The Lake House Meteorite

Brian John brings Colin Pillinger's Royal Society lecture on the Lake House Meteorite to my attention.

The lecture is recorded and the slides available.

Some background:
"For as long as anyone could remember, a large rusty bolder sat close to the front door of Lake House, an impressive Elizabethan mansion located in the village of Lake near Salisbury. It was a long held tradition that the rock was a meteorite, but no one could be certain. Then, in the early 1990s, the owners of the house contacted scientists at the Natural History Museum in London, who were able to confirm that the rock really was a meteorite. It was subsequently transferred to a storage facility, where it languished until a few years ago, when Professor Colin Pillinger decided to investigate things further."

The meteorite had a weathering age of 10,000 yrs BP but is thought to have fallen about 30,000 years onto ice or perma-frost. No crater has ever been identified. It has local chalk adhering to it, most of which has washed of in the last century of it guarding the steps of Lake House. It is assumed it was dug from a nearby barrow by a gentleman digger in the nineteenth century.

Comprehensive Archaeology Survey of the Stonehenge Area

http://southplanning.wiltshire.gov.uk/public-planning-application-documents/00339500/00339082_Environmental_Statement.pdf


STONEHENGE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENTS PROJECT
Archaeology and the Historic Environment Baseline Assessment


Every old thing you could want to know about the Stonehenge area available to download.

Mystery Circle at Winterbourne Bassett - Any Ideas?

Looking at Google Earth I found this circular mark in a field near Winterbourne Bassett in 2003, and I think I can just see traces of it on the 2006 photograph as well.

Pastscape doesn't seem to have anything marked here, so I thought it might be the shadow left after a crop circle. But looking at 2002 and 2003 crop circle photographs, ie http://www.temporarytemples.co.uk/imagelibrary/2003.html , nothing seems to come close.
There is one in 2009 in the same field - http://www.flickr.com/photos/richard_bradshaw/3816697405/ which is obviously too late for this.

Anyone got any ideas?

Here is the interactive Google map locating it.



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The Hollow Stone of Stonehenge

Spring brings the Jackdaws' nest building to Stonehenge. One of the favoured holes is the natural chimney in Stone 60. The two holes arrowed in the picture below (click to embiggen) are connected by a natural winding passageway inside the stone. As this is very visible from the public path it is easy for visitors to see. The Jackdaws need to block the hole with twigs to build their nests. Yesterday some twigs they were dropping in from the top were still falling right through, but they are close to succeeding.

It is worth pointing out yet again that the concrete infill at the bottom of the stone does not extend up into the stone. It was a simple C shaped cavity that was strengthened in 1959 when the stone was straightened up; there is a hairline crack on the north side of the stone which was thought to presage a collapse.

Winterbourne Bassett Stone Circle - Rediscovered from the comfort of my home

An OS map shows a Stone Circle to the north-west of Winterbourne Bassett, which is just north of Avebury. Click any picture to enlarge it.

First port of call is Pastscape - where we find a record of the Stone Circle:

http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=216296
The remains of a Neolithic stone circle. It formerly consisted of a double concentric row of stones, the outer circle being 234 ft, and the inner being 148 ft in diameter, with a single stone in the centre.
Many of the stones had been removed by Stukeley's time but he describes a "single, broad, flat, and high stone, standing by itself" to the west of the circle. 
Smith  uncovered a number of stones in 1881-2 and produced a plan. 
Nearly all the stones are now destroyed  or almost overgrown.
Six stones, which form part of the circles, are visible above ground level....

But if we do a bit more digging we find this paper on Academia.edu .(If you are not a member, why not? It is free to join.)

"A Family Chapel.... to an Archdruids Dwelling": An investigation into the stone circle of Winterbourne Basset, Wiltshire

David, A. Field, D. Fassbinder, J.W.E. Linford, N. Linford, P. Payne, A. 2003. Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, Vol. 96, p. 195-205

Which reveals a surprising result of the investigation they did into the circle. They don't think it is where it is marked, they think the stones there are probably a natural scatter of sarsens.

They show a copy of Stukeley's drawing of the stones:

You will note that it shows Avebury Church, Silbury Hill and the outline of the Marlborough Downs in the background. The two highest points are Milk Hill and Tan Hill. These are to the south and the recorded site faces north. They aren't visible from it. But there is a field the other (southern) side of the road from where they can be seen.

We can see this from Streetview on Google Maps because they drove along the road:

View Larger Map

If we look to the south we can see the shape of the Downs matches Stukeley's drawing.

An old map, from http://www.old-maps.co.uk/maps.html?txtXCoord=409380&txtYCoord=175500 shows that the field boundaries to the south match the hedges in the drawing.

Unlike today, which can cause confusion.

Using the maps we can draw a line from the top of Milk Hill over Silbury Hill and arrive at this field, and Avebury Church would be to the left or east of this line of site, just as in Stukeleys drawing.

It all leads to confirming the paper's conclusion, the stone circle was to the south of the road and has completely disappeared.

You will have to read the rest of the paper to find further evidence but this simple desk-based exercise shows how we can discover the site of a stone circle without going out in the cold..

UPDATE - Pete Glastonbury points me to a dig to discover the true site:

http://www.users.dialstart.net/~peteglastonbury/Dig2004/Winterbourne2004.html

One of the stone sockets found in the southern field - photo by Pete Glastonbury.

More on Periglacial Stripes

Brian John has put together two interesting posts about Periglacial Stripes, especially with regards to those under the Stonehenge Avenue.

http://brian-mountainman.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/williams-on-rills-and-grooves.html and
http://brian-mountainman.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/the-chalk-surface-grooves-everywhere.html

His main point is that periglacial and other grooves are common on the top of chalk.

A close-up of coombe soils and the underlying chalk on Salisbury Plain.  

Again the junction is highly irregular.  Note the band of flint nodules lower down.

The unanswered question is how unique and unusual were the ones under the Avenue and were they enough to be the reason for Stonehenge to be built where it is.

Underneath Stonehenge

A new warning sign appeared yesterday at Stonehenge - click to read.

The truth about what lies under Stonehenge, or something to do with the date?