16:20pm -> 16:40pm
24th April 2011
Woodhenge-Latitude: 51.189413N Longitude: 1.786029W
More concrete posts, a selection of cylinders; buttercups and daisies, dandelions. The tops of the posts are colour coded IKEA blue, yellow and red. The earth is sandy between the grasses, like dusty coffee. Away over the field is the Cuckoo stone, fallen forwards, stuck in prostration. Someone has put flint around the stone; it is like bone fractured open to reveal a white and blue speckled marrow, glass-like in texture. The concrete cylinders of Woodhenge are decorated; lichen bright orange and paint like and white to grey discs. At the central burial place -a concrete and flint grave shaped heap- today there are no offerings.
There is a fence around Woodhenge, though the sheep it keeps out would not be a problem. The fencing off, the enclosure of space. The sun is hot on my back, the temperature now is more like 20 C and the wind is no longer cold. The sound of traffic is a distant river. An eternal flow. One camper van and a couple of cars sit in the parking space, it is more ‘upmarket’ here that The Sanctuary. A host of motorcyclists are parked at the road side. There is the drone of a light aircraft. Woodheneg looks and feels odd. The sound is of larks, of traffic and the little plane, circling. The posts are different sizes, but from here, by them, there is no pattern. The throaty chuckle of a Harley, heralds the leaving, the motorcyclists go.
A cyclist passes silently.
Above me a milky blue sky, like the flint from the Cuckoo stone. The distant aeroplane still circles.
Ordinary cars, beetle-like in metallic shells, families dressed in bright colours enter the maze of posts. The sound of Gavin (sat by my side) counting coins. I hear a man cough. Before me beyond the rings, Durrington Walls, site of mega pig fest’, midwinter, tender piglets fed fat on sweet things until their teeth rotted.
Three couples enter the rings, suntanned, cameras, without children; and stare, hands shielding eyes from the sun. A couple stand by the flint grave, one couple turn and go back to their car, the third couple head for the explanatory sign. A man in red lies down by the flint grave and then gets up to read the plaque -the bronze inscription. The other couple goes to the grave, the man sits on a post, the woman looks around…
Now the hills before me are losing definition in a heat haze. A huge black bird flies over the site and sits in a tree. The couple leave. In the distance, a dog is barking. The lark’s song is constant. The drone of the plane has gone. There is the sound of crows far away.
A motorcyclist passes, does not stop.
The grass is cut to give definition; the ditch that once surrounded the island (now inhabited by concrete posts) can be imagined. The disc of Woodhenge is slightly convex.
More motorcyclists stop, and this time enter the rings, look at the plaque and one of them poses for photos and laughs, on various large posts.
I notice the dandelions, a thin, transparent wrapper, and foot prints in the dusty patches. Again there is the sense of being on a disc (like The Sanctuary) the barrows at The Sanctuary or the hills on the horizon at Woodhenge
CENTRAL GRAVE.AS DESCRIBED BY M E Cunnington:[ Cunnington 1926. Page 13]:
A small grave was found lying on the line of midsummer sunrise, and at right angles to it.This grave, with slightly rounded ends, was only a foot deep in the chalk. In the Southern end, the grave being unnecessarily large for a burial lay the crouched skeleton of a child of about three years old. Owing to the decayed condition of the bones, many of them having disappeared all together, it was difficult to determine the exact position, but the body was turned towards the North-East i.e., to the rising sun at midsummer.It will be seen from the plan that the line of sunrise falls across the Southern end of the grave, across the centre of the burial, though not through the centre of the grave.A remarkable circumstance in connection with the skeleton is that the skull appears to have been cleft before burial. When the bones were first uncovered it was exclaimed "There must be two skeletons" because there appeared to be two skulls lying side by side, touching one another. But when the bones were removed they proved to be those of only one individual, and what looked like two skulls were actually the two halves of the same skull. It is a common thing to find a skull crushed in the ground, but there seems no way of accounting for its being found lying in two parts, unless it had been cleft before burial.The other bones, though much decayed, were found lying in their natural order, and there was no sign to suggest that the grave had ever been disturbed. It appears probable, therefore, that this child's burial was in the nature of a dedicatory or sacrificial one. No relics of any kind were found with the skeleton.
24th April 2011
Woodhenge-Latitude: 51.189413N Longitude: 1.786029W
More concrete posts, a selection of cylinders; buttercups and daisies, dandelions. The tops of the posts are colour coded IKEA blue, yellow and red. The earth is sandy between the grasses, like dusty coffee. Away over the field is the Cuckoo stone, fallen forwards, stuck in prostration. Someone has put flint around the stone; it is like bone fractured open to reveal a white and blue speckled marrow, glass-like in texture. The concrete cylinders of Woodhenge are decorated; lichen bright orange and paint like and white to grey discs. At the central burial place -a concrete and flint grave shaped heap- today there are no offerings.
There is a fence around Woodhenge, though the sheep it keeps out would not be a problem. The fencing off, the enclosure of space. The sun is hot on my back, the temperature now is more like 20 C and the wind is no longer cold. The sound of traffic is a distant river. An eternal flow. One camper van and a couple of cars sit in the parking space, it is more ‘upmarket’ here that The Sanctuary. A host of motorcyclists are parked at the road side. There is the drone of a light aircraft. Woodheneg looks and feels odd. The sound is of larks, of traffic and the little plane, circling. The posts are different sizes, but from here, by them, there is no pattern. The throaty chuckle of a Harley, heralds the leaving, the motorcyclists go.
A cyclist passes silently.
Above me a milky blue sky, like the flint from the Cuckoo stone. The distant aeroplane still circles.
Ordinary cars, beetle-like in metallic shells, families dressed in bright colours enter the maze of posts. The sound of Gavin (sat by my side) counting coins. I hear a man cough. Before me beyond the rings, Durrington Walls, site of mega pig fest’, midwinter, tender piglets fed fat on sweet things until their teeth rotted.
Three couples enter the rings, suntanned, cameras, without children; and stare, hands shielding eyes from the sun. A couple stand by the flint grave, one couple turn and go back to their car, the third couple head for the explanatory sign. A man in red lies down by the flint grave and then gets up to read the plaque -the bronze inscription. The other couple goes to the grave, the man sits on a post, the woman looks around…
Now the hills before me are losing definition in a heat haze. A huge black bird flies over the site and sits in a tree. The couple leave. In the distance, a dog is barking. The lark’s song is constant. The drone of the plane has gone. There is the sound of crows far away.
A motorcyclist passes, does not stop.
The grass is cut to give definition; the ditch that once surrounded the island (now inhabited by concrete posts) can be imagined. The disc of Woodhenge is slightly convex.
More motorcyclists stop, and this time enter the rings, look at the plaque and one of them poses for photos and laughs, on various large posts.
I notice the dandelions, a thin, transparent wrapper, and foot prints in the dusty patches. Again there is the sense of being on a disc (like The Sanctuary) the barrows at The Sanctuary or the hills on the horizon at Woodhenge
CENTRAL GRAVE.AS DESCRIBED BY M E Cunnington:[ Cunnington 1926. Page 13]:
A small grave was found lying on the line of midsummer sunrise, and at right angles to it.This grave, with slightly rounded ends, was only a foot deep in the chalk. In the Southern end, the grave being unnecessarily large for a burial lay the crouched skeleton of a child of about three years old. Owing to the decayed condition of the bones, many of them having disappeared all together, it was difficult to determine the exact position, but the body was turned towards the North-East i.e., to the rising sun at midsummer.It will be seen from the plan that the line of sunrise falls across the Southern end of the grave, across the centre of the burial, though not through the centre of the grave.A remarkable circumstance in connection with the skeleton is that the skull appears to have been cleft before burial. When the bones were first uncovered it was exclaimed "There must be two skeletons" because there appeared to be two skulls lying side by side, touching one another. But when the bones were removed they proved to be those of only one individual, and what looked like two skulls were actually the two halves of the same skull. It is a common thing to find a skull crushed in the ground, but there seems no way of accounting for its being found lying in two parts, unless it had been cleft before burial.The other bones, though much decayed, were found lying in their natural order, and there was no sign to suggest that the grave had ever been disturbed. It appears probable, therefore, that this child's burial was in the nature of a dedicatory or sacrificial one. No relics of any kind were found with the skeleton.
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