Bluehenge unearthed: Prehistoric site that could be famous stone circle's little sister

Bluehenge unearthed: Prehistoric site that could be famous stone circle's little sister


The prehistoric circle has been named Bluehenge after the colour of the 27 giant stones it once incorporated
The find is already challenging conventional wisdom about how Stonehenge was built - and what it was used for.
Bluehenge was put up 5,000 years ago - around the same time as work began on Stonehenge - and appears to have been a miniature version of it.
The two circles stood together for hundreds of years before Bluehenge was dismantled. Researchers believe its stones were used to enlarge Stonehenge during one of a number of redevelopments.
Professor Tim Darvill, Stonehenge
'We thought we knew it all, but over the last few years we have discovered that something as familiar as Stonehenge is still a challenge to explore and understand. It wouldn't surprise me if there weren't more circles.'
All that remains of the 60ft wide Bluehenge are the holes of 27 giant stones set on a ramped mount. Chips of blue stone found in the holes appear to be identical to the blue stones used in Stonehenge.

The four-ton monsters, made of Preseli Spotted Dolerite - a chemically altered igneous rock harder than granite - were mined in the Preseli Mountains in Pembrokeshire and then rolled, dragged and floated the 200 miles to the site on the banks of the Avon in Wiltshire.

Once installed, the stones would have been polished to a dark blue with silver flecks resembling the night sky. Bluehenge lies at the end of the 'Avenue' - a ritual pathway that connected Stonehenge to the Avon.
Stonehenge itself was built and rebuilt over 600 years in three main phases. The first - begun in 3000BC - saw the creation of a ditch and bank which later enclosed a circle of 56 holes for posts or stones.

Around 2600BC the site was transformed into two circles of 82 blue stones brought from the Welsh mountains.
Then, 150 years later, the ancient Britons set up 50-ton sarsen stones quarried at Marlborough, 25 miles away.
The blue stones were dug up and repositioned, and the sarsens used to create the Stonehenge familiar today. The new find changes this account of this history.

It suggests that the creators of Stonehenge originally built two circles - one with 56 stones at Stonehenge, and another with 27 at Bluehenge. The stones of the smaller circle were eventually incorporated into the bigger one.
Bluehenge was discovered by Professor Mike Parker Pearson, of Sheffield University, who argues the monuments were linked to rituals of life and death.
Julian Richards, archaeologist and presenter of BBC2 TV series Meet The Ancestors, believes, however, that such certainty is beyond our reach.

'Any one person who says they have the answer is being a bit over-confident,' he said.
'If you think that Stonehenge was created, used and modified over 1,400 years then it probably was used for many different things.'
Professor Geoffrey Wainwright, who found the source of the Stonehenge stones in Wales with Professor Darvill, said: 'This [new] henge is very important because it forms part of the picture of ceremonial monuments in the area and puts Stonehenge into context.
'It's no longer Stonehenge standing alone, but it has to be seen in context with the landscape.'

Lovers of prehistoric sites will have to wait until February before the full details of Bluehenge are published.
The creators of Stonehenge - who saw the Stone Age pass into the Bronze Age - were farmers who lived in small villages in huts made of wooden stakes and twigs, covered with a thick layer of clay and chalk.
Farming had been established for at least 1,000 years and the builders of Stonehenge were skilled at growing wheat and barley and keeping pigs and sheep.
Some experts believe they made cider and beer and ground wheat into flour to make bread and cakes.
But they were still forced to depend on wild fruit, peas, lentils, nuts and honey. Clothes were primitive leather coats and jackets, woollen leggings and simple shoes made of skins bound with twine.
No one knows what gods they worshipped, but the alignment of Stonehenge to the solstice shows that the Sun - and maybe the Moon - was important.


Has anybody noticed that stone henge is 1.31 miles from bluehenge and that bluehenge is 1.31 miles from woodhenge? since they worshipped the 4 seasons does that mean there is another henge? and that it could be buried 1.31 miles from stonehenge and wooodhenge to make a giant circle? you can check it out on google earth if you like :0)

Tour Guide

'Stonehenge? It's more like a city garden'

Design watchdog hits out at plans for £20m visitor centre at megalithic jewel in England's cultural crown

Its footpaths are "tortuous", the roof likely to "channel wind and rain" and its myriad columns – meant to evoke a forest – are incongruous with the vast landscape surrounding it.

So says the government's design ­watchdog over plans for a controversial £20m visitor centre at Stonehenge, the megalithic jewel in England's cultural crown. CABE, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, has criticised the design of the proposed centre, claiming the futuristic building by Denton Corker Marshall does little to enhance the 5,000-year-old standing stones which attract more than 800,000 visitors each year.

Its concerns are the latest chapter in the long saga surrounding the English Heritage-backed project, and follow a ­government decision two years ago to scrap on cost grounds a highly ambitious £65m scheme to build a tunnel to reroute traffic to protect the World Heritage site.

The centre, which has been approved by Wiltshire county council planners, has divided opinion.

"We question whether, in this landscape of scale and huge horizons and with a very robust end point that has stood for centuries and centuries, this is the right design approach?" said Diane Haigh, CABE's director of design review.

"You need to feel you are approaching Stonehenge. You want the sense you are walking over Salisbury Plain towards the stones."

But the "twee little winding paths" were "more appropriate for an urban ­garden" than the "big scale open air ­setting the stones have", she added.

The many columns were meant to be "lots of trunks" holding up a "very delicate roof", she said. "Is this the best approach on what is actually a very exposed site. In particular, if it's a windy, rainy day, as it is quite often out there, it's not going to give you shelter. We are concerned it's very stylish nature will make it feel a bit dated in time, unlike the stones which have stood the test of time".

CABE believed the location of the ­centre, at Airman's Corner, is good, and were pleased "something was happening at last", but questioned the "architectural approach". The centre has the full support of local architects on the Wiltshire Design Forum, and has been passed by the local planning committee. Nevertheless English Heritage recognised it was an emotional and divisive subject.

"Innovative architectural designs will always polarise opinion, and often nowhere more so that within the architectural world itself," it said in a statement.

"The Stonehenge project has to overcome a unique set of challenges," it said. "This has required a pragmatic approach and, following widespread consultation, we maintain the current plans offer the best solution".

Stephen Quinlan, partner at Denton Corker Marshall, defended the design. The roof was meant to be a "sun canopy" and not offer weather protection in what was, principally "an outdoor experience".

"It's not an iconic masterpiece. It's a facility to help you appreciate the Stonehenge landscape. It's intellectually ­deferential in a big, big way to Stonehenge as a monument.

"I wouldn't even mind if you couldn't remember what the building looked like when you left. The visitor centre is not the destination," Quinlan said.

However, he added: "We don't take criticism from CABE lightly. And we are ­crawling through their comments to see if there are any improvements we can make."

Stonehenge bans Summer solstice Druids, vegans, goths

Salisbury Plain, Wilts - (Ass Mess): Druids, vegans and assorted goths are to be excluded from Summer solstice commemoration ceremonies at Stonehenge this year after locals branded them a pest to wildlife who habitually dump excessive tonnes of toxic human waste into the surrounding ecosystem.

"Each year we have to put up with acres of foreign lentils sprouting up in the fields surrounding this ancient monument after these hippies crap all over our pastureland," local Soil Association representatives have told the press.

"Mostly they are organic free-trade Peruvian-origin virulent strains that defy digestion and germinate in the lower gut before acts of nature deposit them in the ancient Wiltshire countryside.

"For the last five years we have had to spend over ten million pounds on heavy duty industrial crop busting machinery to uproot these foreign lentil varieties which spread like wildfire across the county."

Despite Ministry of Agriculture measures to contain the outbreaks the invasive legumes keep sprouting and often affect indigenous wildlife nesting in the myriad hedgerows of the nearby countryside.

"We've tried asking the solstice visitors to amend their diets before and during their annual pilgrimages to our country's most ancient monument, but do they listen?

"Even installing bio-degradeable lavatory facilities at vast cost to the taxpayer is a futile act because many of these vegan and Druid chappies only void in the open, under moonlight and according to their spiritual beliefs.

"Most of them appear to prefer soiling themselves than using one of our portable hygenic chemical toilet facilities," local health official reported.

A five mile exclusion zone has cordoned off the Stonehenge monument today in anticipation of an early influx of the annual travellers whose convoys have already been spotted on the nearby local bypass armed with their trademark teepees, wigwams and calor gas fry-up equipment.

The sun's annual ingress into the sign of Cancer takes place on Thursday evening this week.

You have been warned.


I did promise a few laughs on this blog - it can't all be serious. Ha ha..............