Saturday, 11 October 2025

Charity Run from Preseli to Stonehenge

 


https://www.justgiving.com/page/alex-bance-10 


A Salisbury runner is retracing the journey of Stonehenge’s stones in a 300-mile charity challenge for Julia’s House Children’s Hospice.
Alex Bance, 45, set off from the Preseli Hills in west Wales, where the monument’s bluestones were quarried. Along the route — which passes via West Woods near Marlborough, the source of the sarsen stones — he plans to gather small stones from key locations and carry them to the ancient site. Bance will take brief 20-minute naps during the run and has already raised more than £1,800 to support the Wiltshire and Dorset hospice.


Tracker - https://track.trail.live/event/path-of-the-past

Social Media - http://www.facebook.com/spireinjuryclinic

http://instagram.com/spireinjuryclinic


Wednesday, 8 October 2025

Stonehenge and Avebury Setting Study - Approved by Cabinet

Wiltshire Council's Cabinet approves plan to help mitigate the potential impact of development on Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site

Wiltshire Council's Cabinet has approved a Setting Study for the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site (WHS) which, if adopted by Full Council later this month (October), will be used to ensure that developments in Wiltshire do not adversely impact the internationally significant monuments and the area they are located in.

Stonehenge and Avebury WHS Setting Study SPD - Draft for adoption

Supporting documents:

Decision:

Resolved:

 

That Cabinet:

 

1.    notes the response to the consultation on the draft WHS Setting Study Supplementary Planning Document (the Setting Study) set out in the Consultation Statement at Appendix 1.

 

2.    endorses the amended Setting Study as set out in Appendix 2.

 

That Cabinet recommends that Council:

 

3.    Adopts the Setting Study (Appendix 2) to Council as a supplementary planning document at its meeting on 21 October 2025.

 

4.    Delegates to the Corporate Director, Place, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Strategic Planning, Development Management and Housing, the authority to undertake the final stages associated with the formal adoption and publication of the Setting Study, including any minor textual changes in the interests of clarity and accuracy.


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A summary of the Consultation concerns and responses:


Statutory/Advisory Bodies

Historic England

Concern: The draft SPD is thorough and robust, but suggested minor enhancements for effectiveness.
Council's Response: Incorporated technical comments via minor text amendments.

UNESCO World Heritage Centre/ICOMOS

Concern: Positive review overall, but suggested technical amendments and additions to strengthen the document, including references to key UNESCO documentation.
Council's Response: Added minor amendments where possible, such as further UNESCO references to bolster international obligations.

Natural England

Concern: Satisfied with ecological and historic environment information; no further issues.
Council's Response: None required.

National Highways

Concern: No particular comments; noted SPD contents and assessment requirements.
Council's Response: None required.

Local Interest Groups

Druid Groups

Concern: SPD should acknowledge contemporary spiritual/ceremonial value, human rights protections, experiential setting, and recommit to direct consultation with spiritual communities on planning applications.
Council's Response: Added reference to WHS Equal Opportunities Statement; definition of setting includes experiential aspects per national policy and Historic England guidance; all planning applications open to public comment.

CPRE South Wilts

Concern: Needs more numbering; greater weight on high visitor numbers' effects; undue emphasis on A303, requiring balanced view.
Council's Response: Added sub-section numbering; visitor infrastructure treated as development; roads in Stonehenge/Avebury addressed balancedly; future schemes assessed via SPD without altering decision criteria.

Cycling Opportunities Group for Salisbury

Concern: Omission of highways/Rights of Way works from HIA-required developments; prioritise reducing vehicular usage/impact.
Council's Response: Clarified HIA need for other development forms; sustainable transport for WHS Management Plan review.

Avebury Society

Concern: Supports Chapter 4 proposals; recommends cumulative impact control mechanism, including baseline study and triennial/biennial reviews.
Council's Response: Added clarification on cumulative impacts in Stage 4; monitoring for WHS Management Plan review.

Wiltshire Archaeological & NH Society

Concern: Supports OUV protection aim; balance archaeological protection with public access/research; mandate additional HIA elements for access, excavations, and community consultation.
Council's Response: Several elements outside SPD scope, already in planning process, or case-by-case; public access etc. for WHS Management Plan review.

Stonehenge Alliance

Concern: Detailed comments on setting nature, monument-landscape relationship, WHS boundary, buffer zone need, and A303.
Council's Response: Useful amendments for clarification (e.g., expanded Table 8 on HIA for major road schemes); some beyond SPD scope or for WHS Management Plan.

Town and Parish Councils

Amesbury Town Council

Concern: Greater explanation under 'need for screening' to help applicants understand development location.
Council's Response: Adjusted scoping description for clarity.

Marlborough Town Council

Concern: Supports proposals to secure/protect WHS.
Council's Response: None required.

Preshute Parish Council

Concern: Well-produced document, but significant Avebury-east monuments not in WHS.
Council's Response: Addresses existing WHS boundary (UNESCO consent needed for change); references external sites/elements with WHS relationships.

Developers/Consultants

General (two developers/planning consultants)

Concern: Welcomed clarity/certainty; but need term clarification, reduced complexity/readability; lack of balance on in/outside WHS settings, landscape vs. monuments; cumulative change and astronomical alignments concerns.
Council's Response: Amendments for ambiguity/consistency (e.g., glossary additions, section numbers); approach agreed with Historic England/UNESCO, so not all changes possible.

Members of the Public

General (varied comments)

Concerns: Document length/complexity/formatting; need applicant clarity; A303 addressing; inclusion of wider values/time periods, external monuments, buffer/boundary review; HIA/decision-making; geographic precision/terminology.
Council's Response: Reflects WHS international obligations requiring detailed information; HIA well-defined for OUV, SPD informs but does not change decision criteria (includes social/economic/environmental factors); A303 balanced; existing boundary focus (UNESCO limits); OUV landscape-centric, wider values not appropriate.

Farmers/Landowners

General

Concern: Lacks rural economy/local community recognition; extensive requirements prevent change without applicant needs balance.
Council's Response: SPD does not change decision criteria; added wording to reflect planning balance; decision-makers consider social/economic/environmental factors.

Overall Summary

  • Consultation responses welcomed; amendments enhanced clarity/precision without altering substance.
  • Key partners (e.g., National Trust, English Heritage) pre-consulted, no further input needed.
  • Final SPD strengthened for better planning assessments near WHS.

The Catalogue of the Wessex Museum Stonehenge Rock Thin Sections

William Cunnington Stonehenge rock thin sections - Catalogue

Rob Ixer and Richard Bevins

https://www.academia.edu/144337293/Cunningtons_Stonehenge_rocks_an_archive_of_the_thin_section_data


Salisbury Museum Accession Number 1983.20.47 - Patricia Cane

This catalogue, compiled by Rob Ixer and Richard Bevins in February 2025, documents 33 Victorian-era thin sections of Stonehenge rock fragments collected by William Cunnington between 1878 and 1881. These samples, primarily surface finds from within the Stonehenge circle and nearby excavations, represent an unbiased assortment of 'foreign rocks' (bluestones), excluding sarsens, and include the last known surface fragments from the monument's interior. The authors pair the thin sections—housed at the Wiltshire Museum—with corresponding hand specimens at the Salisbury Museum, providing macroscopic and microscopic petrographic descriptions. Historical identifications from researchers like Thomas Davies in Cunnington (1884), J.J.H. Teall (1894), and John Judd (1903), alongside later work by A.C. Harrison et al. (1979), are reconciled with modern nomenclature from Ixer and Bevins' ongoing studies (2010–2024). This reveals strong consistency in lithological groupings, such as spotted dolerites, rhyolitic tuffs from Craig Rhos-y-felin, and carbonate-bearing andesites, while debunking outdated names that have exaggerated the diversity of bluestone types to support glacial erratic theories. The collection's representativeness allows direct comparison with other Stonehenge debitage assemblages, affirming a restricted suite of Welsh-sourced volcanics and sandstones and the Scottish Altar Stone.

The detailed analyses in the appendices cover eight dolerites (including first petrographic descriptions of orthostats SH32 and SH61a), seven Rhyolite Group C tuffs, five Andesite Group A samples (with SH32c as type material), six Dacite Group B tuffs (type from SH38), one each of Dacite Group D, Altar Stone sandstone, and Greensand, plus three Lower Palaeozoic Sandstones. No novel rock types emerge, but the work highlights challenges like slide thickness and discolouration, which complicate observations. Appendices provide exhaustive microscopic descriptions, noting alterations (e.g., epidotisation, chloritisation) and key minerals (e.g., clinopyroxene, plagioclase, titanite). The authors advocate re-preparing polished thin sections for rarer lithologies and undescribed orthostats to enable advanced techniques like automated mineralogy.

Key Takeaways

  • Representativeness and Consistency: The Cunnington collection mirrors other bluestone debitage from the Stonehenge landscape, comprising a narrow range of lithologies (e.g., dolerites, rhyolites, andesites, sandstones), reinforcing human transport from Wales over glacial deposition models.
  • Nomenclature Updates: Modern reclassifications eliminate obsolete terms, clarifying that the bluestone suite is far less diverse than previously suggested, with most of the rhyolites tracing to Craig Rhos-y-felin and dacites distinguishing clearly in thin section.
  • New Insights on Orthostats: First-time petrographic data for stones SH32, SH32c (type for Andesite Group A), SH49, and SH61a, plus expanded recognition of Dacite Group B debitage from SH38, potentially indicating wider distribution.
  • Validation of Rare Groups: Confirms Dacite Group D as a legitimate bluestone lithology, based on this and prior finds, challenging its prior dismissal as non-monumental.
  • Recommendations for Future Work: Re-sectioning key samples for polished slides is urged to support geochemical and mineralogical provenance studies.

Tuesday, 7 October 2025

Review: Bluestone Fragments at Silbury Hill – Resolving Provenance and Prehistoric Significance

 

(Dolerite Chip in the Alexander Keiller Museum - Tim Daw)

The discovery of Stonehenge bluestone fragments from the top of Silbury Hill has provoked enduring debate, amid stratigraphic and petrological ambiguities. In the latest WANHM, Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, Ixer, Bevins, and Pollard (2025),  https://www.academia.edu/144003051/Slbury_Hill_lithics ,  provide a meticulous reappraisal, synthesising archival data with advanced microscopy to affirm these as deliberate human-transported debitage. A pivotal contribution lies in clarifying the corpus's fraught discovery history, particularly the discrepancy between Atkinson's published account—mentioning only a volcanic tuff—and the separate archival identification of a spotted dolerite via a museum label, a mismatch that has long muddled interpretations.

Five fragments comprise the corpus: four flaked spotted dolerites ('preselite') and one volcanic tuff (initially termed 'volcanic ash'). Atkinson's 1970 Antiquity note records just one find from an "undisturbed" summit context: the tuff fragment (Wilts 391), macroscopically identified as akin to Stonehenge's volcanic ash bluestone and recovered from clean chalk rubble ~0.7 m below the surface (Atkinson 1970, 314). Its pairing with a 'Windmill Hill ware' sherd—later deemed likely Anglo-Saxon—hinted at disturbance, undermining claims of Neolithic integrity. Unmentioned in Atkinson’s account but documented via a bag label in the Alexander Keiller Museum archive, is a second fragment from the 1969 topsoil: a spotted dolerite specimen. Three additional spotted dolerites surfaced from 2007 subsoil excavations, all lacking secure prehistoric associations (Ixer 2013). This selective reporting—overlooking the labelled dolerite—has sown confusion, with the tuff often conflated with the dolerite or dismissed as intrusive, as noted in subsequent syntheses (Field & Leary 2010, 60–61).

Post-excavation analyses amplified uncertainties. Wilts 391, the thin section derived from Atkinson's tuff fragment and prepared in the 1970s for the South West Implement Petrology Collection, was erroneously identified by R. V. Davis as Cornish hornblende schist, emphasising 'decomposed feldspar' (misread sparry calcite) while disregarding its clastic tuff fabric and Atkinson's macroscopic assessment (Clough & Cummins 1988, 162). The original rock specimen vanished, likely consumed in sectioning, prompting further conflations. Such lapses, compounded by incomplete documentation, invited speculation of post-Neolithic intrusion—via antiquarian activity or medieval remodelling (Field & Leary 2010, 60–61).

Ixer et al. (2025) disentangles this 'conundrum' through rigorous petrography, confirming all five as Stonehenge-sourced debitage and explicitly resolving the Atkinson-label disconnect by cross-referencing museum records with fieldwork archives. Wilts 391 exemplifies calcite-bearing Andesite Group A tuff, with limonite-stained 'rhyolite' clasts (fine-grained white mica-albite-chlorite-quartz intergrowths), vesicular lava inclusions, and tension gashes—hallmarks matching buried orthostat 32c from north Pembrokeshire's Fishguard Volcanic Group (Ixer et al. 2023). The dolerites, including the labelled 'Museum' piece, exhibit ophitic textures, epidotisation, and spinel spots diagnostic of 'preselite'. This validates Atkinson's intuition while exposing Davis's oversights, attributing the sherd to localised disturbance rather than wholesale rejection of Neolithic deposition.

Crucially, the authors dismiss glacial transport—once invoked for bluestone dissemination (e.g., Ixer 2009)—citing the flakes' knapped morphology, sub-centimetre scale, and orthostat-specific matches, which preclude Ice Age entrainment. Instead, they propose intentional Late Neolithic conveyance and deposition during Silbury's final phases (~late 24th/early 23rd century BC; Marshall et al. 2013), likely by Beaker-period groups effecting ritual fragmentation. This echoes Darvill and Wainwright's (2009) model for Stonehenge and parallels Cheviot granodiorite at West Kennet palisade (Ixer et al. 2022), suggesting token exotics as apotropaic or mnemonic elements in a networked monumental landscape (Richards et al. 2020).

As a review, Ixer et al. excels in transforming archival detritus into interpretive clarity, elevating these four small dolerite chips and single tuff flake to evidence of modest Wessex-wide mobility—chiefly by demystifying the Atkinson-dolerite enigma. Whether the fragments derive from a single larger piece or multiple orthostats remains unresolved, though their petrological affinities suggest the four dolerite chips are all off one block. Only Wilts 391 enjoys unambiguous Neolithic security, however, tempering conclusions.

My own speculative thought experiment based on the overland bluestone transport hypothesis positing an A40-aligned route from Preseli, with a River Severn crossing near Gloucester (Parker Pearson et al. 2015) the Avebury landscape lies on this natural route to Stonehenge.  Are the chips from Stonehenge or souvenirs of a passing monolith, maybe from initial shaping nearby?

References

Atkinson, R.J.C., 1970. Silbury Hill, 1969–70. Antiquity, 44, pp.313–314. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00104582 

Clough, T.H.McK. & Cummins, W.A. (eds.), 1988. Stone Axe Studies Volume 2: The petrology of prehistoric stone implements from the British Isles. Council for British Archaeology Research Report 67, London. ISBN: 0-906780-52-7. Available at: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/reviews-t-h-mck-clough-w-a-cummins-ed-stone-axe-studies-2-the-petrology-of-prehistoric-stone-implements-from-the-british-isles-279-pages-42-figures-240-tables-3-maps-1988-london-council-for-british-archaeology-research-report-67-isbn-0906780527-paperback-35/4D955A236D2703A06740E01B2E4C44AE 

Darvill, T. & Wainwright, G., 2009. Stonehenge excavations 2008. The Antiquaries Journal, 89, pp.1–19. DOI: 10.1017/S000358150900002x. Available at: https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/11797/ 

Field, D. & Leary, J., 2010. The Story of Silbury Hill. English Heritage, Swindon. ISBN: 9781848020467. Available at: https://books.google.nl/books/about/The_Story_of_Silbury_Hill.html

Ixer, R.A., 2013. The spotted dolerite fragments. In: Leary, J., Field, D., & Campbell, G. (eds.) Silbury Hill: the largest prehistoric mound in Europe, pp.60–61. English Heritage, Swindon.

Ixer, R.A., Bevins, R.E., Pirrie, D. & Power, M., 2023. Treasures in the Attic: Testing Cunnington's assertion that Stone 32c is the ‘type’ sample for Andesite Group A. Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, 116, pp.40–52. https://pure.southwales.ac.uk/en/publications/treasures-in-the-attic-testing-cunningtons-assertion-that-stone-3

Ixer, R, Bevins, R, Pearce, N, Pirrie, D, Pollard, J, Finlay, A, Power, M & Patience, I 2025, 'Exotic granodiorite lithics from Structure 5 at West Kennet, Avebury World Heritage Site, Wiltshire, UK', Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, vol. 118, pp. 1-18. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/125773662/West_Kennet_Granodiorites [

Ixer, R.A., Bevins, R.E. & Pollard, J., 2025. Bluestones from Silbury Hill. Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, 118, pp.269–278. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/144003051/Slbury_Hill_lithics

Marshall, P., Bayliss, A., Leary, J., Pollard, J., Vallender, J. & Young, G., 2013. The Silbury chronology. In: Leary, J., Field, D. & Campbell, G. (eds.), Silbury Hill: the largest prehistoric mound in Europe, pp.97–116. English Heritage, Swindon.

Parker Pearson, M. et al. (2015) ‘Craig Rhos-y-felin: a Welsh bluestone megalith quarry for Stonehenge’, Antiquity, 89(348), pp. 1331–1352. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/craig-rhosyfelin-a-welsh-bluestone-megalith-quarry-for-stonehenge/D1E66A287D494205D22881CBF1F6DDE8 .

Richards, C., Bayliss, A., Beadsmoore, L., Bronk Ramsey, C., Card, N., Dunbar, E., et al., 2009. The date of the Greater Stonehenge Cursus. Antiquity, 83(319): pp.40–53. DOI: 10.1017/S0003598X00099363.  Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233882913_The_Date_of_the_Greater_Stonehenge_Cursus

 

Friday, 3 October 2025

Salisbury Plain Shearing Shed Award

 As the new Stonehenge Visitor Centre has passed its first decade in service I am reminded of the architectural award it won. The praise for it included: "in its basic partie it is a decoy, but also a sheep-pen and wool shed to shear the visitor flock of their spare change while dispensing a basic understanding of where and why they are there".  https://wp.architecture.com.au/international/winner-public-architecture-stonehenge-exhibition-visitor-centre-by-dcm/



Jorn Utzon Award at the National Architecture Awards in Darwin
National Architecture Awards Jury citation

More than one million people visit Stonehenge every year, placing immense stress on one of the world’s most important archaeological sites. The site’s public facilities had grown in an ad hoc way over many decades and there had been several failed attempts to resolve the unsatisfactory arrangement. This important project finally finds a resolution for the site. Designing the Exhibition and Visitor Centre for this ancient UNESCO World Heritage site is a significant responsibility and Denton Corker Marshall has achieved it with grace and gentleness, ensuring most importantly that the facility does not dominate the site. The centre is placed 2.5 kilometres west of the stones, connected to the monument by a shuttle path but remaining out of sight from it.

The architectural composition is centred on a pair of single-storey pods, one timber and the other glass. These pods shelter beneath a sweeping canopy roof supported by slender angled stick columns, its edges perforated to cast dappled light on the forms beneath. The metal roof undulates to reflect the rolling landscape of Salisbury Plain, while the thin columns resonate with the nearby forest. The glass pod houses the cafe, shop and education space, and the solid timber pod contains the exhibition, information space and toilets. Service areas and staff facilities are placed in a low ancillary building behind trees that hide the coach parking.

The project harnesses a suite of measures to minimize its environmental footprint. These include extensive natural ventilation, natural light, open-loop ground source heat pumps, passive shading, bore water supply and on-site sewerage treatment. Most importantly, the centre is designed to be reversible, meaning that it can be removed in the future with minimal impact on the landscape.

This is a masterful work of architecture, both timeless and poetic. It sits with authority in the historic landscape, with facilities that help develop a better understanding of Stonehenge and its place in world history.

International Architecture Awards 2014 – Award for Public Architecture

Just as this project was being selected for an International Award, an exhibition opened at London’s RIBA with the neo-colonialist, chest-beating title ‘The Brits who built the Modern World’. The provocative subtlety of the Stonehenge Visitors Centre suggests a countering appendix title to the macho posturing in Upper Regent Street – something in the order of: ‘…and the Australians who taught them how to deal with the World of Pre-history’.

That the modern world is not all high-tech bling is well demonstrated by the busloads of fast-food splattered gawkers who descend on Stonehenge; 1 million per year. The Visitor Centre feels Australian; in its basic partie it is a decoy, but also a sheep-pen and wool shed to shear the visitor flock of their spare change while dispensing a basic understanding of where and why they are there (Interpretive Exhibition).

In the DCM building, a deft transition takes place: a transition from crowd management to spatial and tectonic poetry. The multiple poles that hold the wafer thin roof aloft remind one of the Aboriginal activist delegation that landed on the shores of England in the 1970’s, planted a stick in the ground, and with brilliant polemic ‘claimed the Island in the name of the Aboriginal people of Australia’.

The two pavilions, one timber clad and the other glass, put the visitor conceptually and physically into the mysterious landscape of the Salisbury Plain. This is a building that does justice to a UNESCO World Heritage site; its lightness and reversibility giving dignity to the solidity and timelessness of the standing stones 2.4 km away beyond the horizon.

Peter Wilson Affiliate RAIA, Jury Chair

Correcting the Record - Stone Erosion

Over at another place * we read: "They claim that since the big sarsens at Stonehenge have hed their edges rounded off since the Neolithic, then so have the bluestones -- and claim that this somehow demonstrates the inadequacy of the glacial transport theory. That argument is fundamentally flawed -- the sarsens have been exposed to weathering for millions of years, and the bluestones have not.

This is just silly, there is documented proof that the stones at ground level have suffered from the depredations of visitors, vandals and even livestock in the last 400 years, and presumably for the 4000 years before then. It is not the natural shapes of the various stones but the crisp edges from quarrying or shaping that have been rounded that are being noted. 

William Stukeley in 1740 published his detailed account of Stonehenge which included an engraving of Stone 55 showing the tenon still in place. The lintel on the trilithon is still crisp edged as it had not yet fallen.


A recent picture taken from Google Streetview shows that Stone 55 has lost its tenon, all the stones are more rounded and the lintel, back above visitor reach has suffered from two hundred years at ground level. 

(Click any picture for larger versions)

It is also another silly rant in that no one has suggested that some of the bluestones may be naturally rounded boulders that were brought from wales, it is just a strawman argument he is constructing.