Will Self offered his observations here on 21 June 2014, of the 'museumification' of Stonehenge by the current custodians/gatekeepers, arising from the demands of modern day visitors and mammon. The charming photograph above, in the context of the history of Stonehenge, was taken in recent times, and represents a Stonehenge as much lost to us now as the Stonehenge of Neolithic times. I have been informed by the Bradbury family, who have kindly allowed me to publish the photograph above, that it was captured in 1929. A work colleague recently informed me that his mother and her cousins used to clamber freely over the stones while accompanying her father, who worked as a shepherd in the Stonehenge environs. As a result of this conversation, Mrs. E. Bradbury of Ludgershall has ... Read More

Will Self offered his observations here on 21 June 2014, of the 'museumification' of Stonehenge by the current custodians/gatekeepers, arising from the demands of modern day visitors and mammon. The charming photograph above, in the context of the history of Stonehenge, was taken in recent times, and ... Read More

Sir Richard Colt Hoare is often cited as one of the founding fathers of modern archaeological methods. With William Cunnington, in the early 19th century, he excavated 379 barrows on Salisbury Plain, as well as digging around a fallen trilithon and the Slaughter Stone at Stonehenge. His findings were meticulously recorded (for the time) and published partially in the 1812 publication The Ancient History of Wiltshire, which begins and ends with the words 'We speak from facts not theories'. On the bicentenary of the publication of this seminal publication, Angie Wickenden wrote a celebration of it which can be read here. As well as excavating the well-known barrows at -- and surrounding -- Stonehenge, he also dug the barrows shown on the map below at Woodyates, ... Read More

Sir Richard Colt Hoare is often cited as one of the founding fathers of modern archaeological methods. With William Cunnington, in the early 19th century, he excavated 379 barrows on Salisbury Plain, as well as digging around a fallen trilithon and the Slaughter Stone at ... Read More

Lady Antrobus of Amesbury Abbey captured the above stunning image on 12 September 1872, which is taken from her personal scrapbook. The location is below Beacon Hill on Salisbury Plain, which is now Bulford camp. On first glancing at the image, my initial thoughts were of the American civil war, which ended seven years earlier on 9 May 1865. It captures the final march past and review after British Army exercises involving not less than 40,000 men in southern Wiltshire and Dorset in the preceding days. Two armies were assembled, one at Blandford, representing an invading force, and another on August 31 at Pewsey. The two sides comprised 12 cavalry regiments, 14 artillery batteries and 24 infantry battalions, and the manoeuvres were scheduled to continue ... Read More

Lady Antrobus of Amesbury Abbey captured the above stunning image on 12 September 1872, which is taken from her personal scrapbook. The location is below Beacon Hill on Salisbury Plain, which is now Bulford camp. On first glancing at the image, my initial thoughts were ... Read More

The white horse of Stonehenge. The photograph above was taken at 3:10pm in the afternoon of 14 October 2011, an exceptionally hot autumn afternoon for mid-October. The picture, on the face of it, is an average snapshot. Two aspects of this image do give it a special significance to me, though -- namely, the white horse (or pony) in the foreground and the location. At the top, towards the right-hand side of the image is Fargo Plantation at the western end of the Stonehenge Cursus. The horses are in a small paddock to the north of the Stonehenge monument and west of the rather less iconic sewerage works. The horse in the foreground appears to be looking directly at the camera with a calm and extremely knowing look ... Read More

The white horse of Stonehenge. The photograph above was taken at 3:10pm in the afternoon of 14 October 2011, an exceptionally hot autumn afternoon for mid-October. The picture, on the face of it, is an average snapshot. Two aspects of this image do give it a special ... Read More

The previous thread here looked at Stage One Stonehenge post holes dating from the early part of the third millenium BC. Ditch and bank enclosure-type structures were evolving at this time from an earlier tradition of causewayed enclosures, an example of which is found at Robin Hood's Ball approximately 2.1 miles north of Stonehenge. At some time in the Neolithic period a causewayed enclosure or other structures may have existed in the 'mondus abconditus' of the Stonehenge landscape at Vespasian's camp and here. Evidence suggests that after only a short period of usage, the early Stonehenge site was possibly abandoned and deserted to the elements, followed by a rapid recolonisation by scrub, bushes and rank grass. The wooden structures were left to decay and the ... Read More

The previous thread here looked at Stage One Stonehenge post holes dating from the early part of the third millenium BC. Ditch and bank enclosure-type structures were evolving at this time from an earlier tradition of causewayed enclosures, an example of which is found at ... Read More

The main elements currently attributed to stage one of the Stonehenge monument  consist of: A circular bank and external ditch with a diameter of approximately 110 metres. Entrances into the earthwork from the northeast and south. 56 Aubrey Holes. Stoneholes 97, and A and B, assumed to be sarsens and generally now assigned to this stage. (No longer standing) A line of four postholes at intervals of 2 metres to the northeast of the actual NE entrance. A mosaic of pits , postholes and stake-holes within the earthwork enclosure and the NE entrance. It is the nature of the last element above, the pits, postholes and stakeholes that I would like to briefly consider here. An image is attached above of these mysterious postholes that ... Read More

The main elements currently attributed to stage one of the Stonehenge monument  consist of: A circular bank and external ditch with a diameter of approximately 110 metres. Entrances into the earthwork from the northeast and south. 56 Aubrey Holes. Stoneholes 97, and A and B, ... Read More