From earliest childhood memories, the chalk hill figure of the Cerne Abbas giant in Dorset has been welded into my consciousness. My first memory was of a family holiday, driving from Bournemouth to Cornwall in the West Country. My father hired a Morris Minor for the holiday and as we drove past the enigmatic hill figure, my brother and I sniggered together in the back of the car. To this day, by my mind it is the iconic image of Dorset, as Stonehenge is to Wiltshire and the White Horse of Uffington is to Oxfordshire. Many stories, legends, and of course folklore, have arisen among us Dorset folk over the generations relating to this gigantic figure (180 feet long and 167 feet wide). The round baby-like ... Read More

From earliest childhood memories, the chalk hill figure of the Cerne Abbas giant in Dorset has been welded into my consciousness. My first memory was of a family holiday, driving from Bournemouth to Cornwall in the West Country. My father hired a Morris Minor for ... Read More

The 2015 archaeological field excavations at Marden and Wilsford Henges in the Vale of Pewsey Wiltshire are now complete. Pete Glastonbury has kindly provided his photographs of some of this season's finds along with additional images from the 2010 excavations, which are included below, together with my own images taken during a number of site visits during July 2015. 'Marden is a Wiltshire village approaching midway between Avebury and Stonehenge. It has a huge henge that is larger than Avebury. The henge has a unique feature of two entrances at right angles to each other on north and east sides, and a ditch 40 feet wide. It had a 'Giant' mound that John Aubrey claimed was second only in size to Silbury Hill.' -  Brian ... Read More

The 2015 archaeological field excavations at Marden and Wilsford Henges in the Vale of Pewsey Wiltshire are now complete. Pete Glastonbury has kindly provided his photographs of some of this season's finds along with additional images from the 2010 excavations, which are included below, together ... Read More

On 22 July 2015, Pete Glastonbury guided me around ancient features in the archaeologically rich area of Devizes, Avebury, and the Vale of Pewsey. The tour included a visit to a long barrow. Long barrows are the oldest known architecture in the British Isles, dating from the early Neolithic, around 4000BC to 2500BC. This one, however, at All Cannings in Wiltshire, was created not by our distant Neolithic ancestors, but in the 21st century by Tim Daw, a local farmer, and is described in further detail here. Pete Glastonbury witnessed the construction of the All Cannings Long Barrow in Wiltshire during 2014 and has kindly provided the photographs above and below, taken during the construction process in April and May 2014, respectively. 'The first "Neolithic" long ... Read More

On 22 July 2015, Pete Glastonbury guided me around ancient features in the archaeologically rich area of Devizes, Avebury, and the Vale of Pewsey. The tour included a visit to a long barrow. Long barrows are the oldest known architecture in the British Isles, dating from ... Read More

The above photograph by Pete Glastonbury is of a wheat field ready for harvest at Silbury Hill in Wiltshire. Lammas Day, 1 August, traditionally the first harvest festival of the year. Much is written elsewhere of Lammas Day and its traditions and folklore, which I do not propose to explore further here.  My father's first job on leaving school in the early 1950s was labouring on a farm near Dorchester in Dorset and I asked him this evening to share a few memories of harvest time from those times, less than 25 years after Thomas Hardy died. My father was employed as a farm labourer for the Voss family, who owned a 3000 acre farm near Dorchester in Dorset. The farm was based in the ... Read More

The above photograph by Pete Glastonbury is of a wheat field ready for harvest at Silbury Hill in Wiltshire. Lammas Day, 1 August, traditionally the first harvest festival of the year. Much is written elsewhere of Lammas Day and its traditions and folklore, which I ... Read More

Thank you Pete Glastonbury for the above aerial view of the site of Marden Henge. On 15 June 2015 the University of Reading announced in a press release: 'Archaeologists are embarking on an exciting three-year excavation in the Vale of Pewsey, Wiltshire. Situated between the iconic prehistoric monuments of Stonehenge and Avebury, the Vale of Pewsey is a barely explored archaeological region of huge international importance. The project will investigate Marden Henge. Built around 2400 BC, ‘Marden' is the largest henge in the country and one of Britain's most important but least understood prehistoric monuments.' The full press release is here, and prompted me to look a little more closely at earlier writings on the subject of Marden Henge. A previous two-year English Heritage excavation at ... Read More

Thank you Pete Glastonbury for the above aerial view of the site of Marden Henge. On 15 June 2015 the University of Reading announced in a press release: 'Archaeologists are embarking on an exciting three-year excavation in the Vale of Pewsey, Wiltshire. Situated between the ... Read More

Neil Wiseman, the author of Stonehenge and the Neolithic Cosmos lives in Hyannis, Massachusetts, USA, thousands of miles from Stonehenge and the prehistoric monuments of Britain. However, his geographic location does not hamper his passion for and knowledge of these subjects. Neil probably knows more on the recorded history of each stone that remains at Stonehenge than any other person I know. Millions of words have been written on the subject of Stonehenge, frequently repeating facts that are readily available by searching the World Wide Web. It was refreshing to find in the first paragraph of his book the statement "Forty percent of the stones are now gone, leaving behind this crumbled death mask, frozen in a rictus of ragged gap-toothed ruin", a turn of ... Read More

Neil Wiseman, the author of Stonehenge and the Neolithic Cosmos lives in Hyannis, Massachusetts, USA, thousands of miles from Stonehenge and the prehistoric monuments of Britain. However, his geographic location does not hamper his passion for and knowledge of these subjects. Neil probably knows more ... Read More

As Carl Sagan once said: 'Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere.' The two chalk plaques below were discovered between King Barrow Wood and Stonehenge Bottom in the late 1960s by Major H.M. and Mrs. F. De M. Vatcher. They were found during the widening and lowering of the A303 road near Stonehenge in the chalk of the verge on the north side of the carriageway, 211 yards west of the wood. The larger plaque is approximately three inches square and seven-sixteenths of an inch thick. They were found near the base of the pit at a depth of a little under two feet from the surface. The upper part of the ditch filling was empty of finds ... Read More

As Carl Sagan once said: 'Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere.' The two chalk plaques below were discovered between King Barrow Wood and Stonehenge Bottom in the late 1960s by Major H.M. and Mrs. F. De M. ... Read More

Man has enjoyed a close relationship with the landscape in the environs of Stonehenge since Mesolithic times and the first Stonehenge monument was erected 10 000 years ago of pine posts . By the time the ditch and bank structure that surrounds the monument that we are all familiar with today was constructed around 3,000 BC, that first monumentalised relationship with the area had existed for 5,000 years. Stonehenge has therefore been many 'buildings' over countless generations. Wooden posts and later stones have been frequently dismantled, moved, re-erected, added to and subtracted from. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that smaller-roofed structures may have existed over the millennia, as enigmatic post holes also exist within the monument site and these structures at times may ... Read More

Man has enjoyed a close relationship with the landscape in the environs of Stonehenge since Mesolithic times and the first Stonehenge monument was erected 10 000 years ago of pine posts . By the time the ditch and bank structure that surrounds the monument that ... Read More

"For most of the history of humankind, going back to Stone Age, the sky has served as a tool. [...] The regularity of the motions of celestial objects enabled them to orient themselves in time and space. [...] From the sky they gained -- and we, their descendents, have inherited -- a profound sense of cyclic time, of order and symmetry, and of the predictability of nature. In this awareness lie not only the foundations of science, but our view of the universe and our place in it." -Dr Edwin C Krupp Echoes of the Ancient Skies, 1983 I was booked to attend the press preview of Grant Wakefield's documentary Ancient Skies at the Winchester Science Centre on 2 September 2014. Due to work commitments ... Read More

"For most of the history of humankind, going back to Stone Age, the sky has served as a tool. [...] The regularity of the motions of celestial objects enabled them to orient themselves in time and space. [...] From the sky they gained -- and ... Read More

'The History of Ancient Wiltshire'  First Edition Published 1812 ( Volume 1) 'We speak from facts not theory' Working alongside William Cunnington (who unfortunately died just before this book was published). Sir Richard Colt Hoare excavated 379 barrows on Salisbury Plain as well as identifying many other sites in the area. A dedication is included to William Cunnington at the beginning of the book, which is digitsed below . Sir Richard Colt Hoare was born on 9 December 1758 and died on 19 May 1838. He purchased Glastonbury Tor in 1786 and funded the restoration of the church tower on top of it. His mausoleum is in St Peters church Stourton Wiltshire. Thank you to Sir Antrobus, Fred Westmoreland , Amesbury History Centre,  Colin Wheeler ... Read More

'The History of Ancient Wiltshire'  First Edition Published 1812 ( Volume 1) 'We speak from facts not theory' Working alongside William Cunnington (who unfortunately died just before this book was published). Sir Richard Colt Hoare excavated 379 barrows on Salisbury Plain as well as identifying ... Read More