THE implements found during the excavations made for the underpinning of
the “Leaning Stone” are thus classified by Mr. W. Gowland:—
(1) Haches roughly chipped, longer and shorter. (2) Axe-hammers. (3)
Hammer-stones with blunt edge. The above are of flint. (4) Regular
hammer-stones of compact sarsen. (5) Mauls of the same rock, weighing
from 37 to 64 lbs. each. There were also found chippings from the
monoliths, and, near the surface, coins and animal bones.
Only one trace of copper or bronze occurred other than coins and
superficial finds, a mere strain on a block of sarsen. So we may
consider Stonehenge to belong to the late Neolithic, or early Bronze
Period. These objects have been lent by Sir Edmund Antrobus to the
museum at Devizes for a period of six months.
* * * * *
In the January, 1902, number of _Man_, Mr. W. Gowland’s interesting paper
will be found, describing the excavations, methods of trimming and
erecting the stones practised by the ancients.
As to the kinds of stone actually employed in the building of Stonehenge,
the whole of the outer circle and the four stones lying beyond that
circle are undoubtedly “Sarsen” (which are the boulder stones left by the
ice-sheet of the glacial period on the Wiltshire downs). There are, in
the inner circle, four stones which have been called “horn-stone.” The
remainder are “diabase,” commonly called “bluestones,” and similar are
found in Wales, and in parts of Cumberland and Cornwall, the so-called
Altar Stone being a kind of grey sandstone, not sarsen. The large
outlying stone, known traditionally as the “Friar’s Heel,” from a legend
that when the devil was busy erecting Stonehenge he made the observation
that no one would ever know how it was done. This was overheard by a
friar lurking near by, and he incautiously replied in the Wiltshire
dialect, “That’s more than thee can tell,” and fled for his life; the
devil, catching up an odd stone, flung it after the friar, and hit him on
the heel. This stone is also named the “Pointer,” because from the
middle of the Altar Stone the sun is seen at the summer solstice (21st of
June) to rise immediately above it. The Hele Stone is the true name,
“Hele” meaning “to hide,” from Heol or Haul of Geol or Jul, all names for
the sun, which this stone seems to hide. From the Friar’s Heel it is
about 66 yards to a low circular earthen boundary, enclosing the area
within which Stonehenge stands. Just within the entrance to this earthen
ring lies a large prostrate stone called the “Slaughter Stone,” supposed
by some to have been used for the slaughter of victims about to be
offered in sacrifice at the altar. The Slaughter Stone (at the end
nearest to the Friar’s Heel) bears evidence of tool-marks, there being
six small round cavities made in it by blows from a flint tool. On the
margin of the earthen ring, one 55 yards on the left, the other 95 yards
on the right of the entrance, are two small, unhewn stones.
[Picture: Ground plan as presumed to have been originally. A. Small
Trilithon of Syenite. That it stood here is only conjecture. It now
lies as marked A below]
[Picture: A. Trilithon fell 1797. B. Upright with capstone fell, Dec.
31st, 1900]
[Picture: Great Trilithons (as it was)]
Stonehenge stands about 440 feet above the sea-level. The outer circle
measures 308 feet in circumference, and is supposed to have been formed
originally of thirty upright stones, seventeen of which are still
standing, and the remains of nine others are to be found fallen to the
ground. These stones formerly stood 14 feet above the surface of the
ground, but now are of different heights. Their breadth and thickness
also vary: the former averaging 7 feet, the latter 3½. The stones were
fixed in the ground at intervals of 3½ feet, connected at the top by a
continuous line of thirty imposts forming a corona or ring of stone at a
height of 16 feet above the ground, and were all squared and rough hewn,
and cleverly joined together. The uprights were cut with knobs or
tenons, which fitted into mortice holes hewn in the undersides of the
horizontal stones. About 9 feet within this peristyle was the “inner
circle,” composed of diabase obelisks; within this, again, was the “great
ellipse,” formed of five, or, as some think, seven trilithons of stones,
each group consisting of two blocks placed upright and one crosswise.
These structures rose progressively in height from N.E. to S.W., and the
loftiest and largest attained an elevation of 25 feet. Lastly, within
the trilithons was the “inner ellipse,” consisting of nineteen obelisks
of diabase. Within the inner ellipse we find the Altar Stone. At the
present moment, there remains of the outer circle or peristyle sixteen
uprights and six imposts; of the inner circle, seven only stand upright
of the great ellipse—there are still two perfect trilithons and two
single uprights. The Duke of Buckingham, in his researches in 1620, is
said to have caused the fall of a trilithon. He was at Wilton in the
reign of James I., and he “did cause the middle of Stonehenge to be
digged, and under this digging was the cause of the falling down or
recumbency of the great stone there, twenty-one foote long.” “In the
process of digging they found a great many horns of stags and oxen,
charcoal batter-dishes (?), heads of arrows, some pieces of armour eaten
out with rust, bones rotten, but whether of stagge’s or men they could
not tell.”
In 1797, on a rapid thaw succeeding a severe frost, another trilithon
fell; of the inner ellipse, there are six blocks in their places; and in
the centre remains the so-called Altar Stone.
In Sir R. C. Hoare’s “History of Wiltshire,” he mentions that Inigo Jones
observed a stone, which is now gone, in the inmost part of the cell,
appearing not much above the surface of the earth and lying towards the
east, four feet broad and sixteen long, which was his supposed Altar
Stone. Also “Philip, Earl of Pembroke (Lord Chamberlayne to King Charles
I.), did say ‘that an altar stone was found in the middle of the area
here, and that it was carried away to St. James’s.’”
The entrance to Stonehenge faced the N.E., and the road to it, “Viâ
Sacra,” or avenue, can be traced by banks of earth.
It is the opinion of competent authorities that many of the stones should
be underpinned in the manner of the “Leaning Stone,” as any violent
storms, such as periodically sweep across the Plain, might bring them
down. The fall of two of the stones from the outer circle (supposed by
the superstitious to foretell the Queen’s death) on December 31st, 1900,
the last day of the old century, and 103 years after the last stones
fell, was caused by a gale from the west.
There are the two opinions as to the right course to pursue regarding
Stonehenge—some people considering it would be well to leave it to fall
down, so that eventually it would appear like a jumbled heap of ninepins,
others (myself among the number) that the necessary steps for its
Preservation, _not_ Restoration, should be taken.