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Guided | Walkabout |
The Avenue
The Heel Stone The Ditch The Aubrey Holes The Sarsen Circle Sarsen The BlueStones The Trilithons The Inner Bluestones The Altar Stone The Solstice The Station Stones
The main entrance to Stonehenge was most probably a processional way over 1km in length linking Stonehenge with the River Avon - now called the Avenue. It is banked by two parallel ditches. It may have had something to do with pulling the Bluestones from the river to the monument.
In the Avenue it marks the formal entrance to Stonehenge. On the midsummer solstice the sun rises over the Heel Stone.
The Ditch and other holes were dug with pick-axes made from the antlers of red deer and scraped together with the shoulder blades of cattle.
56 holes named after their discoverer, the seventeenth century antiquarian John Aubrey. They were dug in the first phase of the monument at the same time as the bank and ditch.
The Sarsen Circle - about 30m in diameter. Consisted originally of 30 uprights, each weighing about 25 tonnes, topped by a continuous ring of 30 lintels weighing about 7 tonnes.
Sarsen, or sandstone, from the Marlborough Downs 30 kilometres to the north is a very hard rock. The word "sarsen" is thought to have been derived from "Saracen". The stones were believed to have been pagan monuments.
Called Bluestones because if you break the stone and it's fresh, it's quite blue in colour and it has white inclusions in it. Its technical name is spotted dolerite. They were transported 360 kilometres from the Preseli Hills in South Wales at about 2100BC.
Trilithon - from the Greek meaning "three stones". The largest trilithon is 24 feet high, the next two 21 feet and the furthest two 20 feet. Each upright weighs approximately 25 tons.
The inner Bluestones are in a horseshoe formation - originally there were 19.
Altar stone is misnamed - it is a fallen block of blue-grey sandstone. At the centre of the monument, the midsummer sunrise is thought to have struck the Altar stone on the longest day of the year.
On midsummer's day the sun rises over the Heel stone.
The four Station Stones of which only two now exist are aligned with the midsummer sunrise and the midwinter sunset. Diagonal lines from the Station Stones cross the exact centre of the monument.