The repairs to Thornborough

The Northern Henge is now open to visit 

As part of the landscaping of Thornborough Henges now it has control of them English Heritage are repairing the banks of the Central Henge where livestock, the wild burrowing and the farmed grazers have damaged them. They will look a lot better.

Some photos of my recent visit when English Heritage were showing off their work compared to a previous visit a couple of years ago.

I am very pleased to see the previously blocked southern entrance to the Northern Henge has been reopened to view the the other henges, opening up the ancient route to the eyes only sadly.

The public entrance to the North Henge is through the northern entrance - details at https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/thornborough-henges/  

Led by local pagans visiting Thornborough Henges at English Heritage celebration of reuniting all three and bringing them into the national collection of historic sites and monuments pic.twitter.com/9aT2yvDKQu

— Duncan Wilson (@HE_ChiefExec) September 17, 2024

The Mystery of the Dagger Carvings on Stone 11

In the 1950s  Richard Atkinson during his excavations at Stonehenge, when the axe and dagger carvings on the stones were first being recognised, photographed Stone 11 and noted and highlighted  five axe carvings on it. The photograph is generically dated 1 Jan 1958 and is in the Historic England Archive:

Close-Up Of Dagger Carvings On Stone 11 Part of the Series: ATK01/01 R J Atkinson photographs. Reference: P50839  It is not available online, only in the archive.

My sketch of the dagger carvings on the South Side of Stone 11 based on the photo:

He doesn't mention them in his book about the excavations, and the 2012 Laser Scan of the Stones did not spot them, and whilst it looked at and judged other possible carvings it seems not to have looked for these.

So a mystery. Are they real? One to look for on a visit to the stones.

Investigation of Engraved Chalk Plaques from the Stonehenge Region

Davis, B., Harding, P. and Leivers, M. (2021) ‘Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) Investigation of Engraved Chalk Plaques from the Stonehenge Region’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 87, pp. 133–160. doi:10.1017/ppr.2021.13 is available as a pdf from: https://www.cambridge.org as an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Fascinating study which I didn't realise was available for free. 

Lot Long's Location

The iconic photo of The Wiltshire Thatcher discovered by Brian Edwards has just finished being on exhibition at The Wiltshire Museum.

Detective work by Brian identified the Thatcher was most likely to be Lot Long from Mere.

Looking carefully at the embiggened scan of the photo at the Museum I realised the hedge was quite distinctive. The hedge isn’t straight and the difference in focus of the trees emphasises it. From the left it comes out towards the camera and then curves round to go away at about 90 degrees.

Whitsun 1892 – June 5-6th – is the date in the album and so we can assume the photograph was taken around this time. The trees and hedge are in full leaf which would be expected. The Thatcher’s shadows show the sun is quite high and in front of him, to the right of the photo. The sun is lower than it would be at noon so probably early afternoon. The photo is taken facing in an easterly direction.

The Ordnance Survey map of  1890 shows such a hedge with trees visible to the east from the Shaftesbury Road on which Lot Long lived and the photographer, who was based in Shaftesbury, probably travelled. 

The field and hedge are still unaltered and Google Earth shows the view from the gate into the field and the direction of the sun in the early afternoon.

No other similar view of a hedge was found in a search of the areas covered by the photographic album.

From the Public Right of Way I was able to take my own photographs and superimpose the Thatcher photograph.

That such a matching location is exactly where Lot Long would be expected to be photographed adds considerable weight to his plausible identification as the thatcher.

(Click pictures to enlarge them)

 

Boles Barrow Excavation 2024 - The finds.

Oh and no bluestone!

— Richard Osgood (@richardhosgood) September 5, 2024

Stonehenge origins search heats up as Orkney ruled out

Scientists’ search for the source of Stonehenge’s iconic Altar Stone has intensified, with a new paper ruling out Orkney as where it came from.- Video from Daily Motion 

And: Stonehenge tale gets ‘weirder’ as Orkney is ruled out as altar stone origin - The Guardian

The long flight of the Devil's Arrows

"The Devil's Arrows, a trio of towering prehistoric standing stones near Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire, have long captured the imagination of visitors with their sheer size and enigmatic history.

But where exactly did these massive monoliths come from? 

 According to archaeological evidence, the stones were likely quarried from Plumpton Rocks, a natural millstone grit formation located about 9 miles (14 km) south of their current location[1][3]. Millstone grit is a coarse-grained sandstone that is quite distinct from the finer-grained local building stone in the area[2]."

[1] Devil's Arrows — Storied Traveling https://www.storiedtraveling.com/blog/devilsarrows 

[2] The Devil's Arrows - The Smell of Water https://teessidepsychogeography.wordpress.com/2017/11/15/the-devils-arrows-3/ 

[3] Devil's Arrows Standing Stones, Boroughbridge, Yorkshire https://www.britainexpress.com/counties/yorkshire/ancient/devils-arrows.htm