The Hawley Stonehenge Archive at Salisbury Museum

Salisbury Museum holds, under accession SBYWM:2005.66, what is almost certainly the most complete working record of Lt-Col. William Hawley’s 1919–1926 excavations at Stonehenge. It includes a full set of his excavation diaries annotated by Peter Berridge, complete transcripts, an eighteen-category typological catalogue of the finds, a systematic intervention-numbering scheme, the drawings, a database of every find noted in the diaries (including those not retained), and related correspondence.

None of this material has been published or made digitally accessible. Its existence is not generally known outside the Museum.

What the Museum holds

The Hawley component of the archive is remarkably complete:

• The diaries — eleven consecutive items covering every season from 1919 to 1926, with an index, an appendix to the 1923 season, and Berridge’s annotations throughout.
• Full transcripts of the diaries (1919–1922 and 1923–1926, the latter including partial material on the Aubrey, Y and Z Holes).
• Finds lists by type — eighteen consecutive categories compiled by Berridge, ranging from sarsen mauls and antler to cremations and finely subdivided bluestone.
• Intervention records for every season, forming a continuous numbering scheme of some four hundred records.
• Drawings, finds catalogues (including Newall’s and Berridge’s location notes from 1990), a database of finds noted but not kept, and relevant correspondence.

A full inventory with live links appears at the end of this post.

Why this material matters

Hawley excavated roughly half the Stonehenge enclosure and published seven reports in The Antiquaries Journal (1921–1928). Those reports remain the primary published account of the southeastern half of the monument, yet they are incomplete and contain internal contradictions that cannot be resolved from the printed text alone. The Museum’s holdings speak directly to several long-standing problems.

A document appears to be missing from the literature. In his Fifth Report Hawley stated that a complete list and description of the Y and Z Holes “forms an appendix to this report.” No such appendix was ever printed. Item .b.289 is catalogued as the “appendix to 1923.” If it is what it appears to be, the full descriptive record of one of Stonehenge’s outer ring settings has remained unpublished for a century.

Aubrey Hole numbering can finally be stabilised. Hawley’s hole numbers are inconsistent between reports. Modern reconstructions of which holes produced cremations rely on secondary sources rather than the primary record. The cremations list, the diaries, and especially the intervention records offer a route to a public concordance.

A published contradiction can be tested. Hawley’s Second Report states that stone 29 had no inclined plane; his Fifth Report states that inclines were found at stones 7 and 29 and uses the relationship with hole Z2 as chronological evidence. The two statements are incompatible. The daily record for the relevant 1921 season is .b.285.

The faunal assemblage has never been studied — but has been inventoried. Hawley himself noted the exceptional quantity and size of the antler and horn picks, then recorded that “the bone remains have not been examined.” Berridge’s lists for antler and animal bone are the first stage of work that has otherwise never been begun on a securely stratified assemblage of unusual scale.

Bluestone was classified more finely than the reports disclose. Three separate categories exist — ground and pecked, discs and squares, and retouched and used — where the published reports mention only a handful of worked pieces. “Bluestone discs/squares” appears nowhere in Hawley’s published papers.

The scale and fate of the debitage can be established. Hawley’s chip counts underpinned his conclusions about on-site dressing. The database of finds noted but not retained, together with the “grouped rocks” category, should clarify what was discarded and what may still lie in the pits known as “Hawley’s Graves.”

Finally, the annotations themselves are a scholarly asset. An annotated set is not a duplicate; it is a systematic reading by a second archaeologist marking what is unclear, inconsistent, or at odds with later interpretation. That labour has already been done.

Inventory of Hawley material in SBYWM:2005.66

All items are catalogued under the heading “archive of Stonehenge 20th century excavations (commissioned by English Heritage).” Links open the individual catalogue records in a new tab.

Accession	Description
.b.51	Intervention records 5051–5095 (1919–20)
.b.52	Intervention records 5101–5105 (1921)
.b.53	Intervention records 5151–5158 (1922)
.b.54	Intervention records 5201–5357 (1923)
.b.55	Intervention records 5401–5529 (1924)
.b.56	Intervention records 5551–5585 (1925)
.b.57	Intervention records 5601–5622 (1926)
.b.282	Diary index 1919–1924 (annotated by Berridge)
.b.283	Diaries 12.9.1919–19.6.1920
.b.284	Diaries 28.6.1920–10.12.1920
.b.285	Diaries 22.3.1921–10.5.1922
.b.286	Diaries 9.5.1922–22.11.1922
.b.287	Diaries 21.3.1923–1.9.1923
.b.288	Diaries 3.9.1923–7.11.1923
.b.289	Appendix to 1923
.b.290	Diaries 1.5.1924–2.11.1924
.b.291	Diaries 27.4.1925–9.8.1925
.b.292	Diaries 1.7.1926–25.8.1926
.b.296	Finds catalogue compiled by R. S. Newall
.b.300	Sarsen mauls
.b.301	Antler
.b.302	Animal bone
.b.303	Clay pipes
.b.304	Chalk objects
.b.305	Flints
.b.306	Metal objects
.b.307	Coins
.b.308	Pottery
.b.309	Bone objects
.b.310	Bone skewer pins
.b.311	Ground and pecked bluestone
.b.312	Bluestone discs and squares
.b.313	Retouched and used bluestone
.b.314	Grouped rocks
.b.315	Other worked stone
.b.316	Human remains (excluding cremations)
.b.317	Cremations
.b.318	Hawley finds catalogue (annotated) — Museum locations 1990
.b.319	Finds seen by Berridge and Ehrenberg
.b.400	Correspondence with A. Hawley
.b.434	Letters from R. S. Newall to Mrs Hawley
.b.435	Transcript of diaries 1919–1922
.b.436	Transcript of diaries 1923–1926 (plus Aubrey / Y / Z material)
.b.457	Atkinson correspondence re Hawley excavations
.b.475	Wessex Archaeology annotated version of Hawley’s report
.b.484	Database of total finds noted in the diaries (including those not kept)
.c.2	Drawings 1919–1926 (Part 1)
.c.3	Drawings 1919–1926 (Part 2)

Items in bold are those of particularly high immediate research value.

This archive has the potential to resolve long-standing inconsistencies in the published record, to open previously unexamined assemblages, and to make available a document that Hawley himself prepared but never published. It deserves to be better known.

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