Woodhenge - a circle of inverted trees

This month marks the centenary of one of the most remarkable discoveries in British archaeology: the identification of Woodhenge on 12 December 1925. Squadron Leader Gilbert Insall VC, flying a Sopwith Snipe biplane over the fields near Durrington, spotted unusual cropmarks from the air—rings of dark spots that revealed the hidden outline of a massive Neolithic timber circle, just two miles from Stonehenge. This pioneering aerial discovery, followed by excavations led by Maud and Ben Cunnington from 1926 to 1929, transformed our understanding of the Stonehenge landscape.

Over a decade ago, in an update to an earlier post, I explored a whimsical yet intriguing idea inspired by the famous inverted tree at Seahenge: (The post was updated because I had just read the 2004 book Stonehenge and Avebury: The World Heritage Site by Rodney Legg, which makes the same suggestion. Apologies to Rodney that I hadn't spotted his prior idea in my earlier post).

As far as I know, the only extant Neolithic posthole with a large wooden post still in it that we have seen is that at Seahenge. The central posthole was surrounded by a timber fence that was also still there, as are other ones such as at Holme II.

And the main feature of this posthole was that the hole contained an inverted tree.

In an idle moment, I wondered what Woodhenge would have looked like if it had consisted of a magical upside-down tree copse. I rather like it—or I think I would have liked it.

I also think it is likely that Stonehenge started as a wooden circle of inverted trees which were replaced, (only partially?) with stones.