Stonehenge
(vero;2021-Dec-10)
Who has not heard of Stonehenge, THE megalithic site by excellence, its iconic stones surrounded by myths and legends and featured in all kind of posters or images. There are traces of an early henge monument on that site dating so far back as 5,000 years ago and what we see today was erected in the late Neolithic period about 2500 BC. The monument consists of an outer circle of vertical Sarsen standing stones (silicified sandstone blocks), each around four metre high and two metre wide, and weighing around twenty-five tons. Those Sarsens were linked on the top by horizontal lintel stones, some of which are still standing. Inside is a second circle of smaller Bluestones (igneous rocks that are foreign to the chalk geology of Salisbury Plain) enclosing free-standing Trilithons (two vertical Sarsens joined by a lintel) which form a horseshoe. The whole monument is orientated towards the sunrise on the summer solstice.
Check this video from English Heritage to have a 360° view from inside the circle with clickable "hotspots" leading to short videos and explanations. This article of BBC also has an interactive diagram of the structure and a video showing the evolution of the site over the centuries in a very convincing way.
Go back to EH South West Sites or go on to Netley and Titchfield Abbeys
$updated from: English Heritage Snapshots.htxt Mon 04 Mar 2024 16:04:47 trvl2 (By Vero and Thomas Lauer)$