Long Barrow Solar Alignments

A very quick desktop survey of my local Long Barrow alignments:  The yellow line is sunrise, orange sunset. (Definitions of what constitute the moment of sunrise or sunset vary). They are taken from the excellent Suncalc.net 

The new Long Barrow at All Cannings is designed to align to the midwinter solstitial sunrise, with the rising sun flooding the passageway with light.

Adam's Grave Dec 21st

Kitchen Barrow June 21st

 

West Kennet Sept 21st

And of course Stonehenge June 21st 

(note sunset along Great Trilithon)

Click any to enlarge - and follow link to SunCalc to play with the alignments.

Stonehenge Magic Lantern Slides

A fine collection of Stonehenge Magic Lantern slides is (at the time of writing this) on sale on eBay:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Stonehenge-photo-magic-lantern-slides-7723-/131321941718

Click to embiggen - there are more in the collection as well.

The top photo is intriguing as there is a line of chalk mounds outside stones 10 and 11, and they don't seem to match the track repairs that are recorded by Sharpe in hies aerial photos - http://www.sarsen.org/2013/07/first-balloon-aerial-photo-of.html - which would be of a similar date.

Winter Solstice 2014 - Stonehenge Managed Open Access

Managed Open Access

The celebration of the Winter Solstice at Stonehenge will take place at sunrise
on Monday 22nd December 2014 (approximately 08:09 hrs).

English Heritage is pleased to be offering ‘Managed Open Access’ for those
who wish to celebrate the Winter Solstice peacefully

Visitors will be allowed into the Monument when it is considered sufficiently
light to ensure safe access. Entry will be available from approximately 07:30
hrs until 09:00 hrs when visitors will be asked to vacate the site. All vehicles
must vacate the area by 09.30.

Access might not be possible if the ground conditions are poor or if it is felt
that access might result ¡n severe damage to the Monument.

More details on Parking and toilets etc to come


Connected:

New theory of a Winter Solstice Sunrise Alignment - Stonehenge and the Winter Solstice leaflet (ISBN 9780957093010)
(Background on the Winter Solstice Sunrise Alignment theory is here)

Stonehenge - the simplest and most enduring features - Thoreau

(click to enlarge)

''Ossian reminds us of the most refined and rudest eras, of Homer, Pindar, Isaiah, and the American Indian. In his poetry, as in Homer's, only the simplest and most enduring features of humanity are seen, such essential parts of a man as Stonehenge exhibits of a temple; we see the circles of stone, and the upright shaft alone. The phenomena of life acquire almost an unreal and gigantic size seen through his mists. Like all older and grander poetry, it is distinguished by the few elements in the lives of its heroes. They stand on the heath, between the stars and the earth, shrunk to the bones and sinews. The earth is a boundless plain for their deeds. They lead such a simple, dry, and everlasting life, as hardly needs depart with the flesh, but is transmitted entire from age to age. There are but few objects to distract their sight, and their life is as unencumbered as the course of the stars they gaze at.''

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849), in The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 1, p. 367, Houghton Mifflin (1906).

President Obama Stonehenge Quotes - Transcript of Video

These are some special stones.

I love the moss.

There's something here, it's wonderful, it's very cool. 

There's just something elemental about it.

There's something that where you got to feel like it should always be there.

But it comes out of something basic.

Spectacular.

Yeah, I could come here every day, you know I would come here and just kind of sit, if it wasn't like a monument, I'd sit on one of these rocks and I'd just watch the sun rise. It would really cleanse your mind.

 

Ensure you use the CC option on Youtube on the official White House video to get the transcipt - auto transcript on other versions gives some strange results...

The New Visitor Centre, a hole in the ground and a £14million win.

The old  map resource at http://maps.nls.uk/os/6inch-england-and-wales/ is a fantastic way to waste hours.

The ability to overlay old maps with modern aerial views is great.

As an example here is a shot of the area to the east of the New Visitor Centre at Stonehenge.

Click to enlarge.

Apart from hoping they properly capped the well that was under the well house and is now underneath the gift shop I was intrigued by the mysterious "post" near Fargo Plantation.

Many hours of thought and it struck me that as the field is known as "The Gallops" it is probably just a finishing post or turn marker for training race horses. The field is owned by the Druids Lodge estate.

Druid's Lodge was famous for training racehorses and infamous for the Druid's Lodge Confederacy and the betting coup at the 1913 Derby.

Their secretly trained horse Aboyeur won, after a Stewards Inquiry, at 100-1, and they had been backing it all over the country in small amounts for months so as not to frightened the odds makers.

£14 million at todays money is rumoured to be their winnings.

More at http://www.lady.co.uk/people/features/2317-scandal-su-ffragettes-the-biggest-ever-betting-coup

Mike Pitts - Operation Stonehenge Review.

http://mikepitts.wordpress.com/2014/10/07/operation-stonehenge-what-the-tv-films-left-out/

An excellent summary, not only of the problems with the recent TV program but also of the state of Stonehenge research.