At SP 3593 2208, 2.5km (1½ miles) WSW of the Hoar Stone, is the Thor Stone at Taston, a hefty 2.1m (7ft) stone that leans dramatically into a garden wall in the centre of the village. One story goes that it was a thunderbolt thrown by Thor himself. The village is named for the stone – in 1278 it was called “Thorstan”. The village cross nearby is said to have been placed there to counteract the negative emanations from the standing stone.

At SP 3392 2354, 4km (just under 2½ miles) west of the Hoar Stone, is the Hawk Stone, a wonderfully wrinkled stone an impressive 2.4m (8ft) tall, in a field west of the road between Chalford Green and Dean. Local legend suggests it might once have been part of a circle, or perhaps a burial chamber, but there’s no evidence to support the idea. Elsie Corbett, in her History of Spelsbury (1962), records a colourful story that the cleft at the top of the stone was made by the chains of the witches who were tied to it and burnt.

“During bright mornings in winter and early spring, when the sun is still low in the sky, the light gets in under the holly trees to illuminate the stones quite nicely.” Hamish Fenton

LYNEHAM

Long Barrow | Nearest Village: Ascott-under-Wychwood

Map: SP 2975 2107 | Sheets: E191 L164 | Lat: 51.88740N | Long: 1.56915W

A rather hummocky and disturbed mound, but it does have a nice, chunky 1.8m (6ft) standing stone at the northern end, which may have been part of a false entrance. The mound is 32m (105ft) long and up to 1.75m (5ft 8in) high at the northeast end, where it’s 19m (62ft) wide; in the southwest it becomes almost flat and is much narrower. In 1894, two chambers were excavated on the southeast side of the mound, and at least one was found to contain charcoal, bone fragments and pottery. Two Anglo-Saxon burials had been cut into the top of the mound.

ROLLRIGHT STONES Alt Names: The King’s Men, Rollendrith
Megalithic Complex | Nearest Village: Long Compton

Map: SP 2958 3087 | Sheets: E191 L151 | Lat: 51.97555N | Long: 1.57080W

The three Rollright sites are linked in folklore through the famous tale, first mentioned in brief in William Camden’s Britannia (1586), of the would-be king of England who was turned to stone by a witch, along with his knights and foot soldiers, when seven strides failed to reveal to him the village of Long Compton in the valley below. In 2015, the media seized on the discovery of a female skeleton, buried below an Anglo-Saxon ritual spoon (patera), as proof of the existence of Long Compton’s witch – although “Rita” (as she was dubbed) actually lived some three millennia after the raising of the circle. The find gives an insight into the continuation of ceremonial activity at the site into the historic era. The Rollright Stones have a strong draw for modern Pagans and ceremonies are held here to mark the various seasonal festivals.

KING’S MEN

These interestingly weathered, oolitic limestone stones are positioned in a 33m (108ft) ring, with their smoother sides facing inward. The stones (pictured on page 119) provide a habitat for colonies of rare lichen, with patches up to 850 years old. Comparisons of antiquarian drawings and lichen analysis reveal that many of the stones have been moved and re-erected over the centuries. It is thought they originally formed an almost continuous wall of some 80 uprights, built around 2500BC. The stones are thought to be of local origin, taken from the surface of the earth rather than quarried.

As at many sites, it is said to be impossible to count the King’s Men. These are certainly active stones: there were tales of the King’s Men returning to life, linking hands and dancing at midnight, and they were also said to go down to a well at Little Rollright to drink – as did the petrified king himself at the sound of the church clock striking 12. The King’s Men have for centuries been a focus of interest for antiquarians and others; their earliest-known visual depiction is on a late 1580s tapestry map, one of several that were commissioned by Ralph Sheldon.

KING STONE

Perhaps as many as 1,000 years separate the building of the circle from the raising of the King Stone, now found across the road from the circle, at SP 2962 3095. This 2.5m (8ft) standing stone may well have been a marker for a Bronze Age cemetery, as a round cairn (about 17m/56ft across) and a very small barrow have been discovered close by, both containing cremations, and with evidence of upright wooden post markers. The stone’s odd shape was caused by the historic practice of chipping off pieces as good-luck charms and amulets against the Devil, and it was protected (along with the other Rollright sites) by the first Schedule of Ancient Monuments in 1882. The King Stone was known in local legend as the meeting place of Long Compton’s witches, and was also said to mark one of the entrances to the fairy halls under the circle.

WHISPERING KNIGHTS

At SP 2993 3084, 357m (1,171ft) east of the stone circle, this portal dolmen predates the King’s Men by some 1,000–1,500 years. Five slabs remain, never covered by an earth mound. A piece of jawbone found in the 1920s is the only evidence of burial here. Legend tells how the knights were turned to stone as they plotted against the king (or prayed, as another version goes). There are also tales of farmers trying to make use of the slabs, without success: one used the capstone as a mill dam, but every night the uncooperative stone returned to its rightful place. It is said that women used to question the Knights, pressing an ear against a stone to receive their oracular wisdom.

MAP

Home Counties

LAMBOURN SEVEN BARROWS

Barrow Cemetery | Nearest Village: Lambourn

Map: SU 3289 8288 | Sheets: E170 L174 | Lat: 51.54198N | Long: 1.52901W

Some 42 barrows have been identified in the Lambourn valley, with a group of 10 (the “Seven” Barrows) running in two parallel northwest–southeast rows close to the road and clearly visible. The barrows in the Lambourn valley are mostly bowl barrows, but there are some disc and saucer barrows, and a long barrow, too (see below). Some were found to hold intact burials, some cremations. Grave goods included various flint arrows and a small, highly polished, rectangular jet pendant, perforated with a hole that was very smoothed, showing it had been worn. (Circular jet buttons with perforations showing wear have also been found in several barrows near Rudston in Yorkshire.)

Nearby | At SU 3232 8338, 836m (½ mile) northwest of the Seven Barrows, Lambourn long barrow is one of the oldest examples of a long barrow in Britain, although not one of the most impressive. The mound is about 70 × 18m (230 × 59ft), with half of it covered in trees. The pile of stones at the eastern end is the remains of a rough cist or chamber, excavated in 1964 and found to contain a crouched burial and later internment.

Berkshire

MONT DE LA VILLE Alt Name: The Druids’ Temple
Passage Grave | Nearest Town: Henley-on-Thames

Map: SU 7796 8140 | Sheets: E171 L175 | Lat: 51.52614N | Long: 0.87763W

Now a folly in the grounds of a private estate near Henley, set about with flowerbeds and floodlighting, this unusual site is a passage grave that once stood on Mount de la Ville, St Helier, Jersey. Marshall Conway, Governor of Jersey, was encouraged by Horace Walpole to dismantle the site in 1788 and ship it to London, from where it travelled by barge up the Thames to Conway’s Berkshire residence. It is unlikely that the structure has been authentically recreated, but it is in good condition. Permission is required to visit, but you can get a very good view from the Bing Maps bird’s-eye feature.

HOLDEN’S FIRS

Barrow Cemetery | Nearest Village: Mortimer

Map: SU 6436 6506 | Sheets: E159 L175 | Lat: 51.38095N | Long: 1.0766W

A barrow cemetery with seven barrows (and traces of an eighth), all mutilated to some degree, including two large bell barrows with ditches, a third, badly damaged bowl barrow, a disc barrow and, southeast of the main area of the cemetery, another bowl barrow between the houses. In 2017 concerns were raised about damage caused by people riding quad bikes over the barrows.

KINGSMEAD QUARRY

Prehistoric Settlement | Nearest Village: Horton

Map: TQ 0170 7520 | Sheets: E160 L176 | Lat: 51.46664N | Long: 0.53731W

Although there is nothing to see on the ground, this site has a complex and fascinating history, with evidence of human activity stretching back 12,000 years to the end of the last Ice Age. Four early Neolithic houses were found here, dating to around 3700BC; it’s extremely rare to find houses of this period, when people were first beginning to live in permanent settlements. The houses were all rectangular, with two built from wooden posts, and the others from upright oak planks set into foundation trenches. The largest measured 15 × 7m (49 × 23ft). Also discovered here was the grave of a woman, about 40 years old, with extremely rich grave goods, including a garment fastened with amber buttons, a lignite-bead bracelet and a necklace of folded sheet gold, lignite and amber beads. The grave dates from the Copper Age, about 2400 BC. Male burials with gold possessions are known from this date, but she’s the earliest-known woman buried with this kind of treasure. In early 2018, pre-quarrying archaeology discovered a causewayed enclosure nearby.

MAP

Buckinghamshire

WHITELEAF BARROWS

Long Barrow & Round Barrows | Nearest Town: Princes Risborough

Map: SP 8222 0398 | Sheets: E181 L165 | Lat: 51.72851N | Long: 0.81094W

There are three prehistoric barrows on the hill above Princes Risborough, with views over the Vale of Aylesbury and the Chiltern Hills. To the southeast of the Whiteleaf Cross hill figure (dating from at least 1738) is a long barrow, which was re-excavated and restored in the early 21st century; a little further to the north along the hilltop are two badly damaged Bronze Age round barrows.

Hertfordshire

THERFIELD HEATH FIVE HILLS

Barrow Cemetery | Nearest Town: Royston

Map: TL 3410 4025 | Sheets: E209 L154 | Lat: 52.04443N | Long: 0.04607W

The Therfield Heath barrow cemetery is now on a golf course, so ask for permission and watch out for flying balls. It’s one of the finest collections of barrows in eastern England, all five being around 20m (66ft) across and over 2m (6½ft) in height.

Nearby | At TL 3415 4017, still on the golf course and under 100m (328ft) southeast of Therfield Heath barrow cemetery, is Therfield Heath long barrow, the only known example in Hertfordshire. It was excavated in 1855 and again in 1935. Several inhumations and two cists containing cremations were found. The mound is 38m (125ft) long and 26m (85ft) wide at the eastern end, narrowing to 15.5m (51ft). The higher, eastern end reaches 2.2m (7ft).

Greater London

KING HENRY’S MOUND

Likely Prehistoric Barrow | Nearest Town: Richmond-upon-Thames

Map: TQ 1860 7315 | Sheets: E161 L176 | Lat: 51.44493N | Long: 0.29482W

According to the on-site information board, this large, much-modified artificial mound is a Neolithic barrow. It’s at the highest point of Richmond Park, looking down over the Thames and east along an avenue of trees to the distant dome of St Paul’s Cathedral. The view is protected, preventing developers from building anything that would block it.

Surrey

HORSELL COMMON

Round Barrows | Nearest Town: Woking

Map: TQ 0161 5977 | Sheets: E160 L186 | Lat: 51.32796N | Long: 0.54302W

Horsell Common is where the Martians landed in H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. You might not find any evidence of alien invasion but there are a number of large, saucer-shaped objects. At TQ 0161 5977, the bell barrow known as Horsell Common E is considered one of Surrey’s finest examples. Close to the road and the car park, it has a central mound 20m (66ft) in diameter and about 1m (3ft 3in) high, surrounded by a berm (flat platform), which is contained by a circular ditch. Beyond that, an outer bank survives to the north and east.

At TQ 0140 5980, some 212m (695ft) west of Horsell Common E, is Horsell Common W, where there are two further barrows: a large, ditched bowl barrow (pictured), about 30m (98ft) across and 1.5m (5ft) high; and a disc barrow, which is much harder to see.

Nearby | At TQ 0790 5915 (sheets: E145 L187), 6.3km (4 miles) east of Horsell Common E in a heathland setting, is Cockcrow Hill, a large bell barrow some 42m (138ft) in diameter and 3.3m (11ft) high. The mound is covered in trees, and has been eroded by footpaths in places, but is still in fairly good condition. A cremation burial was found during excavation in 1911. The barrow is very close to the junction of the M25 with the A3, but on pleasant heathland and worth a visit. Park at Ockham Common car park.

Hampshire

MICHELDEVER WOOD

Round Barrows | Nearest Village: Micheldever

Map: SU 5277 3721 | Sheets: OL32 L185 | Lat: 51.13174N | Long: 1.24722W

There’s an archaeological trail through Micheldever Woods that takes in a number of barrows and an Iron Age “banjo” enclosure. The bowl barrow is damaged on its northern side by quarrying for flints or clay, but is still some 25m (82ft) across and 2m (6½ft) high. The woods are stunning in spring when the bluebells are out.

SETLEY PLAIN

Round Barrows | Nearest Village: Brockenhurst

Map: SU 2962 0002 | Sheets: OL22 L196 | Lat: 50.79898N | Long: 1.58107W

On Setley Plain in the New Forest are three impressive disc barrows, all of them damaged by antiquarian investigation in the 18th century, when evidence of buried cremations was recorded. The ditch and outer bank of the northwestern barrow are interrupted by the bank of one of the others.

MAP

DAMERHAM

Barrow Complex | Nearest Village: Damerham

Map: SU 0884 1534 | Sheets: OL22 L184 | Lat: 50.93743N | Long: 1.87556W

At Damerham, a huge ceremonial complex has recently been discovered, dating back to the Neolithic and of unusual importance and size (covering some 200ha/494 acres). Cropmarks identified during a routine aerial survey revealed the first henge-type structures to be found in Hampshire, plus two big long barrows, the larger of which extends to 70m (230ft). The henges showed signs of postholes, suggesting rings of timber uprights. Other monuments found included an unusual U-shaped enclosure with post-holes dating to the Bronze Age, as well as 26 round barrows and large quantities of pot sherds and flint tools and debris. One henge was found to be cut through a natural sink-hole filled with brightly coloured orange soil, which contrasted dramatically with the whiteness of the chalk. Dr Helen Wickstead, who led the excavation, suggests these colours would have played a part in the design. See page 84 for position on map, but there is little to see on the ground now.

Isle of Wight

LONG STONE (MOTTISTONE)

Standing Stone | Nearest Village: Mottistone

Map: SZ 4071 8422 | Sheets: OL29 L196 | Lat: 50.65624N | Long: 1.42545W

Despite the name there are actually two stones here, one fallen. The Long Stone itself is around 4m (14ft) tall, while its prostrate companion is about 2.4m (8ft). It’s thought they are all that remains of a long-destroyed long barrow. The site has fine views over the downs to the sea.

Nearby | At SZ 4062 8469, 478m (1,568ft) NNW of the Long Stone, is Mottistone Down (or Harboro Down) barrow cemetery, finely positioned on a ridge of the downs beside the Tennyson Trail. There are five bowl barrows up here, one very badly damaged. They’re generally large and up to 3m (10ft) high.

West and East Sussex

CISSBURY RING

Hill Fort & Flint Mines | Nearest Village: Findon

Map: TQ 1391 0803 | Sheets: OL10 L198 | Lat: 50.86057N | Long: 0.38286W

Dating from around 250BC, Cissbury Ring is the largest Iron Age hill fort in Sussex and the second largest in England, covering some 24ha (60 acres). Partially enclosed within its ramparts are Neolithic flint mines; when the mine shafts were excavated in the 1870s, three of the 13 investigated were found to contain rock art and carved chalk blocks. Further prehistoric art was found in another shaft excavated in the 1950s, suggesting once again that there was more going on here than the simple extraction of a raw material (see page 151). The site’s name probably comes from 16th-century attempts to associate the fort with the Saxon chief Cissa.

Nearby | At TQ 0815 1000 (sheets: OL10 L197), 6km (3¾ miles) WNW of Cissbury Ring, Harrow Hill is another hill fort or enclosure built on earlier flint mines. It’s on private land but access is sometimes arranged for Heritage Open Days. The earliest mines, at the top of the hill, were probably opencast quarries, with the shafts leading down into galleries a later development. Despite considerable plough damage, 245 pits have been counted. Excavations in the 1920s uncovered a number of chalk blocks and surfaces with crosshatching and filled triangles – art of the type seen at Cissbury and Grime’s Graves (see page 150). This suggests that prehistoric flint mines were monuments in their own right, perhaps with their own rituals that revered the underworld as a mirror image of the megaliths reaching to the sky. BCPhoto © fostersice

WHITEHAWK CAMP

Causewayed Enclosure | Nearest City: Brighton

Map: TQ 3303 0477 | Sheets: OL11 L198 | Lat: 50.82719N | Long: 0.11252W

One of Britain’s earliest Neolithic monuments, the earthworks at Whitehawk date from c. 3500BC. There are at least five concentric interrupted ring ditches or causewayed enclosures on the hill. Not much of the site, which covers about 6ha (14 acres), has been excavated, but burials have been found in the infill of the ditches, as well as pottery, flint tools and a large amount of animal bone, suggesting feasting took place here. The site has suffered somewhat from the construction of the racecourse, but is still quite well preserved in places.

BELLE TOUT

Prehistoric Enclosure | Nearest Town: Eastbourne

Map Ref: TV 5610 9570 | Sheets: Ol25 L199 | Lat: 50.73996N | Long: 0.21093E

Coastal erosion is eating away at these earthwork enclosures at a rate of about 0.5m (1½ft) a year. Originally there were at least three here, but now only two remain, the largest of which is more than 1.2km (¾ mile) long and encloses more than 20ha (49 acres). Comprising an earth bank with a continuous ditch made from linked pits, it may have originally taken in the entire headland – and could well have been the largest enclosure in the country. The site has been investigated by Bournemouth University, raising as many questions as answers. The larger enclosure, known as A, may have been a stock corral dating to the Iron Age, but the finds from the interior are almost entirely struck flint, which suggests a Neolithic to middle Bronze Age date. The inner enclosures (including the now vanished Enclosure B) are assumed to be an enclosed Beaker settlement. Alternatively, the enclosures may have had a more ritualistic purpose, perhaps focused around a remarkable chalk-cut shaft exposed in 1971 by cliff erosion in Enclosure B. Just 1.7m (5½ft) wide, it was found to run down 43m (141ft) from the top of the cliff, with evidence of foot holes and tool marks. The bottom was waterlogged so the feature may have been a well, but has parallels with a Bronze Age ritual shaft at Wilsford, south of Stonehenge. The shaft has now been washed away, but remarkably in 2016 the very bottom – visible as a circular depression on the foreshore (pictured above) – was located by CITiZAN coastal archaeology volunteers, and excavated with the assistance of M.J. Allen. A coffee shop near the top of the cliff has a display about the site.

BOURNE HILL Alt Name: Willingdon Hill
Round Barrows | Nearest Town: Eastbourne

Map Ref: TQ 5770 0096 | Sheets: OL25 L199 | Lat: 50.78676N | Long: 0.23585E

Up on Willingdon Hill, as well as fine views, you’ll find a pair of bowl barrows, one of which was reused as a windmill tump between the 16th and 19th centuries, until the last mill was destroyed in a storm in 1817. The northeastern barrow is about 15m (49ft) across and 0.4m (1ft 3in) high, while the southwestern one is some 25m (82ft) across and 1.2m (4ft) high, with a flat top and a central hollow. A track climbs the eastern side of the mound. An almost circular flint knife was found nearby.

“This tumulus near Beachy Head is unusual because it has a flat top. If you want to show the curvature of the Earth, this is the place to do it.” Jon Morris

MAP

Kent

COLDRUM

Chambered Tomb | Nearest Village: Trottiscliffe

Map: TQ 6544 6072 | Sheets: E148 L178/L188 | Lat: 51.32152N | Long: 0.37285E

Signposted from Trottiscliffe (pronounced “Trosely”!), this is the best preserved of the Medway Megaliths. Named for the now demolished farm of the same name, Coldrum is an impressive site, with four large sarsens forming an exposed chamber overlooking the Medway valley. It’s aligned east–west, and the mound, about 20m (66ft) in length, may have been surrounded by a kerb of smaller sarsens. A number of excavations have taken place here, one resulting in the discovery of the bones of some 22 people. The Medway Megaliths are generally considered among the earliest prehistoric monuments in Britain – Coldrum dates to around 4000BC, and the bones found there are some of the earliest remains of Neolithic people ever found. Some may have been interred elsewhere before being brought to the tomb.

THE CHESTNUTS

Chambered Tomb or Long Barrow | Nearest Village: Addington

Map: TQ 6526 5917 | Sheets: E148 L178/L188 | Lat: 51.30765N | Long: 0.36955E

Chestnuts is a partially reconstructed long barrow, standing on private land. Little remains of the 20m (66ft) mound; at its eastern end, 12 large sarsens form the chamber and façade. The capstone has been displaced. When the chamber was excavated in the 1950s, the cremated remains of at least nine people were found, as well as Neolithic pottery. A large number of Mesolithic flints have been found in the area, some beneath the tomb. The site is very close to the motorway but still peaceful and atmospheric.

Nearby | At TQ 6533 5910, 99m (325ft) southeast of the Chestnuts, is Addington long barrow, with a road built right through the middle of it. It’s on private land, so permission is needed to access the site. About 25 stones remain, but it’s a bit of a jumble and not that clear what’s going on. It’s thought the original mound could have been 70m (230ft) long, with the chamber at the northeastern end, which has mostly collapsed due to excavation in the mid-19th century.

“If you can’t arrange access to the Addington long barrow, the top of the stones can be seen from the road that passes through it.” Martyn Copcutt

KIT’S COTY

Chambered Tomb or Long Barrow | Nearest Village: Aylesford

Map: TQ 7452 6084 | Sheets: E148 L178/L188 | Lat: 51.31989N | Long: 0.50309E

One of the best-known burial chambers in Britain, Kit’s Coty is another of the Medway Megaliths. Although tightly fenced in with iron railings on the instructions of General Pitt Rivers (this was one of the first Scheduled Ancient Monuments), it’s quite impressive, with the tallest stone 2.4m (8ft) tall and looking very much like a classic dolmen, with three uprights and a capstone, giving little sense of how it looked when first built. Some of the 80m (262ft) long mound remains, although this is clearest in aerial photographs, and the kerb stones are long gone. The chamber has been open since at least the late 16th century. The site is a popular place to celebrate the solstices, and the Kit’s Coty Morris dance the sun up at the stones every May Day.

“Early prints show a large stone marking the west end: this was called the General’s Tombstone and was blown up in 1867, allegedly because it made ploughing difficult.” Vicky Tuckman

UPPER WHITE HORSE STONE

Possible Chambered Tomb | Nearest Village: Aylesford

Map: TQ 7535 6032 | Sheets: E148 L178/L188 | Lat: 51.31496N | Long: 0.51473E

The Upper White Horse Stone is believed to be all that remains of a chambered tomb, although there is little or no evidence to support this. This large sarsen, 3 × 1.5m (10 × 5ft), gets its name from its alleged resemblance to a horse, or a horse’s head. Another large upright, the Lower White Horse Stone, is said to have once stood about 300m (984ft) to the west, but was destroyed in 1823. The area around the stone was excavated as part of the works for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, revealing evidence of late Bronze Age/early Iron Age settlement, and a very rare Neolithic longhouse. Sadly, the stone frequently suffers from vandalism.

Herefordshire

MIDLANDS & EAST OF ENGLAND

Top 15 Timber & Earthen Sites in England

1. Silbury Hill (Wiltshire) p.108

2. Mayburgh (Cumbria) p.182

3. Woodhenge (Wiltshire) p.98

4. Knowlton Rings (Dorset) p.86

5. Thornborough (Yorkshire) p.163

6. The Bull Ring (Derbyshire) p.140

7. Greater Cursus Barrows (Wiltshire) p.93

8. King Arthur’s Round Table (Cumbria) p.182

9. Seahenge (Norfolk) p.152

10. Oakley Down Barrows (Dorset) p.87

11. New King Barrows (Wiltshire) p.98

12. Seven Barrows (Wiltshire) p.112

13. Greater Cursus (Wiltshire) p.93

14. Durrington Walls (Wiltshire) p.98

15. Maumbury Rings (Dorset) p.86

Herefordshire

WERN DERYS

Standing Stone | Nearest Village: Dorstone

Map: SO 3036 3726 | Sheets: OL13 L161 | Lat: 52.02935N | Long: 3.01647W

At 2.3m (7ft 9in), Wern Derys is Herefordshire’s tallest standing stone. It was re-erected after falling in the 1980s.

“There is a legend that a great general is buried here, and that a farmer once dug round the stone and hitched 12 horses to it to try to uproot it.” Jonathan Sant

ARTHUR’S STONE

Chambered Tomb | Nearest Village: Dorstone

Map: SO 3189 4313 | Sheets: E201 OL13 L161 | Lat: 52.08231N | Long: 2.99537W

On the upper slopes of Merbach Hill, looking over to the Black Mountains, are the very impressive remains of this Cotswold-Severn chambered tomb. Five of the nine uprights (up to 1.1m/3ft 7in high) support a massive capstone and you can see the remnants of an entrance passage with a right-angled turn, running 5m (16ft) east–west and then south for some 3m (10ft). It’s long been associated with King Arthur, either as the battlefield where he fought and slew a giant, or as the final resting place of the legendary king himself. It’s easy to access, as you can park right next to the site.

Nearby | At SO 3260 4230, just over 1km (0.6 miles) southeast of Arthur’s Stone, is Dorstone Hill, where recent excavations have revealed that the remains are of four long mounds, built (with stone structures) over an early Neolithic timber building, which appears to have been deliberately destroyed by burning (see page 132).

“To the south is a slab bearing small man-made cup-marks; legend tells these were made by Arthur’s elbows as he prayed, or by a giant’s as he fell.” Andy Burnham

Dorstone Hill: A Unique Configuration of Monuments

Andy Burnham, founder and Editor of the Megalithic Portal

During fieldwalking in the 1960s, 4,000 flints and other finds were picked up on Dorstone Hill, including arrowheads and fragments of polished flint or stone axes. Consisting of a huge bank that cut off a spur of the hilltop, the site was presumed to be a Neolithic promontory enclosure. Excavations in 2012, led by Professor Julian Thomas, uncovered three long mounds, aligned end-to-end.

The central mound was composed of burnt clay and timber, sealed within a layer of turf and supported by a timber palisade. A later cairn of stones was built over the lot.

The eastern mound had a long timber chamber between two huge post-holes. The timber chamber held bones. A series of stone chambers holding cremated remains were built into the side of the mound. Surrounding this was a shallow, horseshoe-shaped ditch.

The most extraordinary discovery was that the mounds had been built over the remains of one or more early Neolithic buildings (dating to 3900–3800BC). Post-holes and stake-holes were found beneath the central mound, and burnt structural timbers were identified in several locations. The evidence of the intensity of the fire suggests the buildings were deliberately burned, and indeed this was confirmed by excavations in 2014, with the discovery of the remains of house walls and a roof support inside the turf mound.

The western mound was trapezoidal in shape and included small loops of drystone walling. The 2015 dig revealed a post-hole structure of around 30 × 17m (98 × 56ft), including rows of holes that probably held the load-bearing posts of a timber building. The eastern wall of the building intersected with a series of stone-holes marking the façade of the stone-clad long mound, indicating this monument had been constructed on the same footprint as the earlier building.

It is unusual enough to find a series of long mounds end-to-end, and so many different types of stone and timber architecture in one place, but most remarkable is the way in which the fabric of the timber houses was incorporated into the stone building – which suggested that the barrows commemorate not only past generations but also the idea of a “house” as a social and physical entity (see page 101).

Another important find was 300 pieces of rock crystal, which doesn’t occur naturally in the area and must have been brought to the site by human activity. The crystals seem to have been knapped into blades on site before, during and after the mound construction.

The 2017 excavations confirmed that the structure at SO 3271 4216 – previously thought to be an Iron Age promontory enclosure – is actually a fourth long mound, surrounded by a causewayed enclosure (probably a meeting place). There is no other site with this configuration of monuments. Both types are rare – to find them together is amazing. Consider also the deliberate burning of a giant timber longhouse – it must have been a spectacular event – to be memorialized and passed down through the generations.

Thomas, J,. et al. 2015. An Interim Report on Excavations at Dorstone Hill, Herefordshire, 2011–2014.

ROTHERWAS RIBBON Alt Name: Rotherwas Serpent
Ceremonial Trackway | Nearest Village: Dinedor

Map: SO 5205 3690 | Sheets: E189 L149 | Lat: 52.02842N | Long: 2.7003W

A fascinating site, although there is now little to see on the ground. An undulating ribbon-like feature of cracked stones, following a natural river bed, creating a three-dimensional, sculpted monument. There is a difference of opinion as to whether the stones were deliberately fire-cracked or whether the ribbon is a natural feature with the stones cracked by frost. The structure is not flat, so not intended to be walked on. It is thought to date to around 2000BC, and has been “preserved” beneath the new road, a decision that caused a great deal of anger and debate at the time.

Shropshire

MITCHELL’S FOLD

Stone Circle | Nearest Village: Chirbury

Map: SO 3042 9837 | Sheets: E216 L137 | Lat: 52.57867N | Long: 3.02824W

Set between Corndon Hill and Stapeley Hill, Mitchell’s Fold has great views across toward Wales. There are 15 stones remaining of perhaps 30 in a partially flattened 30 × 27m (98 × 89ft) circle, the tallest reaching just under 2m (6½ft). There’s also a central stone, but it’s hidden beneath the turf. The stones are dolerite, and probably come from Stapeley Hill, to the northwest.

An unusual legend is associated with Mitchell’s Fold. During a famine, the local people survived on the milk of a fairy cow. She could produce endless milk, as long as no one tried to fill more than one bucket. Hearing this, a witch milked her into a riddle (sieve), continuing until the cow departed in protest at this ill treatment. The witch was turned to stone for her spite and the other stones were set up around her in a circle to pen her in. Another story tells of a local farmer who blew up some of the stones and used the pieces to line a pond, but afterwards was said to prosper no more.

Nearby | At SO 3080 9880, 573m (1,880ft) northeast of Mitchell’s Fold, is the Cow Stone or Dead Cow, the name deriving from its resemblance to a reclining cow and clearly linked to the legend of Mitchell’s Fold. The boulder is made of dolerite, like the stones of Mitchell’s Fold and the Hoarstones (see page 134). At SO 3050 9500, around 3.5km (2 miles) to the south of Mitchell’s Fold, is Cwm Mawr axe factory. There is not much to see on the ground but this is an interesting site as axes made from picrite, the distinctive stone quarried here, have been found throughout Britain, from the Welsh borders to as far away as Devon and Cornwall and the north of England.

THE HOARSTONES Alt Name: Black Marsh
Stone Circle | Nearest Village: Shelve | Map: SO 3241 9990

Sheets: E216 L137 | Lat: 52.59267N | Long: 2.99934W

On marshy ground south of the hamlet of Hemford is the Hoarstones stone circle with 37 dolerite stones (of an original 38), plus a central stone. The low stones are often obscured by grass and can be tricky to find. To approach via rights of way, take the track leading off the A488 just to the southwest of the crossroads of the A488 with the minor road heading to Shelve. Go through a gate and up to a stile, following the path across the fields and keeping an eye out for the circle on the right at the bottom of the field.

“The holes were apparently drilled by miners and filled with gunpowder to provide homemade pyrotechnics during wedding celebrations.” Barry Teague

MAP

Staffordshire

DEVIL’S RING AND FINGER

Holed Stone | Nearest Village: Mucklestone

Map: SJ 7073 3779 | Sheets: E243 L127 | Lat: 52.93663N | Long: 2.43698W

Believed to be part of a long-vanished chambered tomb, these two stones are on private land (seek permission) by the field boundary not far to the northeast of the footpath to Norton in Hales. Both stones lean dramatically and the Ring is holed, while weathering has created charismatic vertical grooves in the Finger.

LONG LOW

Long Barrow | Nearest Village: Ilam

Map: SK 1220 5390 | Sheets: OL24L119 | Lat: 53.08218N | Long: 1.81932W

Long Low is an unusual site, with a 160m (525ft) long mound with dry-stone walling linking two bowl barrows (one 27m/89ft across, the other 16m/55m). The northeast barrow contained a stone cist that held 13 crouched burials, and cremations were found in the bank and barrow.

Nearby | There are five other barrows and cairns within 1km (0.6 miles) in various directions.

“This is very reminiscent of the Broadmayne bank barrow in Dorset.” Tim Prevett

Cheshire

THE BRIDESTONES (CHESHIRE)

Chambered Tomb | Nearest Village: Timbersbrook

Map: SJ 9061 6218 | Sheets: E268 L118 | Lat: 53.15668N | Long: 2.14177W

A once magnificent monument on the Cheshire/Staffordshire border, with fantastic views across the Cheshire Plain. The cairn was denuded to construct the turnpike in the 1760s, and other stones went to build the nearby farm and house. There is a story that an engineer employed on the Manchester Ship Canal demonstrated the art of detonation on one of the biggest stones; it was later cemented back in place. Although still an atmospheric site, it requires imagination to grasp how remarkable the original tomb was. Sources describe an enormous chambered tomb with a horned cairn and a paved forecourt of a Clyde cairn or court tomb type, as found in Scotland, Ireland and the Isle of Man, with no other examples found in mainland England. Dividing the main chamber was a stone with a 0.5m (1½ft) hole, about big enough to crawl through. (A similar holed stone is at the Devil’s Ring and Finger, see page 135.) Two more chambers are supposed to have been located some 50m (164ft) away, but no traces remain.

THE BULLSTONES Alt Name: Bullstrang
Stone Circle | Nearest Village: Wincle | Map: SJ 9557 6761

Sheets: E268 L118 | Lat: 53.20554N | Long: 2.06778W

The Bullstones has a splendid setting on Brown Hill. This site has been classed as a barrow, yet it may be more aptly described as a stone circle. An 8.5 × 7.9m (28 × 26ft) circle of boulders surrounds a 1.1m (3ft 7in) stone with a bowl-shaped depression in its flat top. A burial, of a child along with an urn, cremated remains, a flint arrowhead and a flint knife, was found here in the 1870s. The circle’s entrance was to the north, with a short row of stones leading to it. Two further rows of stones are reported to have curved to the circle from the start of the avenue.

Nearby | Just over 2km (1¼ miles) WSW of the Bullstones are the five Bosley Minn standing stones. Three are believed to be prehistoric (the ones that lean), and two more recent. The stone to the south (1, at SJ 9388 6585) leans dramatically and has spent some of its life as a gatepost, shown by the hinge settings on its north face. About 370 (1,214ft) NNE of this are another pair considered genuine (4 and 5, also known as Wincle Minn standing stones, at SJ 9400 6620), with the other two stones (2 and 3) in between.

Derbyshire

Looking to the Land of the Ancestors

Vicky Tuckman (Morgan), former Editor of the Megalithic Portal

Cheshire is not known for its prehistoric monuments. Aside from an array of damaged Bronze Age barrows and a few destroyed stone circles, there are two main sites of interest.

The first is the Bridestones, located at 250m (820ft) above sea level on the crest of a pass, overlooking the Cheshire Plain. Neolithic chambered tombs with crescent-shaped forecourts like this are usually found in the Clyde region of Scotland (where they are known as Clyde cairns); Cairn Holy (see page 269) is one well-known example.

They are generally considered to be an early form of chambered tomb, and are believed to have been first built in Ireland. Research has shown that some Clyde cairns faced east and south – but those with crescentshaped forecourts, such as the Bridestones, always pointed west, toward Ireland.

The second unusual site is the Bullstones, lying just over 7km (4.3 miles) to the northeast. Consisting of a large central standing stone surrounded by an ellipse of rounded cobbles on a small platform, the Bullstones resembles the Bronze Age centre-stone circles of southwest Scotland, the best example being Glenquicken (see page 269), which also has a central standing stone surrounded by a ring of low water-worn stones and an interior of tightly laid cobbles. Glenquicken lies within a landscape containing a number of Clyde cairns with their semi-circular forecourts.

So why did the prehistoric inhabitants of Cheshire choose this location for the Bridestones and the Bullstones, so dissimilar to anything else in the surrounding area? Could it be more than just coincidence that they seem to have borrowed from designs usually found in the area around the Irish Sea? The hills on which these sites were constructed would be visible for miles to anyone crossing the Cheshire Plain eastward. Did their builders deliberately site them to look west, toward the setting sun and perhaps to the lands from which their ancestors came?

MINNING LOW Alt Name: Roystone Cairn
Round Cairn | Nearest Village: Parwich

Map: SK 2093 5728 | Sheets: OL24 L119 | Lat: 53.11229N | Long: 1.68877W

There are fantastic views from this site at the top of Minninglow Hill. At 44 × 34m (144 × 112ft), Minning Low is the Peak District’s largest cairn and, despite being damaged, is an impressive monument that’s visible for miles around. It’s an interesting multiphase site, which was initially a single-chambered tomb with a limestone cairn, later covered by a four-chambered long cairn and then finally incorporated into a huge circular mound. Roman coins and pottery were found here during excavation in the 19th century.

MAP

NINE STONES CLOSE Alt Name: The Grey Ladies
Stone Circle | Nearest Village: Birchover

Map: SK 2253 6256 | Sheets: OL24 L119 | Lat: 53.15969N | Long: 1.6645W

Although only four stones (with a possible fifth in the field wall) remain of seven or more in a 13.7m (45ft) ring, this is a splendid circle in an elegant setting in a field beside a fine oak tree, with views southwest up to Robin Hood’s Stride. Aubrey Burl points out that, viewed from the circle, the major southern moon appears to set between the two “ears” of this outcrop, an alignment that may have determined the siting of the circle. These are the tallest standing stones in Derbyshire, ranging from 1.2m (4ft) to 2.1m (7ft), the tallest stone having been measured at an even more impressive 3.5m (11½ft) before its re-erection in 1936. Legend has it that these Grey Ladies (the other name for the stones) dance when the clock strikes 12 (be that night or day).

Nearby | At SK 225 624, some 160m (525ft) SSW, is Robin Hood’s Stride, a natural outcrop of weather-carved rock that makes an impressive landmark across the fields from Nine Stones Close. Legend tells that Robin Hood used to leap from rock to rock here. On the southeastern corner, behind the “chimney”, is rock art: a well-defined circular groove surrounding a central dished area.

DOLL TOR

Stone Circle | Nearest Village: Birchover

Map: SK 2383 6287 | Sheets: OL24 L119 | Lat: 53.16245N | Long: 1.64503W

This is an enchanting little circle in a woodland setting with views across the valley. None of the stones in the 6 × 4.5m (19 × 15ft) circle rises above 1m (3ft 3in). It is possible that the stones are the remaining kerb of a longgone mound. A cairn adjoins the circle to the northeast.

Nearby | At SK 2355 6215, 775m (just under ½ mile) SSW of Doll Tor, at Rowtor Rocks, is a massive gritstone outcrop marked by prehistoric cup-and-ring marks as well as the seats, nooks and steps thought to have been carved in the 17th century by Thomas Eyre of Rowtor Hall.

There are five examples of rock art, at the outcrop’s western end, with the best preserved adorning a boulder below the carved “armchair”. A few metres to the west is a cup with a partial ring and trailing tail.

NINE LADIES Alt Name: Stanton Moor II
Stone Circle | Nearest Village: Birchover

Map: SK 2491 6349 | Sheets: OL24 L119 | Lat: 53.16794N | Long: 1.62883W

One of the most accessible and charming of Derbyshire’s many circles (and consequently vulnerable to damage from the high level of visitor numbers), the Nine Ladies are set among birch and oak on Stanton Moor. The stones, of millstone grit and all less than 1m (3ft 3in) tall, stand in a circle about 11m (36ft) in diameter, embedded in a grassy rubble bank. There was originally a cairn in the centre of the circle. A tenth stone, buried and invisible for many years, was discovered during the dry summer of 1976. The circle has been the focus of anti-quarrying campaigns on Stanton Moor (which is home to a variety of other sites) since the early 21st century, with environmentalists camping here in treehouses and tepees for almost nine years until proposals for sandstone quarrying on the moor were rejected in 2008. About 40m (130ft) WSW of the circle, there is a standing stone known as the King’s Stone.

Nearby | There are many other stone circles, cairns and rock outcrops within 1km (0.6 mile) on Stanton Moor. Some to look for: Stanton Moor Cairn T24 (at SK 2480 6333); Stanton Moor 1 embanked stone circle – one to find in winter as it gets very overgrown (at SK 2494 6367); Stanton Moor 3 or T56 ring cairn (at SK 2480 6326); Stanton Moor T55 round cairn (at SK 2482 6313); Stanton Moor 4 or T43 embanked stone circle, completely covered in heather (at SK 2470 6290).

ARBOR LOW

Henge & Stone Circle | Nearest Village: Middleton

Map: SK 1603 6355 | Sheets: OL24 L119 | Lat: 53.16882N | Long: 1.76166W

“When Thomas Bateman excavated the site in 1848, the main burial cist reputedly fell through his tunnel roof while he was digging, to be relocated in his own garden at Lomberdale Hall! Returned in 1938, it is still visible today, resembling a capstone on the top of the mound.” Vicky Tuckman

Set on a ridge high on Middleton Common, Arbor Low is a fascinating ritual centre that deserves more than to be simply known as the “Stonehenge of the North”. The bank of the massive 90m (295ft) henge still rises to over 2m (6½ft), with entrances at the northwest and SSE. Inside the henge, the circle stands on a platform and contains 50 stones of local limestone (some are broken fragments of the same stone), all but one of which is fallen – or were deliberately set as recumbents. Seven smaller blocks form a “cove” in the centre of the circle, where skeletal remains were found. The stones range from 1.6m to 2.1m (5ft 3in to 6ft 10in) in height (or length), except for those at the entrances which would have been taller, between 2.6m and 2.9m (8ft 6in to 9½ft). The stones were added after the construction of the henge, probably by 2000BC. Later, part of the outer bank was altered to make room for a round barrow. Another barrow nearby, Gib Hill, which is visible from Arbor Low, was probably the original focus of the site.

Nearby | At SK 1582 6332, some 300m (984ft) WSW of Arbor Low is Gib Hill long barrow. This impressive artificial hill might look like a round barrow, but it’s actually a Neolithic long barrow with a later round barrow constructed on top. The long barrow probably predates Arbor Low by several hundred years. BCPhoto © Roy Kennie

FIVE WELLS

Chambered Tomb | Nearest Village: Taddington

Map: SK 1238 7104 | Sheets: OL24 L119 | Lat: 53.23628N | Long: 1.81588W

“Some difficulty finding this from Taddington road. Best to head off the obvious trackway up between the two hills and climb up the hill to the right.” CatrinM

This may be the highest megalithic tomb in Britain, high on Taddington Moor. The site has been denuded over the centuries by wall builders and damaged by excavation, but it’s still an atmospheric place with two back-to-back chambers visible, each with its own passage. The eastern chamber is in the better condition (both are missing their capstones).

MAP

THE BULL RING

Henge | Nearest Village: Dove Holes

Map: SK 0785 7824 | Sheets: OL24 L119 | Lat: 53.30105N | Long: 1.88367W

For a long time, this henge was sadly neglected, but recent efforts have improved matters and made the monument a focus for the local community. Unlike at Arbor Low, there are no stones; according to an 18th-century source, however, there was originally a stone setting in the enclosure, with one stone remaining in 1789. Originally rising to perhaps 2m (6½ft) high, the bank is now about 1.1m (3ft 7in) high and up to 9.8m (32ft) wide, while the ditch is 12.2m (40ft) wide and 0.6m (2ft) deep. There are causewayed entrances at the north and south. The site has been damaged by quarrying and the interior was probably ploughed during medieval times. The Megalithic Portal held a very successful live event at the Bull Ring in 2011; videos of the talks are available online.

PARK GATE

Stone Circle | Nearest Village: Beeley

Map: SK 2805 6851 | Sheets: OL24 L119 | Lat: 53.21291N | Long: 1.58143W

On marshy ground in Beeley Warren, this embanked 12m (39ft) circle has 10 surviving stones. Only one of them reaches 1m (3ft 3in) so the circle can be hard to spot when the grass is high. The bank is easiest to see to the west and southwest. A lovely spot to watch the sunset, with a clear view west.

HOB HURST’S HOUSE

Round Barrow | Nearest Village: Beeley

Map: SK 2874 6923 | Sheets: OL24 L119 | Lat: 53.21935N | Long: 1.57103W

Within 1km (0.6 mile) of Park Gate, on the wild moorland above Harland Edge, is this unusual squarish barrow, in legend the home of the sprite Hob. The rectangular mound, 8 × 7.5m (26 × 25ft) and just under 1m (3ft 3in) in height, is surrounded by a rectangular ditch and bank. A packhorse track has damaged the northern side of the bank, and the ditch may have been created when stones were taken to build walls. A central rectangular group of five stones may originally have contained 13. Excavation in 1853 discovered a grave or cist containing scorched human bones and some lead ore.

“Much more impressive than I had expected, and it’s beside a major pathway across the moor.” Roger K. Read

GARDOM’S EDGE

Megalithic Complex | Nearest Village: Baslow

Map: SK 2725 7322 | Sheets: OL24 L119 | Lat: 53.25533N | Long: 1.59297W

This millstone grit ridge is an important ancient landscape, with roundhouses, enclosures, cairns and rock art all within a few hundred metres of this curiously shaped standing stone. The unusual triangular shape of Gardom’s Edge stone, with one face strikingly flat and tilted, and its apparently deliberate sundial-like angle (packing stones around the base indicate it was carefully set in position) has led to much speculation as to its purpose (see below). Excavation of the area in 1998 and 1999 revealed varying levels of occupation from the Mesolithic to the Iron Age, including three hut sites, and a large enclosure that dated to the late second millennium BC.

A Phenomenology of Shadow

Daniel Brown, astronomy lecturer at Nottingham Trent University

The use of shadow casting in monuments of this period is rare in Britain and Ireland, but examples include Newgrange and some Clava cairns in the northeast of Scotland. These seem to be linked to burial sites using the symbolism of a cyclical light-andshadow display to represent eternity. Given the proximity of a Neolithic enclosure, the Gardom’s Edge monolith could be another such example. Usually, standing stones are upright, and either tall, slender pillars or wide, thin diamonds; however, at Gardom’s Edge, the stone appears to have been deliberately set at an angle. The stone seems to have been chosen for its smooth, flat and sloping side, with the other sides being vertical.

If we factor in changes in the Earth’s tilt to the ecliptic plane over four millennia, it seems that the slanted side of the stone at Gardom’s Edge would have been in shadow all day for half the year, but illuminated morning and evening during the summer months. Around the summer solstice, however, this slanted side of the stone would have been illuminated all day; this loss of shadow perhaps giving symbolic meaning to the location during the changing seasons and making the stone an ideal marker for a social arena for seasonal gatherings.

It appears that the shadow phenomena could have been used to empower the stone, which would have revealed its meaning during the time of the summer solstice. This insight could only have been gained through prolonged time spent at the site, watching and remaining within the phenomenon.

BARBROOK

Megalithic Complex | Nearest Village: Baslow

Map: SK 2780 7580 | Sheets: OL24 L119 | Lat: 53.27845N | Long: 1.58454W

On Ramsley Moor is a fascinating prehistoric landscape that includes an embanked stone circle, as well as some 80 cairns (mostly clearance cairns but probably including burial sites, too) and a possible cup-marked stone at SK 2764 7560. It’s a beautiful setting with sweeping views over Big Moor.

BARBROOK 1

There are great views from Barbrook 1 (at SK 2785 7558), one of the Peak District’s best-preserved stone circles, set in a dip on a raised plateau. There are 12 stones still standing in a 14.5 × 12.5m (48 × 41ft) ring, enclosed by a 19 × 17m (62 × 56ft) rubble bank.

BARBROOK 2

The most impressive of the sites is perhaps Barbrook 2 (pictured), at SK 2780 7580, a stone circle that has been restored following vandalism in the late 1980s and now appears as it would have done c.2000BC. It’s not marked on the map but can be found around 225m (738ft) NNW of Barbrook I (which is marked). Nine of an original 10 stones are set in a low, 3.5m (11½ft) wide dry-stone wall in a 14.5 × 13.5m (48 × 44ft) circle, which encloses a small cairn.

BARBROOK 3

At SK 2833 7728, some 1.6km (1 mile) NNE of Barbrook 2, is Barbrook 3 (or Owler Bar) stone circle. Around 26 × 23.5m (85 × 77ft) in diameter, it is one of the largest circles in the Peak District, but the stones are tiny and it’s almost comically tricky to see. The grass and peat conceal more or less everything and it’s nearly impossible to photograph. However, it’s a lovely walk if you’re up on the moor visiting the other sites.

MAP

STOKE FLAT Alt Name: Froggatt Edge
Stone Circle | Nearest Village: Grindleford

Map: SK 2496 7679 | Sheets: OL24 L119 | Lat: 53.28749N | Long: 1.62705W

A ruinous embanked stone circle overlooking the Derwent valley. The bank, which is 2m (6½ft) wide and 15.5m (51ft) in diameter, has two entrances directly opposite each other at the NNW and SSE. Interestingly, traces of walling in the northern entrance indicate it may have been deliberately blocked at some point. Four stones (of a possible 16) remain set in the bank, and the entrances are also lined with uprights, three in the northern entrance and four in the southern. The stones are generally small, about 0.5m (1½ft) tall, but one of the entrance stones rises to over 1m (3ft 3in).

“As with other Derbyshire sites, this one is best viewed before the bracken starts to grow too tall …” Steve Fedun

WET WITHENS Alt Names: Eyam Moor I, Wet Withers
Stone Circle | Nearest Village: Grindleford

Map: SK 2255 7900 | Sheets: OL24 L119 | Lat: 53.30747N | Long: 1.66305W

On Eyam Moor is the largest embanked circle in Derbyshire. Wet Withens (also known as Wet Withers) has an impressive bank up to 3m (10ft) wide, enclosing an area around 31 × 29.5m (101 × 96ft) in diameter. There are 10 or 11 millstone grit stones visible (out of a possible 16–18), of which seven are still standing, up to 0.7m (2ft 3in) in height. The tallest is chair-shaped, with three possible cup-marks on the back. There’s a small cairn inside the circle.

Nearby | Just 10m (33ft) north of Wet Withens is Eyam Moor barrow, a large cairn, 27.5 × 17.5m (90 × 57ft) in diameter and just over 1m (3ft 3in) in height. It could once have been a long barrow, or possibly two or more funerary cairns. The cairn makes a good landmark to navigate by when heather covers the small stones of Wet Withens.

There are two smaller stone circles around 650m (less than ½ mile) to the east of Wet Withens. Eyam Moor 2 (at SK 2316 7894) is a rather overgrown embanked stone circle, while Eyam Moor 3, a little further on (at SK 2323 7881), with no bank, has six stones, four of which are upright. Between Wet Withens and Eyam Moor 2 and 3 – on a slight ridge – is a prehistoric cairnfield of about 90 cairns. There are also traces of linear clearance banks, showing the area was split into little agricultural plots. Platforms for two prehistoric houses have been identified, and there are probably others. All this looks to be an area of intense agriculture and settlement in the Bronze Age right among these monuments.

BAMFORD MOOR SOUTH

Stone Circle | Nearest Town: Hathersage

Map: SK 2211 8453 | Sheets: OL1 L110 | Lat: 53.35719N | Long: 1.66926W

It may not be easy to find this small embanked circle among the heather but the effort is well worth it. The circle is just 8 × 7m (26 × 23ft), with six stones set in the bank plus two others visible, all about 0.5m (1½ft) tall. A slight slope makes the circle more visible from the south and west.

Nearby | At SK 2201 8467, 172m (564ft) to the northwest, is the Old Woman Stone, which was deliberately knocked over in the early 1900s, presumably by the landowners to stop it being used as a way-marker.

MAP

Nottinghamshire

CRESWELL CRAGS

Rock Art & Caves | Nearest Village: Creswell

Map: SK 5320 7410 | Sheets: E270 L120 | Lat: 53.26124N | Long: 1.20392W

Creswell Crags are a group of small caves along both sides of a gorge on the border between Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. The caves provided shelter for Neanderthal and anatomically modern humans between 130,000 and 10,000 years ago. Archaeological finds include flint and bone tools, as well as carvings, showing that Ice Age hunters visited the site to hunt reindeer and horses. Palaeolithic cave art was discovered in Church Hole, one of the Creswell caves, in 2003. These engravings are one of only two examples of Ice Age art in Britain, the other being an inscribed reindeer in Cat Hole Cave on the Gower peninsula in South Wales (see page 208). They include images of ibex, bison, ibis and deer, dating to around 13,000 years ago. Further carvings and basreliefs have been discovered since 2003, although this is controversial in some quarters. Natural light on sunny mornings gives perfect conditions for seeing the carvings; in some cases artificial light makes them harder or even impossible to see. The gorge is wheelchair accessible and has a very informative museum, from where you can take a guided tour to see the caves (see the Creswell Crags website for details.)

Top 10 Sites of Prehistoric Industry

1. Grime’s Graves (Norfolk) p.150

2. Carn Meini (Pembrokeshire) p.223

3. Great Langdale (Cumbria) p.175

4. Parknabinnia (Clare) p.377

5. Great Orme (Conwy) p.250

6. Harrow Hill (Sussex) p.124

7. Cissbury Ring (Sussex) p.124

8. Clearwell Caves (Gloucestershire p.82

9. Craig Rhos-y-felin (Pembrokeshire) p.220

10. Cwm Mawr (Shropshire) p.133

Leicestershire

THE HUMBER STONE Alt Names: Hoston, Hell Stone, Holy Stone
Standing Stone | Nearest Village: Hamilton

Map: SK 6240 0730 | Sheets: E233 L140 | Lat: 52.65983N | Long: 1.07887W

This stone, said to have once been around 2.7m (9ft) tall, would have been a majestic sight when upright (as it was until at least 1750). It’s fallen now and mostly buried in an incongruous position, near a roundabout on the outskirts of Leicester. It’s one of few standing stones in Leicestershire, and may have arrived here via glacial action. The Humber Stone is linked with several local legends, including one from the 1980s, when a boy and his grandmother were said to be haunted by the “Humberstone ghost”, a devilish entity with a goat’s head. The stone was also believed to have cursed two farmers who tried to damage it, one whose haystack burst into flames, and the other who broke off a segment to plough around it and thereafter (as is so often the case) never prospered.

Suffolk

SEVEN HILLS

Barrow Cemetery | Nearest Town: Ipswich

Map: TM 2245 4115 | Sheets: E197 L169 | Lat: 52.02546N | Long: 1.2418E

Seven Hills in Suffolk is a fine example of a barrow cemetery. There are 12 or 13 barrows, mostly bowl barrows, 15–30m (49–98ft) in diameter. The site is likely to have been in use for hundreds of years.

Essex

INGATESTONE

Possible Standing Stones | Nearest Village: Ingatestone

Map: TQ 6511 9959 | Sheets: E175 L167 | Lat: 51.67082N | Long: 0.38629E

An unusual site offering a fascinating bit of urban prehistory. Essex is not known for its megaliths, but there are three large sarsens in the village, perhaps part of a single stone moved here via glacial action. Two of the stones can be seen at the entrance to Fryerning Road from the High Street, while the third was discovered in 1905 in the wall of the church of St Edmund and St Mary and is now in the churchyard.

Nearby | There are more mysterious stones on the other side of Essex, 26km (16 miles) northeast of so it's "northeast of Ingatestone", in a small village called Alphamstone right on the border with Suffolk. Here, surrounding the church of St Barnabas (TL 8787 3548) are seven sarsen stones that could perhaps have once been part of a stone circle.

Icknield Way: Ancient Track or Medieval Fantasy?

Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews, Heritage Access Officer, North Hertfordshire Museum, Hitchin

The idea of long-distance trackways with histories that stretch thousands of years into the past is a temptingly romantic one. There’s plenty of evidence for the development of permanent routes from the Neolithic period onward, but how far did these trackways extend? Archaeologists once believed that monuments were concentrated in upland areas, making it likely that these were linked by “ridgeways” following the chalk and limestone hills. However, as more prehistoric settlements were found in low-lying areas, this idea was brought into question. The notion of prehistoric ridgeway routes requires rigorous interrogation.

According to the Icknield Way Association, the track is “the oldest road in England”, consisting of “prehistoric trackways, old when the Romans came”. In this view, it was in use by the Neolithic period (after 4000BC), but perhaps originated even before then, running from East Anglia to the Thames valley. And here the uncertainty begins: does it start at Thetford, at Lowestoft or at Holme-next-the-Sea? And does it end at Wallingford, Marlborough or even Weymouth?

In the Middle Ages, it was regarded as one of the “four Royal Roads”, first mentioned by Henry of Huntingdon in the 1120s. He says the first “is from east to west and is called Ichenild”. This is the earliest appearance of the name outside 13th-century copies of earlier charters, which mention a track called Icknield in a 65km (40 mile) stretch from Wiltshire to Buckinghamshire – not the traditional location of the route – and we cannot be sure the name was found in the originals. Another problem is that the idea of “four Royal Roads” originates in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s work of fiction-as-history, Gesta Brittonum (The History of the Kings of Britain), attributed to prehistoric King Belinus.

Sarah Harrison’s research, published in the Archaeological Journal in 2003, is still largely ignored. She examined the archaeological evidence for a track on the traditional route along its entire length and found none, except in one short stretch. She found archaeological evidence only at Letchworth Garden City in Hertfordshire, and at Dunstable in Bedfordshire. Here, the route originates at the end of the Iron Age, when formal roads were already being constructed across southern England.

Even worse, she discovered that 18th-century antiquarians filled in the “missing” sections when they began tracing the route on the ground. This is the origin of the Upper and Lower Icknield Ways in Buckinghamshire: nothing more than farm tracks. Medieval tracks, such as Ashwell Street in south Cambridgeshire and northern Hertfordshire, were incorporated into the system. While the antiquarians’ ideas convinced early prehistorians, the “fact” of Icknield Way was built on medieval storytelling.

If this seems negative, that’s because Icknield Way is such a wrongly conceived concept. The history goes back almost 900 years, which is nowhere near as long as the claimed date of the route. We can sometimes learn more by examining wrong ideas than by just following generally accepted “truths”.

Norfolk

Must Farm: An Extraordinary Fenland Survival

Jackie Bates, a writer with an enthusiasm for megalithic sites

Quarrying had already destroyed part of the late Bronze Age settlement at Must Farm (at TL 2370 9760 near Whittlesey), when excavations began there in 2010, ahead of further quarrying. By 2015 the site was making national news. An astonishing range of finds – including roundhouses, boats, fish traps, textiles, jewellery, weapons and pots still full of food – were found at this extraordinary site, built on oak piles driven into the bed of the River Nene in the Cambridgeshire fens. It seems that at some point between 1000 and 800BC, shortly after the site’s construction, fire broke out and swiftly took hold, leading to the sudden collapse of the whole settlement into the water, ensuring exceptional levels of preservation. The site has been described as one of the most significant of its kind ever found in Britain, and its nickname of the “Fenland Pompeii” refers to both the swiftness of the fire damage and the plethora of finds.

As the roundhouses were plunged into water still containing all the necessities for late Bronze Age life, Must Farm has allowed archaeologists to extend their understanding of many different aspects of domestic living in this era, from where various activities took place within the home, to how clothes were made, to details of construction, crafts and farming. The site has produced the largest collections in Britain of Bronze Age beads, textiles, wooden items, domestic metalwork (from sickles, hammers and razors to knives and axes), as well as complete sets of jars, bowls and cups – all the pots were unbroken. There’s nothing to see at the site, but many of the artefacts found here can be explored in Peterborough Museum.

FLAG FEN

Prehistoric Settlement & Archaeology Park | Nearest City: Peterborough

Map: TL 2270 9890 | Sheets: E235 L142 | Lat: 52.57408N | Long: 0.19084W

Famously discovered by accident when Francis Pryor tripped over a protruding Bronze Age timber on the way back to the pub in 1982, the impressive Flag Fen site includes a remarkable 1km (0.6 mile) wooden causeway preserved in the wetland. Excavations in the 1980s revealed that the causeway (dating to 1365–967BC) was constructed across a waterlogged low-lying area, with over 60,000 posts arranged in five 5m (16ft) wide rows, and a timber platform. The site features reconstructions, including an Iron Age roundhouse, and some of the causeway posts are on display. Only about 10 per cent of the site has been investigated, and the sheer number of finds, including ritually damaged weapons (broken daggers, with the halves placed on top of each other), jewellery and white beach pebbles (transported here from afar), suggests that the site may have been a ceremonial centre where items were deliberately placed in the water. Modern drainage of the Fens, the development of Peterborough and climate change are all putting the wetlands at risk, and excavation and preservation are ongoing.

GRIME’S GRAVES

Neolithic Flint Mine | Nearest Village: Weeting

Map: TL 8175 8978 | Sheets: E229 L144 | Lat: 52.47587N | Long: 0.67394E

The name of Grime’s Graves has an Anglo-Saxon origin, referring to the god Grim (Woden). The heathland here is pockmarked by more than 400 prehistoric mine shafts, creating a strange lunarlike landscape. From around 3000BC to the Bronze Age these shafts, up to 13m (43ft) deep, were dug into the chalk with antler picks in order to retrieve flint, with horizontal galleries running up to 15m/49ft from the deeper shafts. Only a handful of Neolithic flint mines have been discovered in Britain; this is the most impressive and the only one open to the public. Why the flint was mined here is the subject of debate; it has been pointed out that flint was available on the surface and that the act of retrieving it may have had a ritual purpose. Others suggest that the pits were necessary to access bands of floorstone flint (not found on the surface), which is both aesthetically pleasing (glossy black) and also flakes easily, making it suitable for toolmaking. Ritual activity is indicated by many objects found at Grime’s Graves, such as ornate grooved ware pots, chalk carvings (including of phalluses, cups and balls; see opposite) and a carefully symmetrical arrangement of a Cornish greenstone axe and a bird skull between two antler picks.

There is public access to Pit 1, which requires descent by a vertical 9m (30ft) ladder (no children under 10), from where the galleries can be viewed but not entered. The 12m (39ft) shaft known as Greenwell’s Pit has recently opened for guided tours, with ladder access and a winch and harness for safety.

“The risk of collapse must have been considerable as, of course, were the rewards.” Sandy Gerrard

Chalk Artefacts

Anne Teather, freelance archaeologist and researcher into the European Neolithic

It is believed chalk artefacts were probably made as replicas of artefacts that existed in other materials – chalk axes, for example, are not functionally useful! Some artefact forms do have evidence of use, but chalk as a material was almost certainly seen as a symbolic medium for making “things that looked like other things” in the Neolithic. A range of chalk artefacts, such as chalk balls, occur at many Neolithic sites on the chalklands. They haven’t been assessed like some other artefacts so it’s difficult to be certain of numbers, but it is likely that they were more common than we think. Dr Gillian Varndell completed the first modern analysis of chalk artefacts as part of the Grime’s Graves excavation. She noted perforated artefacts and small, slightly dished artefacts she called “working surfaces”. These may have been used to scrape chalk in small quantities to use as pigment and/or body paint. The excavation of the village at Durrington Walls yielded new types of chalk artefact, such as polishers (perhaps used to apply chalk as a body decoration in the Neolithic) and chalk beads. These have no evidence of suspension, but we know they were made in any case.

There is also increasing evidence of marks made in monuments, and flint mines, that are similar to rock art but are made in chalk – in other words, chalk art. They were noted from the early excavations of flint mines at Cissbury, Grime’s Graves, Church Hill and Harrow Hill, but also in the ditch at Flagstones, Dorset and the Maumbury Rings shafts. Inscribing spaces in this way is similar to carving into stone at other monuments and should be seen as an extension of this cultural behaviour. The art in flint mines seemed to be located at the base of some, but not all, shafts, and at the end of galleries.

The most famous prehistoric chalk artefacts are the three Folkton drums, currently on display at the British Museum. Associated with the burial of a child, they were found in a barrow in East Yorkshire by Canon Greenwell in the late 19th century. Each is of a different size and although there is no radiocarbon date, their decoration is suggestive of late Neolithic or early Bronze Age art. They were thought to be unique until the discovery of another, undecorated, chalk drum in a Neolithic pit at Lavant, West Sussex in the 1990s, indicating such artefacts are unusual, but not unique. There are a few other extremely unusual chalk artefacts, such as the chalk figurine from Maiden Castle (also currently on display at the British Museum); the Grime’s Graves Goddess, which is thought to be a fake, and numerous chalk phallic forms that range from quite small ones such as that from the Thickthorn Down long barrow, Dorset, and the Windmill Hill causewayed enclosure, Wiltshire, to the truly enormous chalk phallus from the Maumbury Rings (on display at Dorset County Museum).

One of the Folkton chalk drums

MAP

SEAHENGE Alt Name: Holme-next-the-Sea I

Timber Circle | Nearest Village: Holme-next-the-Sea

Map: TF 7112 4526 | Sheets: E250 L132 | Lat: 52.97683N | Long: 0.54687E

This is where, in 1998, coastal erosion exposed a remarkable Bronze Age timber circle comprising 55 oak posts and a central inverted oak stump in the intertidal zone near Holme-next-the-Sea, Norfolk (see below). The 1999 excavation of the remains was controversial, but leaving the circle in place would have resulted in its destruction. There’s nothing to see at the site now; visit the museum in King’s Lynn to see a reconstruction, as well as some of the original timbers.

Nearby | Seahenge wasn’t the only timber circle found at Holme-next-the-Sea. Early in the 21st century the timbers of Holme II were also spotted (approximately at TF 712 453). Some timbers that still remained in 2013 were dated by dendrochronology to 2049BC, as at Seahenge, so it seems this monument was part of the same complex. Erosion is likely to reveal (and destroy) further sites in the area – in 2003–8 some 41 features from various periods were recorded on Holme Beach.

Insights from a Bronze Age Timber Circle

Andy Burnham, founder and Editor of the Megalithic Portal

The name Seahenge itself is a misnomer, the site being neither a henge, nor originally in the sea – the area was more likely waterlogged saltmarsh at the time of construction.

Radiocarbon-dating has put the site to between 2310 and 1740BC, and dendrochronology dates the felling of the inverted stump to the spring of 2049BC. Axe marks from around 50 different axes indicate group organization, and also that these axes were more common than previously thought, the date being just after bronze was first smelted in Britain.

Some of the timbers can now be viewed at Lynn Museum, having taken almost a decade to dry out. The conservation process, conducted by archaeologists at Portsmouth’s Mary Rose Trust, involved immersion in wax and freeze-drying. Archaeologists have concluded that Seahenge must have been some sort of ceremonial site, possibly used for excarnation, with bodies of the dead exposed to birds, animals and the elements to hasten decomposition and the trip to the afterlife. Two of the earliest timbers to be sited have an approximate northeast alignment to the midwinter sunset and midsummer sunrise, so it’s possible the posts functioned as some sort of calendar or festival marker. It’s also been theorized that the tree stump could commemorate the death of a significant tree, the fact that it had been turned upside down perhaps relating to the concept of the underworld. Could it even be that large postholes found elsewhere held upturned trees in much the same way?

SALTHOUSE HEATH

Barrow Cemetery | Nearest Village: Salthouse

Map: TG 0797 4241 | Sheets: E250 L133 | Lat: 52.93877N | Long: 1.09342E

Salthouse Heath is home to Norfolk’s largest barrow cemetery, with over 30 mounds dispersed over an area of the heath around 1.6 × 1.2km (1 × ¾ mile), with cropmarks on the arable land surrounding the heath suggesting it was originally even larger. The bigger mounds include Three Farthing Hill, Three Halfpenny Hill and Gallow Hill (at TG 0797 4241), which is the largest example at 2m (6½ft) high and 27m (88ft) across. The site appears to have been in use for over 2,000 years.

Lincolnshire

BULLY HILLS

Barrow Cemetery | Nearest Village: Tathwell

Map: TF 3312 8272 | Sheets: E282 L122 | Lat: 53.32466N | Long: 0.00278W

There are seven bowl barrows here, best viewed from the road at TF 326 829. All are substantial earthworks, about 3m (10ft) high, 12–26m (39–85ft) across, and aligned southwest–northeast. Having suffered antiquarian excavation, the largest barrow, third from the south, is only 2m (6½ft) high, with a hollow in the centre. No ditches are visible but it’s assumed that all these Lincolnshire barrows have them, as others in the area do.

Nearby | At TF 2945 8225, 3.7km (2¼ miles) west of Bully Hills, is Tathwell long barrow, visible from the A153. Trees and bushes grow on the barrow and rabbit activity has exposed the underlying chalk structure.

GRIM’S MOUND

Round Barrow | Nearest Village: Burgh on Bain

Map: TF 2325 8693 | Sheets: E282 L122 | Lat: 53.36487N | Long: 0.14924W

This grass-covered round barrow, 2.6m (8½ft) high in places and 18m (59ft) across, swells appealingly on the horizon. There are remarkable views in all directions from the top of the mound, especially on a clear day.

Nearby | At TF 2129 8497, 2.8km (1¾ miles) WSW of Grim’s Mound, is Burgh on Bain, which looks like a round barrow but is actually a Neolithic long barrow. It’s 27m (88ft) long and 2.2m (7ft 2in) high at the western end, reducing to 1.5m (5ft).

At TF 2145 8406, 3.4km (just over 2 miles) southwest of Grim’s Mound, is Burgh Top, where there are three round barrows, two badly reduced by ploughing, and the third with a decommissioned Royal Observer Corps (ROC) bunker from the Cold War era built into it. It’s right beside the road.

MAP

If you enjoyed this ebook and would like to find out more about the megalithic and other prehistoric sites of the rest of Britain and Ireland, the following regional ebooks are also available:

The Old Stones of the West of England 9781786782397

The Old Stones of the North of England & Isle of Man 9781786782403

The Old Stones of Wales 9781786782410

The Old Stones of Scotland 9781786782427

The Old Stones of Ireland 9781786782434

You can also download the complete ebook:

The Old Stones: A Field Guide to the Megalithic Sites of Britain and Ireland
ISBN: 9781786782038

Also available as a book:

The Old Stones: A Field Guide to the Megalithic Sites of Britain and Ireland
ISBN: 9781786781543

The Old Stones of the South, Midlands & East of England

The Megalithic Portal

Edited by Andy Burnham

First published in the UK and USA in 2018 by
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