August 9, 2012 Stone Age Architecture and a picnic dinner at Stonehenge

August 9, 2012 Stone Age Architecture and a picnic dinner at Stonehenge

We got up around 6:30 a.m. and were at the Thursday morning market by 7:00 a.m. There was only one merchant set up and that was Hannia cheese company.  He had all the best cheeses from England and Europe.  We had a love a lovely whole chedder made with only skim milk and the best Stilton in the world according the proprietor, an incredibly creamy Bassett Stilton.

Then back for breakfast and off to see some Neolithic ruins.  We started by going to the Market in Divezes.  There were only a few good items among many uninteresting items.  We bought a great fresh baked loaf of multigrain bread 1.6 £ and a pin of fresh lovely strawberries for £.75.

We then drove to Avesbury and walked the great circle with its high henge or berm.  This is the largest Neolithic circle in Europe and a very impressive.  We then drove over to Silsbury Hill which is the largest man made Neolithic Hill in Europe, I think at over forty meters high (130 feet) made of piled up chalk.  We then crossed the road and walked to the top of hill on the other side of the road (A4) to the West Kennett Long Barrow, which is a multi-chamber burial site covered with chalk.  The 5000 year old barrow was over 100 yards long and we entered one end of it that has been excavated and restored to its original condition.  Very creepy but interesting.

After our hike up the hill to the barrow we were tired, so we stopped at an old 15^th century Stage Coach house named Waggoners and Horses, and drank a pear cider in the garden with a view of Silsbury Hill about ½ mile away.  The A4 lies in the original alignment of the London to Bristol road and very old.    Silsbury Hill and the West Kennett Barrow also are in alignment with the henge and stone circles at Ayesbury, so at the Inn we were sitting at one of the oldest crossways in England, dating back at least 5000 years.

After our cider at around 4:00 p.m. we drove to Stonehenge and after a reconnaissance of the situation we realized it was not crowded and we were hungry, so we drove back into the nearest village of Amesbury about three miles and stopped a large supermarket named the Cooperative were we bought Cadbury chocolate covered shortbread cookies, orange flavored duck pate, and a bottle of red Tempranillo and headed back to Stonehenge. We arrived at the parking lot at Stonehenge at about 5:00 p.m. and discussed the possibility of a special access tour and called but none was available for+ today.  So we sat down near the entrance at a group of tables in the concession area near the entrance and ate our cheese, pate, strawberries, and drank the wine for a lovely early picnic dinner.

After dinner, we entered Stonehenge and walked around it for 1 ½ hours until 7:00 when the park closed and the setting sun was starting to send shafts of light through the great stones.  Stonehenge was the most impressive structure we saw today.  It has an outer berm or henge, three rings of upright stones with the two larger rings topped with lintels.  It was constructed with triangles in the upright stones that fit into the lintel stones and the lintel stones had triangles that fitted into the next lintel stone to fit everything together.  The orientation is along an axis that aligns with a Keel stone that casts a shaft of light through one of the openings into the central alter area on the longest day of the year (the solar equinox) and the sun set from the other side of the circle on the shortest day of the year.   There is also a processional path that winds its way from the Avon river several miles away to the site that enters Stonehenge from the keel rock side, which is still visible from Stonehenge. There appear to have also been four station stones set outside the perimeter of the big stone circles that not only form another axis with the center but also each pair of stones form an alignment with the farthest north rising moon and farthest south setting moon (every nineteen years). So not only is Stonehenge an impressive monumental architectural structure built 5,000 years but it is also a very cool astronomical religious tool, like the Mayan observatory at Chichen Itza or the sun dagger at Chaco Canyon.

As the sun set we drove back to our room at the Great Ashley Farm content and totally happy.