solstice | Life in the English Cotswolds

The prehistoric monument of Stonehenge was built in alignment with the sunrise of both the summer and winter solstices. For many, it is a sacred time and a moment to connect with our ancestors of 5000 years ago. With the Summer Solstice just days away it seems appropriate to write the conclusion of a relatively gentle walk that incorporates not just Stonehenge but also the nearby and lesser-known Woodhenge. Part 1 of the walk, along with photos, can be found by clicking on the link here.

Access to the stones of Stonehenge is usually restricted by a fence to prevent the one million visitors that view them every year from damaging the stones by touch, or by eroding the ground the stones stand on. For the solstice the fence is removed so that it is possible to walk amongst the stones and to witness the sun as it rises behind the Heel Stone. Thousands of people will attend the solstice but I prefer solitude for my walks whenever possible. I would choose to stand at the Cursus and to look down on the stones (and the crowds) or even to sit silently at Woodhenge.

*A distant Stonehenge can be clearly seen from the Cursus*

So what is Woodhenge? The official description is “a timber monument comprising of six oval rings of posts”. Not the most inspiring but the more you explore Woodhenge the more fascinating it becomes. Of course, the timber posts have long since rotted, and now their positions are marked by low pillars of differing diameters. As you walk amongst them and begin to picture the timber posts, the tallest of which reached 9 metres (30 foot) in height and weighed five tons, you realise just how awe-inspiring it must have been, especially if they were coloured or carved in some way.

*Woodhenge as it may have looked 5000 years ago*

Woodhenge was built at the same time as Stonehenge and on the same summer/winter solstice alignment. The two henges, two miles apart, were possibly connected by paths, one showing as banks and ditches is marked on maps as Stonehenge Avenue. The Cursus also is in direct alignment with Woodhenge and in those pre-history days the two monuments probably could be seen from these points.

Excavation of the site took place in 1926 but it is only now that more detailed studies are taking place. The initial dig discovered the body of a child at the centre of the circle and it was thought to have been sacrificed there. The remains were taken to London for later examination but were destroyed by bombing during WW2 before this took place. The grave is now marked by a small stone cairn. Other remains found within the circle were numerous pieces of pottery, butchered pig bones and, just outside the entrance, the body of a teenager. These finds indicate that activity at the site continued for many hundreds of years, long after the posts had rotted.

*The site of the grave of the child is now marked by a cairn*

Although the purpose of Woodhenge can only be surmised, the recent interest in it and its relationship to Stonehenge, Durrington Walls and other sites within the Stonehenge World Heritage Site, slowly reveal more connections between them. One such thought is that it may have held a spiritual connection with Stonehenge: the stones of Stonehenge being the enduring place of the spiritual world, whereas Woodhenge, with its feasting and slowly decaying timbers, the transformation of life towards death. Interestingly, similarities with ancient sites in Madagascar, although 4000 years later than those in England, can be found.

*When I first visited Stonehenge as a child in the early 1960s there were far fewer people about!*

To visit Stonehenge for free involves a walk not dissimilar to this one. Park in Durrington village and take the public bridleway path (where it meets Fargo Road) directly south to Stonehenge. The path passes the stones within yards of the public viewing path so you will still be separated from the stones. Public footpaths continue southwards, criss-crossing an area rich in more barrows and other ancient earthworks. With the help of an Ordnance Survey map it should be quite possible to make a longer, circular walk.

**Click on any of the images to enlarge**

Sources:
English Heritage Wikipedia

It is many years since I last visited Stonehenge, the prehistoric standing stones so closely attuned to the midsummer solstice. Renowned throughout the world, it has been listed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986. With fame comes numerous issues, not least how to cope with the estimated one million visitors that come to see them each year. To prevent damage to the stones through soil erosion and, surprisingly, physical damage through the chipping off of ‘mementos’, the stones are now cordoned off. This fencing is removed to allow access at the time of the midsummer solstice, a time when hundreds of people wait through the night for the midsummer sun to rise directly between the stones. The image below is of a postcard that my great-aunt sent me in 1963 when the stones were much less frequently visited and reminds me of those early years when I used to play amongst them.

*Stonehenge was far less visited back in the 1960s!*

The Stonehenge World Heritage Site covers an area that includes other Neolithic standing stones close by. A few miles away, and unlike Stonehenge, a place where you can walk amongst the stones every day of the year, is Avebury. This circle is huge and considerably older than Stonehenge: flint tools dating back 9000 years show that early man was passing that way 4000 years before Stonehenge was built. Avebury is the place to visit if you want to get close enough to touch the stones and it is also completely free to visit. To visit Stonehenge can be quite costly although there is another way you can see the stones (legally) without paying if you’re prepared to walk – see below.

*Avebury Stone Circle – part of the Stonehenge World Heritage Site*

The third site, and to my mind, the best one for you will almost certainly have the place to yourself, is known as Woodhenge & Durrington Walls. To be really impressed by this comparatively unknown place you do need to know some background information of its history plus a vivid imagination. For me, it is such an atmospheric place to visit that the latter has never been an issue! I recommend starting your walk here and walking inside the circle of Durrington Walls before exploring Woodhenge. The first thing that is noticeable about Durrington Walls is that there are no walls! The circular bank and ditch that surrounds the site was enormous and consisted of the bank itself which would have been several metres high. The ditch originally was over five metres deep and, in places, up to thirty metres wide. It is estimated that between four and six thousand people would have been needed to build the walls as well as the various houses and large timber circles associated with the site. A feat quite remarkable nowadays let alone over four thousand years ago using just antler pickaxes! Although nothing remains above ground now, apart from the bank, I found it very easy to imagine, as I walked alone and in silence, the bustle and noise of these industrious people.

*Within Durrington Walls, now a grassy bank, up to 6000 people once lived*

*Information boards help you to understand the context of what you are not seeing!*

Leaving Durrington Walls I made my way to the Cuckoo Stone, my only companions, sheep. Now fallen, this stone would originally have been placed upright. Looking at maps, it appears to be more, or less in line with the Great Cursus (more about that below) which in turn leads to Stonehenge. The Cuckoo Stone, positioned 4000 years ago, continued to be ritually used into Roman times for in 2007, during archaeological excavation, a small building thought to be a shrine from that period was discovered.

*Close to the Cuckoo Stone a Roman shrine once stood*

Leaving the Cuckoo Stone, my path led to an old track edged by wildflowers humming with bees and butterflies and bringing me out at the top of the Cursus. The Cursus is another huge earthwork showing nowadays as a crop mark – two bright green stripes in an otherwise darker landscape. If you compare my photograph with the one of the information board (below), I was standing at the opposite end. In my image, the end of the Cursus can just be made out on the far horizon almost two miles distant. The purpose of the Cursus is unknown but thought to be ceremonial as it is again aligned to the summer solstice. It is even older than Stonehenge having been constructed several hundred years earlier.

*The two-mile long Cursus now only shows as two grassy green stripes*

*The Cursus is better understood from this aerial* *photograph*

Another good track took me due south before turning west to Old King Barrows and then back south to New King Barrows. Before leaving the Cursus I stood to watch the visitors to Stonehenge some long way off and thinking how lucky I was to have all of this unseen history of the World Heritage Site to myself with only the song of skylarks as company. More than five thousand years separated me from the Neolithic people yet surely, they must have stood here too and seen a similar picture as they made their way to join others already arrived, a humbling thought.

The Old and New King Barrows consist of two groups, each of seven burial mounds so fourteen in total, separated by Stonehenge Avenue which is only visible as another cropmark. The Avenue linked Stonehenge to the River Avon almost two miles away and was, perhaps, another route the Ancients would have taken to reach the stones. Despite their name, the Old and New King Barrows date from the same time period, and also around the same as Stonehenge.

*One of the prehistoric burial mounds at Old King Barrows*

It was by the barrows that I turned back towards Woodhenge, the last part of my relatively short but extraordinarily rich walk, rich both in its views and its wildlife, as well as its history. As if to bring me almost up-to-date in time, the sound of an old-fashioned binder in an adjoining field was busy bringing in the harvest. Not quite twenty-first century but a common sight less than a hundred years ago.