UKC

Paid a visit this morning on the way back from the New Forest. Amazing. We just parked nearby and walked plenty close enough on the public footpath - think they’re charging about a zillion pounds per person to get herded onto a bus and get a few feet closer.

We used to stop after dark on the way to caving trips to the Mendips in the 1960s and wander around in the stones in the moonlight. Awesome

Great image…love looking at it and trying to get my head round them pulling those stones from Pembroke to build it.

It’s a shame we can’t freely access one our great national monuments.

Woodhenge a few miles away is also worth a look. 

If you’re still in the area you could head back tomorrow and get a second comparison shot that shows the stones set to GMT.

The big stones didn’t come from Pembroke, it was the smaller bluestones. Still very impressive though.

Yes, the public footpath runs very close to it behind a very wide-mesh wire fence. You can see it really well for no expense and take photos through the huge gaps.

Even closer, the land to the north of the boundary is CROW land so you can actually get within about 50m.

Not sure I understand why the visitor centre is so far away - have they missed the plot?

Never having been there I always wondered if anyone used to boulder on them before access was restricted? 

For once I checked UKC past posts to see if there was any info. I should never have doubted!

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/rock_talk/climbers_should_be_given_unrest...

You should head there at summer solstice time. Free access to the stones and you get wander amongst them.  Mu wife and I have been a few times. 

Didn't the big ones come from north wales though? Arent they rhyolite?

i think the big ones were a glacial deposit about 30 miles away

no doubt some one will be along to say i'm way out, it was 32 miles!

Yeah I never understood why anyone pays £22 to get from behind the fence to behind the rope about 6ft closer. Nor do I really understand how we got to a place where these national monuments are behind an English heritage paywall. Whitby abbey is the classic example; the cynical ****s built a literal wall there so you can't even get a distant photo of it unless you cross their palm with silver.

Ah, yes, I'd forgotten that. So you can see it easily quite close up from both sides without paying a penny. You can avoid the car park by parking some distance up the road and walking a few 100 yards.

I thought the point was that English Heritage bought it in order to protect it (the ground around it) from erosion.

If you are a member of the National Trust, you can get in free through the English Heritage visitor centre, and have exactly the same access, unimpeded by mesh fences, as the fee-paying visitors. (I've done that a couple of times in the last two years.) Otherwise it costs 22 quid. 

The big stones are "sarsen stones" (fine-grained clean, silica-cemented sandstones - "silcretes" - of Paleogene age), similar to the Fontainebleau sandstones. The closest geochemical match is to some similar sarsen stones about 30 miles to the north, but how they were transported from there to Stonehenge is contentious. I think it is just as likely that they came from very close to the present Stonehenge site. The "bluestones", in an inner circle, are mainly dolerites and widely believed to have been transported (somehow) from Pembrokeshire, where there are some geochemically similar rocks. But again, I don't think that is proven - there are other candidate dolerites in the UK that could be the source.

I'd forgotten that! And I'm a member of both National Trust and English Heritage.

I thought one theory, now favoured by many, is that the bluestones were 'erratics' that had been dumped at the end of the last ice age, somewhere quite close to Stonehenge.

Dr Alice thinks they come from Pembrokeshire…it must be true 😀

“But the new discovery suggests the bluestones from Waun Mawn could have been moved as the ancient people of the Preseli region migrated, even taking their monuments with them, as a sign of their ancestral identity.

They would then have been re-erected at Stonehenge.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-56029203

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000s5xm/stonehenge-the-lost-circle-r...

Yes, I am one of those (rather few in number) who think that all these stones could be erratics. But the silcretes have probably not come very far from their place of deposition.

Erratics: does that mean carried by glaciers/ice sheets out of their normal range? Sounds much more plausible than that some people would have dragged them all that way.

The Stonehenge visitor centre shop is full of popular, Von Daniken-style books (by Parker Pearson, etc) with endless far-fetched theories for the origin of Stonehenge. English Heritage are trying to enhance the mystique of Stonehenge as much as possible, because that increases visitor numbers from all over the planet.

Yes, 'erratics' are rocks that are erratically positioned because they have been carried from their place of deposition by ice. I think that is way more plausible than people dragging the stones (particularly the Bluestones) vast distances. Although Parker Pearson would have you believe that, if you had kept the haulers well-lubricated with beer, they could have performed the task easily!

They located the actual quarries a few years back,

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2015/dec/stonehenge-bluestone-quarries-confirmed...

Chris

While as ztheory bluestone erratics may seem reasonable, I have never seen any evidence either in the field or in the literature that the Irish Seaa I e that extended across Pembroke ever extended that far east; Irish Sea ice did extend south through the Cheshire Plain Greater than125k years ago but where would that have collected dolomite so chemically similar to that found in the  Precelli?

It was obviously a fantastic feat of engineering but I have to admit that I always feel very underwhelmed by Stonehenge. 

Being brought up nearby (and watching the Army put it back up) one stopped bothering about all the theories, whether from archeologists or complete nutters years ago. Basically no-one has any idea whatsoever. Last time I visited it was full of crap about the Romans.

I assume as the footprint of the site is enormous radiating out from the henge, so by the time you get to somewhere that is not significant where you can put a visitor centre and a coach park you are a little way away.

Anyone who wants to get up close and personal with a similar site take a trip to Stanton Drew - just near me South of Bristol.  It's not as impressive as Stone Henge but is still pretty cool - I'm perplexed how it has avoided NT/English Heritage 'improvement'.  Right now there is a tiny car park and a sign saying 'Ministry of Works'.  Kids love a good clamber on these stones but no tick marks please!

Sad to hear about Whitby Abbey, sure it wasn't like that when I went in about 2000, what a shame.

I have read those papers, and whilst compelling I do not find them totally convincing. For a more skeptical view, see Brian John's book "The Stonehenge Bluestones". 2018

I've been wondering about the Rowley Hills dolerites near Birmingham

One guy moving tonnes of stone!

youtube.com/watch?v=E5pZ7uR6v8c&

Toby

English Heritage changed their name to Historic England a few years ago.

They didn't do a very good job of it then

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/

Well I never.

Back in the day the visitor centre was built the other side of the main road with an underpass on the condition that nothing was visible above ground. As time passed the plan was to build a new visitor centre a few miles away at Durrington Walls (if I remember rightly) with a fibreglass replica of the Henge itself on the theory that plodding two and a half miles uphill into driving rain to see the real thing would put off the most ardent Japanese tourist en route to Shakespeares birthplace. The lack of funding scuppered this plan despite the wishes of the local population.

Am I right in remembering that originally the road "split" just to the east of the henge so that as well as the main road south of the site, there was also a road just to the north which now seems to be a track inside the fence.

Yes. This was a major Y junction in the 1950's, and the northern branch is now the access road in the park. There was a small space for parking a few cars in the crotch to the Y (I remember a tea van being there, as well), and then one could make the very short walk to Stonehenge itself and clamber all over the rocks without any restrictions.

All a long time ago, when Britain was a different place.

Same for me. I lived in Oxfordshire for a while, and spent many days exploring the megalithic sites of Wiltshire. When I finally got round to Stonehenge I did a 12mile walk across the wider landscape, which was empty and interesting; old barrows and earthworks everywhere. I finished the day at the henge itself and it was just a bit sad. Fenced off, overcrowed, and with a traffic jam running by.

Compare with the stone circle at Averbury where you can roam amidst the stones (and touch them!). Or the eeriness of Devil's Den. Or Wayland's Smithy long barrow which I find has a really otherwordly and unfriendly atmosphere.  But at Stonehenge I just feel nothing.

Snap - I once walked the Ridgeway and got to Wayland's Smithy an hour or so before dark.  I stopped and had a smoke and then felt quite freaked out and moved on pretty quickly.  Eerie place!

The A344 used to run directly past Stonehenge and the visitor centre built underground with a pedestrian tunnel. The main road was closed and the visitors centre moved further up to Airmans Cross. The A303 tunnel is a "project" as far as I know.

Certainly could have been picked up by the Irish Sea ice.

I find it quite peaceful, no threat at all.

Surely not this far south.

It was only the bluestones which would have been dragged any distance. Given the lack of erratics in that part of England it seems a bit improbable thats the answer. Unless they were all used in stone circles?

Well the popular theory (which I am doubtful about) is that the sarsens were dragged about 30 miles from the north, which I think qualifies as "any distance". Actually, there are various rocks in southern England that look just like erratics. There were several in totally isolated positions on the Marlborough Downs that I photographed several years ago. I got a professor of glaciology interested in these and took him to the locations this summer, only to find that they (rocks, which must have been  ~10 cubic metres in size) had been removed. I think it is quite plausible that the sarsens at Stonehenge were all collected from its immediate vicinity, and were all used up in the stone circle and for other purposes - being a very hard quartzite, they were valuable as building stones and for sharpening tools etc. Also, it is likely that many sarsens have been removed from their resting places over the millennia, since Stonehenge was built. 

Special bus from Salisbury gets you to the visitor centre before dawn on Winter Solstice morning. Then you can join the crowd walking down to the stones to celebrate the occasion inside the stones. Bonkers but truly memorable and you can hug a stone. Oh and it's free.

I read that a 'raft' of logs on which to roll the stones was the theory that perpetuated for a long time. Then someone suggested that it would have been easier to strap logs to the stones, to make them rounded and then just roll it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/48114000/jpg/_48114338_p1000874.jpg

Impressive engineering, regardless of transport method.

IIRC there was a millennium project, filmed by the BBC, that attempted to repeat the feat of transporting stones from Preseli (that has always been assumed to be the traditional source) to Stonehenge with the technology that they assumed had then been available.

It failed; they just couldn't do it. The conclusion, not widely trumpeted at the time, was that it couldn't be done.

Rather confusingly, in 2015 English Heritage was split into two organisations. The bit of it that advises the government on heritage and archaeology was renamed Historic England. The bit of it that looks after the national collection of historic buildings and monuments was formed into a new charity called English Heritage. It is accountable to Historic England and the government, but the aim is for it to be financially independent, which is interesting as the collection includes a lot of properties that the National Trust declined to take on as they would be a financial burden. 

From memory its about half of that.

I am not sure what the primary objections are to it being an, extremely, hard exercise to carry out vs one where we just happened to have all the right boulders dropped in the right place.

When you look at the landscape as a whole it is clear a massive level of effort was put into reshaping it. Silbury hill being the most extreme example.

As an example of stone moving, albeit on a lot smaller scale, there is a good case that the bluestones at Stonehenge were originally placed in another circle a mile away.

Yes, that has jogged my memory. As I'm in Scotland I rarely had anything to do with them (I work in a related sector) but when I did it was always HE, or the EH of old. 

overland along the line of the A40 apparently.

a convincing case is made by Mike Parker Pearson for exact quarry locations and the nearby dismantled stone circle at

youtube.com/watch?v=iXBx4TSQAoc&

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waun_Mawn

although some recent research has raised doubts..

You are right about the distance. This last summer, I went to the location on the north side of West Wood near Lockeridge (to look at the stones there) and that is about 20 miles drive from Stonehenge.

I am certainly not rejecting the hypothesis that the stones were dragged from there (or from the very extensive sarsen field not far to the north on Fyfield Down). It's seems at least as plausible that they came from much closer to the Stonehenge site, whose precise location is actually pretty arbitrary. I don't think the geochemical data of Nash et al (2020) are conclusive. 

I have to confess that I am not unduly interested in the archaeology of Stonehenge, which has been hyped up in the last century. I am much more interested in the geological implications.

But what if Merlin were helping you?

I’m really not a fan of the English Heritage myth making stuff, it’s taken to an extreme at Tintagel where the castle is basically a “King Arthur Experience”.

The Spinal Tap version is a lot less expensive. 

In the summer I rode the King Alfreds Way, a circular off road cycle route around 'Wessex' which followed the Ridgeway, and passed close to various neolithic sites, including Stone Henge, Avebury and Waylands Smithy.  

I'd never even heard of Waylands Smithy before, it was a great little surprise and a fantastic site. I didn't find it particularly unfriendly, although there was an English Heritage chap there mowing the grass so that probably made it feel a bit domestic! A good spot to bivi I thought.

I remember that. Couple of articles still on the BBC website....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/1129102.stm

Brrr you can bivvy there if you like but the faeries will have your soul before dawn the next day!  I was cycle touring last Autumn and was camped up in Tilshead.  A couple of folk came in about 11 pm who were doing the King Alfred Way and had a few choice words to say about it!  They'd been in the dark for the last four hours or something.  Between that and the army practicing company attacks all night it wasn't the quietest nights sleep I'd ever had : )

Anyone who likes a good yarn could do worse than read the Bernard Cornwell 'Stonehenge' book, I know it's fiction but it struck me as fairly well researched fiction.   

Yes, was my first experience of multi day 'gravel' ride, although we did it the easy way and stayed in a couple of B&Bs rather than camping. 

It was a tough ride, hard to find a rhythm on a lot of the off road sections, and very energy sapping.  I'd not done much training, and I think we did 40, 70, 70, 50 mile days. Type 2 fun really, but some lovely riding, great views and good pubs!

Haha yeah the conversation between them the next morning (shouted between two coffin type single person tents) was something like.  "It's time to get up, we should have got up by now we are an hour overdue" delivered and received with total apathy.  Followed by "GET IN!  I've booked us a cheap Premier Inn for tonight" delivered and received with ecstasy.

Hysterical Scotland have been at it too - Urquhart Castle is now well shielded by trees. At least it's open unlike most places in their "care".

no bad vibes at Waylands or sleeping inside west kennet or atop silbury for me..

worst vibes were being arrested for breaching the exclusion zone around stonehenge one summer

My favourite standing stone site has always been Calanais on Lewis with the hills of Harris to the south. Predates Stonehenge by over 2000 years . My favourite rock type - Lewisian gneiss - as well.  Unusual Celtic cross layout. First visited about 40 years ago before info centre etc was built 

Aye, visited the place myself, very interesting and great surrounding scenery.  

and then there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe predating by 6000+yrs

Yes, that is a fascinating site. Remember reading about it being the oldest dated. I think the oldest in UK is at Stenness in Orkney

Have you kept up to date with the recent digs at Stenness? It's fascinating to see how much more is being uncovered. 

We were on Orkney in 2017 and sponsored one of the metre squares, and were subsequently delighted to be emailed with news of a significant find in 'our' square. 

Orkney is a remarkable place. You can't help but look at every lump and bump and wonder what is underneath. 

Yes,that dig at Stenness is remarkable . Visited it 4 years ago but a lot more unearthed since then. That same day we went to Ring of Brodgar and to Maeshowe. Loved the Viking grafitti in Maeshowe! Always miss the winter solstice on the Maeshowe website - either the camera is off- line or there has been no sun .Will try again this December.

I remember reading once that Athens is the same - dig anywhere and you'll find something. The article said construction companies are reluctant to plan new projects because when anything is found the whole thing is put on hold while the experts investigate 

And of course, the flipside of that is that when infrastructure projects do go ahead, there are often fascinating discoveries. The new subway in Rome has unearthed a wealth of archaeological remains from 2000 years ago.