Tag Archives: Pete Glastonbury

Bouncy Bouncy Druids, and a Stonehenge Guide You Must All Buy!

Posted on 06/07/2012 | 3 Comments

bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy druids

As we are sure you realise, every post on the Clonehenge blog is tested and retested on animals. (Don’t worry, scientists carefully select for that purpose only individual animals that no one likes, ones that tell dull family stories over and over, and who talk over you whenever you try to say something especially witty.) Once a post is confirmed as safe, the papers have to be submitted to the appropriate ministries for approval and sometimes they are sent to a committee, debated, and then brought before Parliament for a full debate. Needless to say, all of this takes time, which means that despite the fact that we write posts very quickly and very often, you see new posts only rarely.

However today we have asked for and received an executive edict expediting approval of this post. It was incredibly important for you to see and hear the above video, and also for you to be notified of the release of the new Stonehenge Guide for iPad.

First, we should explain the video. Unfortunately we have no idea who this Mitch Benn bloke is, so all we can say is: this video concerning Jeremy Deller’s inflatable Stonehenge replica which is called Sacrilege and is now touring the UK, is in the Clonehenge spirit and receives the Clonehenge Seal of Approval. The blow-up sheep are also backed by Clonehenge, to be sent in aid packages to Scotland and New Zealand to ease the pressures on the livestock there!

As for the Stonehenge Guide for iPad, we are pleased to announce that it was written and produced by none other than Hengefinder General Extraordinaire Mr. Pete Glastonbury! Few if any people have the background in both science and lore concerning Stonehenge that Mr. Glastonbury can boast. The iTunes preview reads: “A Visitors Guide to Stonehenge for the first time visitor showing the nearby monuments and the latest archaeological excavations. A history of the site is shown in old prints and photographs showing its reconstruction. Interactive 360 panoramas show the nearby monuments in relation to Stonehenge.”

Of course they are modestly avoiding the Absolute Greatest Thing about this guide, but we are not afraid to speak out! The Stonehenge Guide for iPad MENTIONS CLONEHENGE!!!!1!! Or so we are told. We actually don’t have an iPad ourselves. We could afford hundreds, of course, but last year Steve Jobs gave us this spherical iPad he made only two of, one for us and one for his alien overlords, so we haven’t bothered to get a regular one. However, this guide was not configured for iSphere, so if someone could take a screenshot of the Clonehenge mention and post it where we can see it, we would be much obliged. Remember, English Heritage is monitoring sales of this Stonehenge guide, and if insufficient interest is shown, they will go forward with plans to bulldoze Stonehenge to make room for a state-of-the-art Walmart. So buy three! Buy ten! They don’t take up much room.

Before we go, we must mention that the video link above was provided to us by Sylvia MacPuss of the Henge Collective. The Henge Collective is the topic of a Clonehenge post now working its way though committee, and if the Tories don’t drag their feet, we should have that special rhyming post called The Henge Collective Inaugurates Clonehenge: The Musical! by September. Earlier if we actually start working on it!

Keep dry (or keep cool if you are Stateside) and happy henging!

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Solstice Again, Innit? Part the First!

Posted on 19/06/2012 | 2 Comments

wooden model made in preparation for the famous Icehenge in Alaska

When you are somewhat lazy-arsed, as we are, it helps a great deal to have friends who are not similarly handicapped. We have a number of friends who keep an eye to the news and alert us when they find new Stonehenge replicas, old ones, too, if there is a chance we haven’t seen them. Today, in honour of the summer solstice, 2012, one half year, a mere six months, until nothing happens and everyone is deeply shocked to find the world hasn’t ended after all and they are going to have to find a way to pay for all that stuff they put on their credit cards, [drumroll] we are going to award two of our alert friends and readers with the title of Hengefinder General, Extraordinaire. In this post we fete the wonderful ancient sites photographer, Mr. Peter Glastonbury of Wiltshire. No one has brought more henges to our attention or contributed more to the Clonehenge blog than this fine fellow, and we hereby thank and salute him!

The replica above is an example of the brilliant henges we have had from Hengefinder Glastonbury. It is a photo of a painted wooden model made for the crew that created the beautiful Stonehenge replica made of ice in Fairbanks, Alaska some years ago. In a message passed along to us, Martin Gutoski says of it, “A local artist made a wooden model of it at the architect scale of ¼” = 1’ for the ice carvers to use but it recently burned up with his house fire last spring.” Truly it was a thing of beauty!

Page of the June 22, 1898 issue of The Sketch

The item above is another of his recent contributions: two historical small replicas in an article entitled The Strange Story of Stonehenge, dating from the 1890s! We surmise that the top one, a replica of Stonehenge in recent times, may be one of Henry Browne’s cork models. The other, of a “completed” Stonehenge, appear to be made of wood and may be one that was on display at the British Museum or perhaps the Ashmolean. See–knowledge of Stonehenge replicas can be a scholarly pursuit! If you’re not careful. Which we are. So you needn’t worry! An interesting bit of this article is where the author mentions the theory that a sacred oak once grew in the very middle of Stonehenge. We hadn’t heard that one before.

Article from The Graphic, September 2, 1922

Hengefinder Extraordinaire Glastonbury also sent us this article with pictures of a Stonehenge model made by the author, H. N-Hutchison,  which is entitled What Stonehenge Probably Looked Like when Complete. Our favourite part of this one is near the end: “For reasons which need not be given here, the writer has ventured to put a small trilithon at the entrance, and two rather larger ones, one at each end of the horseshoe, to make it complete. … This arrangement seems to giove a finish to Stonehenge...” In other words, the fellow has added parts to Stonehenge that he thinks would make it better! We have mentioned before, but so long ago at this point that probably any of you weren’t even born yet, that even those who profess to be the greatest admirers of Stonehenge cannot seem to resist making little improvements in their reproductions of it. It is as if you took a picture of the Mona Lisa and then thought, She could be prettier, couldn’t she? and changed her features to look more like Charlize Theron.

Anyway, Hutchison says that the model in the pictures is of plasticene, but he made another of wood and donated it to the British Museum. And, no, it is not the same one that’s at the bottom of the other article. Small differences are evident to the seasoned eye of the Stonehenge replica expert, that is to say, ourselves.

The article ends, “I should like to see a full-sized reconstruction of Stonehenge made in concrete and set up somewhere close to Salisbury to show visitors what this wonderful monument was like in prehistoric times; and I am sure such a model would attract visitors to the ancient town.” Obviously, we’re all for that!! (And, yes, we know that not everyone believes that Stonehenge was ever finished. We are not interested in having that discussion here.)

So thank you to Mr. Glastonbury for his help with Clonehenge through the years. At least one time we were ready to quit the blog but kept going because he kept sending us replicas to post. He told us just today that he knows of a top secret Stonehenge replica project to be implemented some time in August, and he will bring us the news as it happens. More fun to come!

Happy summer solstice, everyone! And of course, happy henging!

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It’s Got Character, Charm, and a Slab in the Middle–Celebrating Our 300th Post!

Posted on 26/05/2011 | Leave a comment

Brought to our attention by the ever-vigilant Wiltshire citizen and elegant shutterbug, Mr. Pete Glastonbury, this bit of video is part of The Complete and Utter History of Britain, a project done by Terry Jones and Michael Palin in their pre-Monty Python days.

In it, a realtor is showing Stonehenge to a young couple as a potential home (despite its being a bit drafty). The monument in question appears to be a circle of six trilithons, as seen at second 15 of the video. A Stonehenge replica from 1969–excellent!

Score: 6 druids. Wish we could give them more, but Palin (that’s Michael, not Sarah) had yet to perfect his tourism schtick. Our thanks to all of our readers–even those who stumbled on the blog while searching “nudity mandatory“! Keep sending us those links and pictures and keep building those linteled stone circles. The future needs them, for some reason we have yet to divine.

Until next time, happy henging!

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Oxford’s Secret Treasures–Megalith Models at the Pitt Rivers Museum

Posted on 31/03/2011 | Leave a comment

photos from the website Rethinking Pitt-Rivers

We don’t need to do a full post on this, but it was passed along to us by the ever alert Mr. Peter Glastonbury, and now that we know about it, we feel Clonehenge would be incomplete without it.  What we’re talking about here is this:

“Hidden away in a box in the Pitt Rivers store rooms are a set of 13 models depicting various megalithic monuments from England and the Isle of Man.” (See here.)

Brilliant, right? No Stonehenge, but we do find an old friend among them: Wayland Smith’s grave, now known as Wayland’s Smithy, a wooden model of which we posted here.

We’ve posted models of places other than Stonehenge before, of course, but to find a set of models of megalithic sites that even megaraks might concede to be obscure is extraordinary. Men-Al-Tol, Chun Quoit, the Calderstones: who builds models of these? Great stuff. Well spotted, Mr. Glastonbury. You will go down in the annals of Clonehenge history!

You, too, can make Clonehenge history, Gentle Reader, and, no–you don’t have to go down in any annals if that’s what’s worrying you! Find or build a model or models of any megalithic site, preferably in the British Isles or Europe, and send a picture, description, and if possible your motivation to us so we can do a post about it. Worldwide fame awaits you! Or at least some very wary looks from people who find out!

Until next time, friends, happy henging!

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Henge-Podge: Odds and Ends That Have Come Across Our Desk, Part One

Posted on 10/03/2011 | 4 Comments

photo by Kerry McKenna

We have been accumulating odds and bits related to Clonehenge, none of them quite right for an entire post, but each a curiosity worth a look. Take the example above, a typical Englishman in tradition dress out for his stolid and dignified constitutional. Barely worth a second look if it weren’t for the henge-ish thing there: four trilithons in a circle surrounded by bluestones. We thank friend of the blog Feet, oops, we mean Pete, Glastonbury for drawing our attention to this. (That’s not him.) We also thank the shadows and the robe for being so helpfully strategic! Oo-er! We were going to make a comment about “stones” but, really, we’re better than that.

Also from Mr. Glastonbury, photo taken by him, is the curious grouping of stones at the left. He says, “I spotted this in the garden of Teachers Cottage in Avebury High St. It is a representation of the Obelisk and the inner stones of the southern circle in Avebury. An Avebury Model in Avebury!” Just the sort of obscure and odd thing we like, but it makes us wonder–do people build little pyramids next to the Pyramids? Or is it a thing that only henges do to the mind?

And last for this post, for we find, now we’ve started, that we have more of these bits than we thought, is this card we received for winter solstice (and related holidays) from Mr. @jwisser, aka Jonas Wisser, who is, in the interest of full disclosure, the progeny of the Clonehenge perpetrator(s). He had these cards made by [name to be inserted here later because we once again did not do our homework] especially for him. The sun is rather large, but we do believe in poetic license in such cases, and we think it is a cleverly fashioned thing, all in all. Quite observant, putting the remaining three connected lintels front and center.

We will save the rest of our hengy bits for another post. That way those of you who subscribe to our feed get the thrill of yet another of our delightful posts showing up in your inbox just when you need a lift! And we get to go do something else now. Keep sending in your Clonehenge-related news! Frankly we are surprised at the lack of snowhenges this year and suspect some people have been lax about bringing them to our attention. Ahem.

And until next time, happy henging!

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Solstice on the Interwebs

Posted on 18/06/2010 | 2 Comments

from video of Stonehenge Midsummer Sunrise Simulation

Well, it will be summer solstice on Monday and where do you plan to be to see it in? Oh, we know you would like to be at Stonehenge, just you and a few good friends, but what if you can’t get there or if you just don’t care to share it with the circus that takes place there every year? As with everything but dinner and the loo, the internet has the answer! Why not visit Stonehenge virtually or in a video?

Surprisingly, we haven’t been able to find a virtual Stonehenge with a real-time summer sunrise simulation. Neither have we found a video showing the midsummer sun rising at Stonehenge itself, but that is less surprising. If the experience of those gathering there over the years is a guide, then perhaps Stonehenge was built to observe rain and cloud cover rather than the sun at all!

It burns us a little to have to admit that the best-known virtual Stonehenge we’ve found is that on the Heritage Key site. Clonehenge had an unpleasant run-in with them a while back and it left a bitter taste. Still, credit where it is due! You can see a video of their virtual Stonehenge here. (Sorry about that fellow’s accent. There should be a computer application that replaces the voice of anyone talking about Stonehenge with that of David Tenant in best Doctor form!) To access the real virtual Heritage Key Stonehenge, though, you have to sign up at the Heritage Key website.

When you do, Prad Patel, a pleasant member of the staff there tells us: “Stonehenge Virtual always has a summer solstice going on. Unfortunately we can’t make a sunrise happen in real time (yet!) but we’re planning to have a party [for summer solstice] regardless! Have a happy Solstice!” We wish we’d dealt with him the first time!

There is a Stonehenge midsummer sunrise simulation by someone else here.  And a brilliant flythrough of the Stonehenge landscape at this link. Still another video, here, takes us through the monument. There are any number of virtual Stonehenges, but no webcams, unless you count the notorious Dead Bunny Cam!

We hope that eventually virtual models will more faithfully reproduce the true shapes of the stones. Laser scans of some of the stones are already available. When completed they will allow virtual builders to get closer to simulating the true experience. Meanwhile, here’s a sample of what they have so far.

As long as we’re listing, here’s another view of Stonehenge from the inside, presented by BritishTours.com. You need to be running Quicktime, but we like being able to control it, moving up and down, fast and slow. Of course that one’s not virtual but camera-generated, but it’s still a good substitute for the arm chair, or more likely couch, solstice observer. Beat your drum or sacrifice your virgin in the privacy of your own home!

But wait, we hear you say, don’t end this post without showing us the worst Stonehenge video you found! It’s funny you should ask. We have just the thing! The title is Second Life–Spirit Stonehenge, and we can only guess that it is an amalgam of every even remotely Stonehenge-ish thing on SL. We won’t describe it in detail, just do try to hang in there to see Gollum and a dinosaur near the end. Wow!

There are more, plenty more, videos and simulations of Stonehenge out there. Stonehenge is the Lady Gaga, the Justin Bieber of megaliths. We’re almost certain that the famous Pete Glastonbury did a brilliant panorama from inside Stonehenge and we hope he will give us a link to it in the comments.*

But this post is way too long already and you have better things to do this midsummer than to sit here reading Clonehenge. So we part with a link to a lovely still of an anomalous midsummer sunrise, one in which the sun was visible from that old grey pile of rocks. Scroll down and there is a troupe of druids. They must have had some powerful bleach back there in prehistory!

We at Clonehenge wish you a wonderful solstice and a beautiful summer. Remember, if you want to be at Stonehenge, you can always make your own. Happy henging!

*Turns out that British Tours one is his.

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Building Stonehenge at Stonehenge, A Trilithon Model

Posted on 01/03/2010 | 3 Comments

photos are stills from Pete Glastonbury’s Youtube clip, used with permission

Here is one for the record books. Only once before, during the first month Clonehenge existed, did we post a replica that was actually at Stonehenge (Straw echo henge–wow,our posts were short back then!) Here is another one, this time, in keeping with our film and movie theme of late, from a CBS TV special made in 1964 called (like so many other things) The Mystery of Stonehenge.

It happens that a contributor to that TV special, Gerald Hawkins, author of the well-known book Stonehenge Decoded (one of those books that has been on our shelves for so long that we couldn’t say when we bought it!), was an acquaintance of our friend and frequent contributor Mr. Pete Glastonbury. Mr. Glastonbury uncovered a copy of the film in Mr. Hawkins’ archives and sent us the link to this delightful bit at Stonehenge in which Professor Richard Atkinson explains to a CBS reporter how he thinks the monument was built, putting a trilithon replica together in the process. (In the smaller photo here you can see a real sarsen upright in the background.)

What can we say? For the Stonehenge replica nerd, this is about as good as it gets–a renowned Stonehenge scholar putting together a Stonehenge replica at Stonehenge–on film. Score: 7½ druids! It’s great, true, but that’s as high as we can go for what is only a miniature trilithon.

This probably won’t be the last of these old-ish films. We’ve read that Hawkins was filmed explaining his theories using a plastic Stonehenge model and some lighting to simulate the sun shining into the monument at different times of year. If we can find it, we’ll post that, too.

Meanwhile, if all this academia is making you homesick for good old Spinal Tap, here is our post on that. We don’t want to stay too serious about Stonehenge replicas, dudes and dudettes. They are inherently silly things.

Happy henging!

Note added later: Oddly, completely by coincidence, Stonehenge Collectables’ latest addition to their site is a press release and TV Guide listing about a rerun of this CBS special in 1973. You can see it here.

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More Old Film: Model of an Avebury Stone

Posted on 11/02/2010 | 4 Comments

photos and film link sent us by Pete Glastonbury, used with permission

Apparently posting about Stonehenge replicas is, well, just not obscure and geeky enough for us. Otherwise why would we be so delighted to bring you this odd trifle–a film from 1955, narrated by well-known British writer and television personality John Betjeman, that includes, for a few seconds, the above model showing how the  stones of the Avebury monument may have been erected? [for those who don't know about Avebury, see here.]

We’ve posted some other Avebury models. That all started because someone mentioned and we concurred that Avebury is so much larger and impressive than Stonehenge yet there didn’t appear to be any Avebury replicas. Friend of the blog and well-known ancient sites photographer Pete Glastonbury proceeded to come up with not one but several small Avebury models and we couldn’t resist posting them.

This is very much the same story, except this time the only record we have of the model is this film, from about 2:08 to 2:18, minutes and seconds in. Then it goes on to the beakers of the Beaker Culture who are thought to have built Avebury and much of Stonehenge. That, like the rest of the film, is worth a look, of course, but our focus is on those ten seconds showing the model from the museum in Avebury (no doubt the one we know as the Alexander Keiller Museum–we’ve posted models from them before).

Among the things we enjoyed in the film are the certainty about the purpose of Avebury–burial, and about how the stones were erected–with poles and rawhide ropes.  We’re accustomed to much more speculation about these things now. And then there’s this sentence “What makes Avebury so strange is its sinister atmosphere.” Not everyone would agree about that, judging from accounts we’ve heard and from our own visit. Sinister is not a word we would use for the broad sunny expanse we encountered those many years ago!

First broadcast on 23 September 1955, this was the first of twenty six in the series Discovering Britain. We’re not sure whether the others are available. No score for this little stone model. It’s just to enjoy.

We’re starting to think we like this film theme and may just keep it up, on and off for a while as the Academy Awards ceremony approaches. A surprising number of films, better known than this one, featured Stonehenge or its likeness, and since most could not film at the real thing, replicas were made. Try to think of a few more films with Stonehenge-ish things in them, and see if we come up with the same list.

Until we meet again, Happy henging!

[Note: we're told, by @Avebury_News on Twitter, that this model is still in the stables museum.]

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Henge for a Chameleon–1946, Somewhere in a London Zoo

Posted on 29/01/2010 | Leave a comment

copyrighted photo used with © on it. Click photo to visit page.

This is brilliant! British Pathé, a digital news archive, includes a video of chameleons climbing over a small Stonehenge replica at the London Zoo, like huge bizarre creatures of a past age. Brought to our attention by the magnificent yet under-appreciated Pete Glastonbury (unfairly gifted photographer whose speciality is ancient sites), this is probably the oldest existing video of a small Stonehenge replica.

Click >here< to see the British Pathé page, Prehistoric 1946, with video. (Totally worth clicking on just to hear the stentorian 1946 announcer and the ever-so-clever attempt at a humourous ending! ) The text on the page says, “Several shots of a chameleon moving around model of Stonehenge in a London Zoo. Some good close up shots of chameleons. This animal is half brother to lizard and looks like one. Man organises chameleons with hands – probably a zoo keeper.”

The replica is just four trilithons, but there it is, a bit of Stonehenge replica history. No scoring for this. It’s too awesome, too sexy for its trilithons! Please, if you have any old photos or videos of Stonehenge replicas, we want–no–we need to see them!

[This reminds us of the Stonehenge for Lizards post. Hmmm, there's also the Stonehenge at the reptile zoo and the chocolate replica with the plastic lizards. We detect a pattern!. David Icke, where are you when we need you?! ;-) ]

Note: For those who don’t know, subscribers to our Twitter feed get links to extra henges from time to time, including our Friday foodhenges. In case you’re interested. Anyway, have a great weekend. Happy henging!

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Stonehenge Built – in a day! Wiltshire Heritage Museum

Posted on 04/09/2009 | Leave a comment

Stonehenge5photos by Pete Glastonbury, with permission

On Sunday (30 August, 2009 for those of you who are reading this from the future), Wiltshire Heritage Museum and Julian Richards held an event for families in which visitors could help build a partial Stonehenge replica. You may remember our announcement here. By all accounts, including this one, it was a success and a good time was had by all.Stonehenge6

We love the picture on the right. The excessively cute future archaeologist in pink  is putting everything on hold in order to take in what Mr. Richards is teaching them about Stonehenge.

The lesson we want to leave you with today: It’s never too early to introduce Stonehenge replica building to your children! And community Stonehenge building is bound to be the way it was originally done, no matter how Wally Wallington tries to convince people otherwise. Score: 6½ druids. Because while it’s only a trilithon, involving people in the project spreads the word. And, hey, it’s in Wiltshire–automatically more authentic! May this kind of event spread to archaeological museums everywhere.

Stonehenge4

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