OMG OMG OMG - Stonhenge

Wednesday September 18,  we headed out early to get to Stonehenge at the front of the crowds.  I was prepared to be disappointed, since often, the things that you have always heard of might be, less than, or overrun by tourists!  But OMG, I LOVED IT!  But, if we hadn’t gotten there before everyone, I would have not liked it.  As we were leaving the crowds were everywhere.  

Nope-this picture-above- is not a postcard!  This is how wonderful it looked in person!    In the below picture you can see that nobody was around when we got there.  I hurrying up this path, not believing that no one went this way. 

And here, I am super excited because I was up there close and all by myself!  (For just a few minutes…but still!)

As a bit of history, there is evidence of people being the Stonehenge area, 9000 years ago, 5500 years before the stones.  Around 7000BC nearby Stonehenge, there was excavated a feast of 2 kinds of people meeting.  They know because one group had farmed beef and one group brought wild venison. To have evidence that humans personally farmed 9000 years ago is incredible.  Also, before Stonehenge there was a cursus found.  Cursuses are monumental Neolithic structures  built between 3400 and 3000BC, resembling ditches or trenches in the islands of Great Britain and Ireland.  The one near Stonehenge resembles the shape of a Roman chariot track ( but it is way before the Romans). 

Stonehenge was built in several stages over a period of around 2,500 years, from around 3000 BC to 1520 BC: The henge part of the monument was a circular earthwork enclosure built around 3000 BC. (Not a part of the stones which I didn’t know). A ditch was dug and chalk was piled up to create an inner and outer bank.  It also had timber, stone and bones within.  The henge is the outer circle.  The site was used as a cremation/burial area for 100’s  of years. 

 These 2 pictures probably show the hedges the best.  They are the variation in the height of the land (look at all those people to the right, we were there before any of them!!!).

Around 2500 BC, the central stones were set. Large sarsen stones and smaller bluestones were raised to form the unique stone circle. Because it was built pre Iron Age the digging would be by antler. 

The actual stones arrive over a period of time-  the blue smaller stones in the middle, first from Wales from 200 miles away.  

I took this picture trying to focus in on the “blue” stones.  They are the lower stones in the middle, there are some fallen sarsen stones in front of them- just look past that. 

The sarsen stones are the larger ones that everyone associates with Stonehenge.  It is a type of silcrete rock, which is found scattered naturally across southern England.  I had grown up thinking they came from very far away, these came from a few miles away and most likely were transported somehow on logs. 

It is thought that it was used as a calendar and a gathering place as well as a burial site.  It is also thought that the people either traded or traveled far because the stoneware was a Neolithic Pottery style the same as in Orkney islands in Northern Scotland. 

Originally there were 30 upright stones and horizontally 30 lintels connecting in a circle.  The outer lintels were put in by a tongue and groove method. This is the only stone circle using this method, making Stonehenge unique. The inner one is horseshoe of five trilithons (two vertical stones capped by a horizontal lintel). There were 80 blue stones inside circle - they were thought to have healing powers, 1-because it was chipped away over the years because people possibly took them away as an amulet, 2- the stones came from a long way away and they were also taken away, 3-there were people buried with extraordinary disease or injury, the thought is that they came to be healed. 

If you look at the tallest stone just a little left of center with a bump of stone on the top.  This bump shows the construction method, it fit into a groove on a since fallen lintel.  Just to the right of that same tallest stone if you follow the line of sight straight out through the left hand arch that you see at the other side of the stones, that is where the sun rises during the summer solstice.   In the picture below that, it is exactly opposite that and shows the direction of the summer solstice sunrise.  

Outside the perimeter of the stone circle, created in 2200BC to 1600BC, there were more than 300 barrow mounds. More than anywhere in Britain.   These were burial mounds.  In the picture below, I did alter the color a little bit so you can see the mound.  They were all over around the site.

  

Until the 19th century, it was thought that druids had something to do with Stonehenge, but druids were not in England until around 50BC, so they had nothing to do with it building it.  Druids and many others still consider this a sacred sight.

FYI, sometimes I fix up pictures so they look better, but all the Stonehenge ones I left as taken so it can look as close to what I saw.   I spent so much time at the stones that I didn’t go into the information center, but I was able to view the kind of homes that they are believed to have lived in.

One last look at Stonehenge, I took these looking back as I walked away. 

Next, as we headed west to our next hotel in Dartmoor National forest, we stopped at what was called the Jurassic coast.  On the Jurassic Coast, geology takes centre stage. It is the only place on Earth where rocks from the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods can be seen in one place, representing 185 million years of Earth’s history. Two hundred million years ago, this was the sea bed and there have been many good finds of sea creatures fossils found in this area.  This Jurassic coast is a UNESCO world heritage.

While we were there we went to the Charmouth heritage center to learn how to safely collect fossilsI and to view their small exhibit.  I forget all the names, but they are still finding really nice fossils under these cliffs.  We looked for fossils, but all I found was the “fools gold” of fossils. Oh well, I didn’t want to bring anything home anyway.  

The above picture shows a cleaned up fossil that was found where we were in April 2024.  Below is an example of how fossils are found and then how they look after getting cleaned up. 

So I headed out to look for fossils on this beautiful landscape 

And this one

Here I am just watching the locals use tools to crack open rocks to see what they can find. 

And here is what I found.  Bummer the experts at the center said it was just discoloration in the stone.   I thought it looked like a fish…oh well… 

We ended the day relaxing in our Tudor hotel and pub.  The hotel was built in mid Tudor times, 1550 or 1560 in the reign of MaryI (Henry VIII daughter).  It was a private home before being turned into an inn in the late 1600’s.