Anglo-Saxon Stonehenge: In memoriam Professor Tim Darvill

A fascinating and detailed look at a period of Stonehenge's history that doesn't get much exposure has just been released, free open access. 

 Anglo-Saxon Stonehenge

"Latin and vernacular histories of England and Britain from the early twelfth century onwards testify to various names for the exceptional prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain. A British tradition prioritized by Geoffrey of Monmouth shows a split, attributable to the unfamiliarity of an archaic term, between names translatable as ‘Giants’ Dance’ and ‘Giants’ Ring’. The Old English name which gives us ‘Stonehenge’, meanwhile, identifies the megalithic structure with a place of judicial incarceration or punishment. While imaginative, that is significantly embedded in a phase of later Anglo-Saxon history when displays of authority were determinedly imposed on the landscape. Archaeological evidence shows that Stonehenge itself served as the site of one execution, possibly more, in the late eighth or ninth century. Recognition of this stage in the long sequence of societal engagement with the monument sheds light both on the site itself and its context, before and through the transition to Norman England."

Hines, J. (2025) ‘Anglo-Saxon Stonehenge: In memoriam Professor Tim Darvill OBE, FSA (1957–2024)’, Early Medieval England and its Neighbours, 51, p. e8. doi:10.1017/ean.2025.3.

I would respectfully disagree with his etymology of "henge" - he claims: "it is clear that it derives from the Old English feminine noun hengen...we can still identify the second element as a word which in Late Old English was very clearly related to the verbs hōn and hangian, ‘to hang’, but overwhelmingly had connotations of judicial control and punishment."

This ties in with his discussion of the monument as a place of execution. 

But in landscape terms I believe it is much more likely that "Henge" is from the Anglo-Saxon "Hangra": A wood on a hill-side. All across the chalk downs there are (usually) beech wood  "hangers", so a similar feature of stone on the edge of a gentle slope would be a Stone Hanger.

From the Google's streetview of the A303 you can rotate from the wood hangers to the Stone one.