A walk to Stonehenge through one of the richest archaeological landscapes in the UK. Part III – The final journey. From Durrington Walls to Stonehenge. This is part three of a personal pilgrimage from my house in Calne, Wiltshire to Stonehenge for the Stonehenge winter solstice. I am walking the 28 mile route across central… Read more »
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A walk to Stonehenge through one of the richest archaeological landscapes in the UK. Part II – From Henge to Henge, Marden to Durrington Walls, Wiltshire This is part two of a personal pilgrimage from my house in Calne, Wiltshire to Stonehenge for the winter solstice. I am walking the 28 mile route across central… Read more »
A walk to Stonehenge through one of the richest archaeological landscapes in the UK. Part I – from home to lunch in the village of Marden, Wiltshire. This is a description of a journey, I could even say a pilgrimage, that I have wanted to make for many years. The journey will take me and… Read more »
Just before the UK went into lock-down, amid all the worries for what the future held, the sun came up on another day. Because of the terrible Covid-19 virus hundreds of people were dying in Italy and Spain and across the globe; doctors and nurses were frantically, desperately, trying to save lives in stifling hospitals… Read more »
Travelling the world with local guides. I have learned through my own experiences that hiring a knowledgeable local guide greatly enhances the enjoyment of a tour. A local guide will want to share his love for the subject whether that is simply their local area or something to be found within it. It is our… Read more »
Stonehenge stone raising. When I saw that English Heritage were going to experiment with raising a stone at Stonehenge it was something I was very keen to witness if not participate in. Perhaps unexpectedly the event in March 2018 was billed not so much as a study of the processes required for erecting the stone… Read more »
Two avenues of huge standing stones lead out of Avebury linking the giant stone circle with other important sites in the wider landscape. On a massive scale: Avebury and the Avebury Avenues Probably the most extraordinary thing about Avebury is the sheer scale of the monument. Not only does it incorporate the largest of all… Read more »
Causewayed enclosures are among the oldest monuments in the UK. Now little more than grass banks and ditches, they were once sites of great importance to the local population: ‘they represent the earliest form of non-funerary monument and the first instance of the artificial enclosure of open space known in the British Isles.’ (Oswald, Dyer… Read more »
Adam’s Grave is a Neolithic chambered long barrow dating from the first half of the 4th Millennium BC and so is at least 5,500 years old. ‘Along the northern escarpment of Pewsey Vale, the focus of many chance finds of Neolithic axes, only Adam’s Grave is prominently visible.’ (Field, 2006). Adam’s Grave was so named… Read more »
The birth of aerial photography in archaeology Woodhenge was discovered in 1925 by WW1 veteran fighter pilot Group Captain Gilbert Insall VC MC. He was one of the first people to recognise the benefits to archaeology of aerial photography. Flying out of Netheravon aerodrome, one of many airfields that were by then installed on Salisbury… Read more »