The Winterbourne Stoke long barrow and Bronze Age barrow group at Stonehenge are an often overlooked site within the Stonehenge environs, west of the monument and immediately northeast of Winterbourne Stoke/Long barrow Roundabout on the A303. The location of the site, immediately north of the A303, and the constant accompaniment of passing road traffic, no doubt deter visitors. For those who do park up in the lay-by entrance area on the northbound side of the A303 (east of Longbarrow Roundabout), it does have a great deal to offer. Much is known of the prominent Neolithic 'leader' who was buried in this long barrow approximately 5500 years ago here, and the gentleman's bones are currently on display in the English Heritage visitor centre at Stonehenge, less than ... Read More

The Winterbourne Stoke long barrow and Bronze Age barrow group at Stonehenge are an often overlooked site within the Stonehenge environs, west of the monument and immediately northeast of Winterbourne Stoke/Long barrow Roundabout on the A303. The location of the site, immediately north of the A303, ... 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

On reviewing an archive earlier this year , I  discovered this article and  transcript of  the auction in Salisbury 0n 21 September 1915 at which Stonehenge was sold and have replicated the document as faithfully as possible below . Amesbury Abbey Estate Sale. Stonehenge bought by a Salisbury Resident An Unpremeditated Purchase. Amesbury Abbey estate, the historic domain which was fully described in our issue of a fortnight ago, was brought under the hammer at the New Street Theatre, Salisbury, on Tuesday afternoon. No purchaser was found to undertake the responsibility of the estate as a whole, extending to about 6,420 acres. With an estimated rent roll of £5,359, it was broken up into lots, the greater number of which were sold, the purchase money ... Read More

On reviewing an archive earlier this year , I  discovered this article and  transcript of  the auction in Salisbury 0n 21 September 1915 at which Stonehenge was sold and have replicated the document as faithfully as possible below . Amesbury Abbey Estate Sale. Stonehenge bought ... Read More

The above photograph was taken at Stonehenge by Mr. Paul Barlow on Midsummer's Day, 21 June 2014. Given the vagaries of British summer weather and frequent early morning mists and fogs arising in this region of Salisbury Plain from the confluence of five rivers near Salisbury to the south, a perfect sunrise is the exception rather than the rule. For a photograph to also capture a perfect sunrise relative to the Heel Stone at Stonehenge, rarer still. These factors combine to elevate this image into something special. This is the first perfect summer solstice sunrise after the removal of the road  immediately to the north of the Heel Stone. As the people were gathering in anticipation before the sun first rose it struck me when ... Read More

The above photograph was taken at Stonehenge by Mr. Paul Barlow on Midsummer's Day, 21 June 2014. Given the vagaries of British summer weather and frequent early morning mists and fogs arising in this region of Salisbury Plain from the confluence of five rivers near ... Read More

The above watercolour with a photograph of the gentleman's face inserted was painted by Mary Anne Antrobus of her brother Sir Edmund Antrobus c.1869 and was subsequently placed by Lady Florence Caroline Mathilde Antrobus (Nee Satoris), his wife, into her personal scrapbook. Sir Edmund is portrayed on a step outside the diningroom window of 461 Piccadilly with his dog Toby. On 23 December 1886 at 7A Eaton Square, London, a son and heir was born to 'the wife of Lieutenant-Colonel Antrobus of the Grenadier Guards, Edmund Antrobus'. He was educated at Park Hill School in Lyndhurst in the New Forest, Eton, and in France before becoming a professional soldier. He played cricket, football and golf. On 27 May 1908, the War Office published the following (extract): 'foot ... Read More

The above watercolour with a photograph of the gentleman's face inserted was painted by Mary Anne Antrobus of her brother Sir Edmund Antrobus c.1869 and was subsequently placed by Lady Florence Caroline Mathilde Antrobus (Nee Satoris), his wife, into her personal scrapbook. Sir Edmund is ... Read More