Henge

Following the sacred Ure up through Wensleydale, I have a yearning to visit a henge.

I arrive at Thornton Rust and walk out into the empty upland pastures, everywhere is sodden.

Across the valley, Carperby Moor. Flint tools have been found here, the most northerly evidence of Palaeolithic hunter gathers in our islands. Beneath the great Yoredale scar is Ox Close with its ring cairns and stone circle.

Gill Beck, the beck is full, the stepping stones are nowhere to be seen. I walk across the swollen beck, my cheap boots offer no resistance to the icy water.

The Henge sits on a low ridge, the peak of Addlebrough, with its cup and ring marked cairn, is visible to the west.

To the east, Height of Hazely and the prehistoric settlement of Burton Moor.

Cold and wet I happily retrace my steps back to the village and then home.

A small momento collected from a molehill at the entrance to the henge.

Excursion – A movement of something along a path or through an angle

Avebury

This is an amazing collection of monuments, all of them excessive in size. There is a colossal earthwork enclosure with four entrances; the largest stone circle in western Europe surrounding the remains of the fifth and seventh biggest rings; and the remnants of two Coves, a holed stone and two avenues. Aubrey Burl. 1995

Even the most Gothic of poetry could not evoke the impact that this colossus has upon any mind sensitive to the lingerings of prehistory…As long ago as 1289 the earthwork was called Waleditch, Old English weala-dic, ‘the dyke of the Britons’. Aubrey Burl. 2000

Avebury Postcard. Reconstruction by Alan Sorrell. Dept. of the Environment 1958

The monument we see today was excavated and reconstructed by Alexander Keiller during the late 1930’s. A number of the stones, including the one pictured above, were reassembled using the remaining fragments.

I once took a holiday in Avebury, staying in the Keiller Room at the Red Lion pub allowed me to spend a couple of chilly November evenings and frosty mornings walking alone amongst the stones. I recently returned, sadly the Red Lion no longer takes guests.

The stones and the surrounding landscape have informed the work of Barbara Hepworth, John Piper, Paul Nash and many other artists.

The church, unlike the pub, sits outside of the henge. When siting the original church, it must have seemed futile to try and christianise a pagan monument of such magnitude. The Saxon baptismal font is thought to depict a bishop trampling on a pair of dragons.

Many of the stones were thrown down and buried by christians during the fourteenth century. The stones were once again attacked during the mid-seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many stones were smashed for buildings.

Herepath, the power of the name compelled me to walk along it to the Ridgeway.

At home, on the North York moors, my eyes are often cast downwards onto the margins of the path looking for flints. Here the track is made of flint, I felt quite overwhelmed.

I had set myself the challenge of finding a single, specific, stone amongst the sarsen drifts (Grey Wethers) of Fyfield Down. Julian Cope calls this area The Mother’s Jam.

Polissoir – A block of coarse stone, sometimes as an earthfast boulder or natural outcrop, used for grinding and polishing stone tools.

The bowl and grooves of the sarsen polissoir are as smooth as marble. A potential polissoir has been found built into the fabric of the nearby West Kennet Long Barrow with another incorporated into the Stone Circle at Avebury.

Singing at Delling’s Door.

The Ridgeway, one notable landscape Archaeologist believes that it may have first been established as a trackway at the end of the last ice age.

Heading south along the Ridgeway, the summit of Silbury Hill reveals itself.

Silbury Hill is the largest man made mound in Europe.

The Barrow Cemetery on Overton Hill is crossed by the remains of a Roman Road.

The Sanctuary is located where the Ridgeway meets the modern A4. The monument consisted of two concentric rings of standing stones, it was destroyed in the 18th century ‘to gain a little dirty profit’ (Wm. Stukeley 1724). Concrete posts mark the locations of the stones

The stones of the West Kennet Avenue led me back to Avebury.

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