Stonehenge Hosepipe Story

The parchmark revelations first revealed on this blog last year and followed up by a grown up publication of a paper in Antiquity this year turned into a global story. A Google search showed many hundreds of reports of it, many majoring on the serendipitous short hosepipe. All the stories fons et origo was a BBC website story.

(Click to embiggen)

President Obama at Stonehenge

As the last stop on his three-day trip to Estonia and the NATO Summit in Wales, President Obama visits the prehistoric monument Stonehenge.

Autumn Equinox Stonehenge Open Access Arrangements 2014

Access to Monument Field from c06:15 (or first light) until 08:30 on 23 September 2014
Parking is on both sides of Byway 12 – no parking on A344
Access to the Byway from 19:00 on 22 September 2014 via the A344
Exit via A344 closes at 09:00 on 23 September 2014
Disabled Parking: 8 spaces available in the VTS turning circle. These are permit-only and must be booked in advance by contacting Lucy Barker at lucy.barker@english-heritage.org.uk.

Stonehenge rings within rings

Parchmark plan from English Heritage as published on http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-28967538 - Colour enhanced for clarity. Click any to enlarge.

In July 2013 various parchmarks were showing up at Stonehenge - as reported on this blog and professionally at http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/088/ant0880733.htm The most noticeable were the stone hole marks between Stones 16 and 21.

But the Z and Y holes were also showing up well. Walking round them I noticed there seemed to be extra marks that were also in a circular pattern. They were jokingly called the Daw Holes as it seemed they were a product of my overheated imagination. But over the next week as the weather changed some became more noticeable and then they faded. As they were fading Mark Bowden and Sharon Souter from EH GPS mapped them as best we could. Some were more certain than others, some were quite doubtful but until the next spell of similar weather the plan above is as accurate as we will get of the phenomenon. 

It was noticeable that the Z and Y holes that had been excavated and those that hadn't appeared the same, and that the other parch marks were very similar to the known holes.

I realised that the marks might have more modern causes, the most obvious being the Fire Garden for the Olympics, but they didn't seem to coincide with any installations so I am certain that was not a cause.

One reason for some of the marks may be the larch poles used to prop the stones up in late Victorian times. Sharpe's aerial photograph shows them well and can be overlain to some degree of accuracy onto the plan (As stones were leaning it is not completely accurate.) 

2024 UPDATE 

I was surprised and pleased to find a contemporary plan of the struts which shows which parchmarks of the new ring between the Y and Z holes may be due to them.

I have overlain the parchmark plan with the strut plan to show the detail. But as I don't have permission to use the plan here is one I prepared earlier with my guess of the strut positions in green and the plan's strut positions in purple.

 

The full plan from Historic England is 

 "Plan of Stonehenge with sections through an earthwork and showing the formation of the Avenue Date: Jun 1919 https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/photos/item/MP/STO0015 

(And the embed option doesn't seem to be working.)

Apart from the poles for Stone 7 they don't noticeably line up with the marks but I would treat any marks near where the poles were installed with scepticism.

But this still leaves a lot of unexplained marks forming a rough ring equidistant between the Z and Y holes.

The wobble in the ring of Y holes (outer ring of marks) in the south east corner might be explained by reassigning Y6, Y7 and Y8 to the middle "Daw hole" ring and noting the faint marks further out as possible Y holes that were missed by Hawley.

What the marks show and from when is a new mystery of Stonehenge.

The conclusion of the Antiquity paper is: “The new discoveries do tentatively allow further consideration of the multicircuit post settings envisaged by Gibson (1998: 41-44) and comparison with Woodhenge and the Sanctuary as well as Stanton Drew (David et al. 2004) but in the absence of dating evidence this remains speculative. The more diffuse marks around the periphery of the site might offer support for Pitts’ (1981) suggestion of an outer ring of stones. However, again, more research is needed to clarify this issue. This emphasises the potential for new discoveries about Stonehenge (one of the most widely researched monuments in the world) through non-invasive as well as invasive techniques.”

Stonehenge Complete Circle Evidence

BBC news story:

Stonehenge 'complete circle' evidence found
....Historians have long debated whether Stonehenge was a full or incomplete circle, with some arguing a lack of stones in the south-west quadrant is proof it was never complete.

A scientific paper which adds weight to the "complete" theory has been published in the latest issue of the journal Antiquity.

The parch marks - areas where the grass does not grow as strongly as in other areas during hot, dry weather - were first noticed in July last year.

Susan Greaney, from English Heritage, said the discovery seemed to indicate the positions of missing stones. "If these stone holes actually held upright stones then we've got a complete circle," she said. "It's really significant, and it shows us just how much we still have to learn about Stonehenge.......

Stonehenge - More Circles?

Win Scutt's ArchNews  @Archaeology_ws

https://twitter.com/Archaeology_ws/status/504676435823710208

Stonehenge: circle of parchmarks identified outside sarsens between Y and Z holes @AntiquityJ bit.ly/1mSDIJC



Win has spotted the surprise finding of the Antiquity parchmark paper - that maybe there are more circles at Stonehenge...

The conclusion of the paper is: “The new discoveries do tentatively allow further consideration of the multicircuit post settings envisaged by Gibson (1998: 41-44) and comparison with Woodhenge and the Sanctuary as well as Stanton Drew (David et al. 2004) but in the absence of dating evidence this remains speculative. The more diffuse marks around the periphery of the site might offer support for Pitts’ (1981) suggestion of an outer ring of stones. However, again, more research is needed to clarify this issue. This emphasises the potential for new discoveries about Stonehenge (one of the most widely researched monuments in the world) through non-invasive as well as invasive techniques.”

I can't share the plans yet so here is one of some other circles instead...

Click to enlarge - for more on Stanton Drew see 

http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/sites/default/files/sd_2010_report_low_res.pdf 

Update: Plan published on BBC - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-28967538

Antiquity article on Stonehenge parchmarks

Antiquity Issue 341 - September 2014

Simon Banton, Mark Bowden, Tim Daw, Damian Grady and Sharon Soutar

Parchmarks at Stonehenge, July 2013.... Volume: 88 Number: 341 Page: 733–739

Despite being one of the most intensively explored prehistoric monuments in western Europe, Stonehenge continues to hold surprises. The principal elements of the complex are well known: the outer bank and ditch, the sarsen circle capped by lintels, the smaller bluestone settings and the massive central trilithons. They represent the final phase of Stonehenge, the end product of a complicated sequence that is steadily being refined (most recently in Darvill et al. ‘Stonehenge remodelled’, Antiquity 86 (2012): 1021–40). Yet Stonehenge in its present form is incomplete—some of the expected stones are missing—and it has sometimes been suggested that it was never complete; that the sarsen circle, for example, was only ever finished on the north-eastern side, facing the main approach along the Avenue. A chance appearance of parchmarks, however, provides more evidence.

©2014 © Antiquity Publications Ltd.