A Quick List of Stonehenge Movies!!!

Still from this clip from The Black Knight, 1954

As winter solstice approaches, one thing and one thing only is on the mind of the modern henger: what movies should you play for our solstice movie marathon this year? One year you played every movie that had Sun in the title, but that was a mixed bag, and last year, well, one can only watch The Wicker Man so many times in a row. Someone suggested a Doctor Who marathon, but let’s face it: you know AND WE KNOW that you have been having Doctor Who marathons at least twice a week for the last month (and, frankly, he’s tired and out of breath. Hahahahaha! ha?). In fact, to be honest, we can actually see that you have Doctor Who playing in the background right now as you read this. Get a grip, srsly.

We offer this post to bring you a brilliant solution to your quandary. Here is a list, which we do not claim to be complete, of movies and some television shows that have Stonehenge—or some Stonehenge-like substance—in them. We aren’t saying all of them (or, perhaps, any of them) are good movies, or that you’ll enjoy them, although you may enjoy each in its own way (except Sharks of the Corn—no one does. Trust us.). All we’re saying is that at some point in each of these, Stonehenge rears its ugly head, at which point you either throw popcorn at the screen or yell “Score!” and take a strong shot of something.

Plus, you and your friends, should you have any, can do some Stonehenge analysis of your own. Which movie replicas are good? Which are lame? And which actually filmed AT Stonehenge. What’s that you say? Yes. Yes. We know. Doctor Who filmed at Stonehenge. Thank you for that. Nerd.

STONEHENGE MOVIE LIST (replicas unless otherwise marked) no particular order

1. This is Spinal Tap 1984. (getting this one out of the way right away)

2. The Black Knight —1954. unintentionally hilarious Stonehenge sequence with dancing nymphs and murderous druids at Stonehenge

3. National Lampoon’s European Vacation —1985. Chevy Chase represents all of America as he carelessly topples Stonehenge

4. The Mists of Avalon —2001. television mini-series with a scene at a Stonehenge-ish thing

5. King Arthur —2004. Stonehenge by the sea, at Tintagel! he marries Keira Knightley there at the end. Beautiful. And the henge is nice, too. 😉

6. King Lear —1983. said to be filmed on a Stonehenge-like set

7. Merlin: The Return —2000. it’s Merlin, so of course, Stonehenge has to come into it

8. Merlin of the Crystal Caves —1991. television. includes a young Merlin overseeing the erecting of the stones at Stonehenge

9. Tess —1979. for this one, Roman Polanski built a whole Stonehenge in France, or so we’re told. Realistic replica

10. The Colour of Magic —2008. television mini-series of Pratchett’s book. A woman being sacrificed at Stonehenge is saved. Stonehenge as computer hardware

11. Curse of the Demon aka (Night of the Demon) —1957. devil cults, death curses, Stonehenge, REAL Stonehenge

12. Shanghai Knights —2003. they crash into Stonehenge. But this is a digitally mocked-up version

13. Fiddlers Three, or While Nero Fiddled —1944. comedy: people sheltering under Stonehenge in a storm get transported back to Roman times. Hijinks ensue

14. Robin of Sherwood —Television series from the 80s, Includes a linteled, Stonehenge-ish thing, despite taking place near Nottingham

15. Stonehenge Apocalypse —2010. bad movie, BUT Stonehenge (replica). Everyone says it’s terrible, but, sadly, not funny-terrible

16. The Pandorica Opens —2010. okay, yes, this is television, but it’s Doctor Who. REAL Stonehenge

17. Thor: The Dark World —2013. Thor, “dark elves”, Loki, Asgard, and Stellan Skarsgård naked at Stonehenge, yet not as sexy as you probably think.

18. Transformers: The Last Knight. 2017. Unique in having been filmed both at Stonehenge AND at the best Stonehenge replica ever, near Stonehenge in Wiltshire, with rumours, sworn to be true by people we trust (and by Tim Daw 😉 ) of a second secret replica nearby, which we assume got blown up in some enormously satisfying manner. There’s a clip here of a part with Stonehenge—which has been mysteriously enhanced with a circle of huge outlying stones!

19. The Wicker Man—1973. Supposed to take place in Scotland, but a stone circle with at least one lintel, so here it is. Dark rituals, ‘centered on procreation’. Say no more!

20. Sharknado 5: Global Swarming—2017. This AND the Transformers movie in one year. What glories Stonehenge has been a part of! Our understanding is that, in this one, Stonehenge explodes and turns into a sharknado. And that is how the movie starts.

21. The Librarians, And The Crown of King Arthur—television episode that includes a nice little Stonehenge replica. As we recall, one of the stones has a trick door and secret compartment!

22. Sharks of the Corn—2021 We hear this is an awful movie. But that never precludes a Stonehenge appearance! Sharks in corn fields. In Kentucky. With Stonehenge! What more could you ask for??

23. The Eternals—2021 We’re hearing that Stonehenge appears near the end of this new blockbuster. Revision: apparently it only appears in the credits. Still, can’t wait to see the images!

24. Ice Age—2002, Animated At one point characters wander past Stonehenge and one says, “Modern architecture; it’ll never last.” Stonehenge wouldn’t even be there during the Ice Ages but it’s still funny.

25. The Pumaman—1980 An Italian superhero movie that features at one point a Stonehenge by the sea.

26. The Tomb of Ligeia—1964 British horror film starring Vincent Price and Elizabeth Shepherd. I’ve read the plot and have no idea how Stonehenge fits in but it’s there.

27. Alison’s Birthday—1981 Australian horror film in which “a young girl is subjected to a reign of terror so that her soul can be transferred to the body of an old crone” I mean, obviously you would need a Stonehenge!

28. Britannia—a television show with a remarkable, one might even say considerably “improved” Stonehenge that was built in the Czech Republic for the show

Are there more movies and television shows with Stonehenges? Indubitably. Are we done here for now? Yep.

Fill the comments with your corrections and suggestions. We’re ready for you! Let us know how your Stonehenge movie marathon goes!

And until next time, friends, happy henging!

P. S. : 29. Halloween III. 1982. Have to mention it even though it doesn’t actually qualify, because Stonehenge-y-ness in plot.

Also, I don’t know anything else about this Turkish show that translates Valley of the Wolves but check out this scene!

Still should probably add Troll 2, and an episode of Midsomer Murders called The Sleeper Under the Hill. We’re looking into them! Also, there’s a very quick shot taken at Stonehenge in Good Omens when they’re giving Pepper’s back story. And from Anika deGroot, “In one episode of Unforgotten the two detectives drive by Stonehenge. I think it was in Season 2.” Thank you, Anika!

[Our thanks to Aberfoyle, no, Abercrombie, no, what’s ’is name—Aber4th? for telling us about Merlin of the Crystal Caves in the comments. Our thanks to Mr. Barry Teague for the tip about Fiddlers Three. And thank you to Martin Barber for Alison’s Birthday.]

Green Haven Circle: a Private Henge Accurate in One Brilliant Detail!

photo by Robin Goodfellow (yes), used with permission

photo by Robin Goodfellow (no, really!), used with permission

[Note: this circle has now been dismantled, moved to The Green Man, near Lenonan, Missouri, and renamed Goldenleaf Stone Circle. We thank Paul Holsombeck for the information. Below you will find the original post about it when it was Green Haven Circle.]

Not all of our decisions here at the Clonehenge blog are cut and dried. Some small private henges barely make the large permanent list. We admit, a few of the ones we’ve listed are, to be perfectly frank, iffy.

And now, dear readers, you will be thrilled to know that after much consultation and consideration, we have taken the solemn decision to build on that proud record! Toward that end, we present you with another somewhat dubious entry that we have nevertheless approved!

photo by Robin Goodfellow, used with permission

Sent in by one who identifies himself as Robin Goodfellow (an alias? Or is this actually Puck himself?), whose camera has the extraordinary ability to take oil paintings of its subjects, this newly built henge is not far from the much more angular and scientific replica at Rolla, Missouri.

Mr. Goodfellow (and yes, we have verified that gender by email) tells us:

“The circle is in the back yard of a Southern facing house, but can be partially seen from the road or the half-moon driveway. It is made from a combination of Real and Constructed stones. I believe the constructed stones are made from ‘Hypertufa’, although I know that Lava Rock was used in the construction of the Southern Stone and that the Eastern and Western Trilithon Gates have Styrofoam cores under either Hypertufa or Concrete shells. Oh, and while my pictures do not show it well, the circle is around 30 foot in diameter, is surrounded by a 10 inch deep ditch about 12 inches across with a small embankment Inside the ditch and has a single break in the ditch which coincides with the Eastern Trilithon Gate.”

“A small embankment inside the ditch“. Let us consider this for a moment. What is a henge? The most accurate definition is, “a roughly circular or oval-shaped flat area enclosed and delimited by a boundary earthwork – usually a ditch with an external bank.” Interesting, right? BUT a question sometimes asked, in order to separate the Stonehenge cogniscenti wheat from the chaff, so to speak, “Why is Stonehenge not a henge?”, and the answer is: “Because its bank lies inside its ditch.”

So, in short, this new entry has something right that almost everyone else gets wrong! This circle was built by Robin Goodfellow’s friend, Paul Holsombeck, also known as the Green Man (“Here to fill all of your Metaphysical needs“), on the property of his mother, Roseanne Cross-King, and we congratulate him! By this feature alone, his henge qualifies for our list of Large, Permanent Replicas, making it our 78th. (But surely not the last.)

Score: 8 druids! Outrageously high score!, you scream. Yet in its one brilliant detail, this circle transcends its small, private henge genre. Someone did his homework, or, possibly, stumbled accidentally into doing something right, as we all do from time to time. Our thanks to Robin, Paul and, of course, Roseanne!

We’re told this was built for the Friend’s little brother’s handfasting. It is our belief that having the embankment inside the ditch will enhance the effectiveness of the vows there taken. We wish the loving couple the best for decades to come!

Happy Thanksgiving to our USAnian readers! And, until next time, friends, happy henging!

HAPPY 5TH BIRTHDAY TO THE CLONEHENGE BLOG!!!

Cupcakehenges by Simon Burrow and Debora Oswald

The day is here! A happy 5th birthday to us!

It’s astounding that this blog is still here and active after all these years. We’re not sure if the proliferation of Stonehenge replicas around the world is a sign of the creativity and spirit of humankind, or a sign of the decadent state of human society, but whichever it is, we celebrate that today!! From the academic and historical Stonehenge models to the spontaneous alcohol-inspired cheesehenges to the work-and-expense-intensive large permanent replicas, we are proud to be the chroniclers of this peculiar aspect of our species’ activities and efforts.

Carrothenge by Rian Edwards

One thing for certain—Clonehenge would have been abandoned years ago were it not for its many friends and supporters, in particular people like Simon Burrow, Pete Glastonbury, Matt Penny, Bob Bradlee, and many more, who have alerted us to new henges, and given us encouragement when we were ready to quit or even delete the blog forever!

The pictures you see above are edible Stonehenge replicas made to celebrate this most glorious of days and the persistence of the Clonehenge blog through five revolutions of our planet around the sun. How wonderful that these people would use their own time to celebrate us in this way. Thanks to Simon Burrow, Debora Oswald, and Rian Edwards for these gifts! Our gratitude also to those friends, like Lynn Myra McElroy, who wished us a happy 5th birthday!

There are many many Stonehenge replicas yet to be blogged, and we solemnly promise that we will continue to not keep up.

Finally, all glory to the ancient original builders of Stonehenge, without whom this blog would probably be about pyramids or Easter Island heads! It just wouldn’t be as fun, and we would miss all of our favourite Wiltshire people! Which reminds us, are there any replicas of the new Stonehenge Visitor Centre out there? We would consider posting one.

We may add to this post as the day goes on, so we’ll end it for now. Please keep your eyes open for more Stonehenge replicas. We know they’re out there. And until next time, of course, happy henging!

(And here is our very first post, from five years ago today. With thanks to Mr. Jonas M. Wisser!)

Clonehenge Birthday Cakes: Give Us Them!

Stonehenge cake, from CakesWeBake.com

Attention hengers of all kinds: Clonehenge’s 5th birthday is coming up on the 20th of this month, and what better way to celebrate than with photos of Stonehenge cakes?

Examples of Stonehenge cake

Your challenge is to make a Stonehenge cake (or other dessert of your choice), and send us a photo (nancy (dot) wisser (at) gmail.com), or post it to our Facebook group or page, or address it to us on Twitter, @Clonehenge. These can be brilliant or lame. They don’t even have to be cakes. Any sweet goodie roughly Stonehenge-shaped will do.

Rice Krispie henge from Bay Area Bites

We’ll love them regardless! We’ll post the pictures on Facebook, on Twitter, and on the Clonehenge blog itself, and then you get to eat your entry!

You make it, we post it, you eat it. Yum! Happy birthday to us.

Hengers, you may start your ovens!

England-themed Stonehenge cake

Stonehenge cake by Iced-Moments

Wiltshire Museum Models: Replicas for Learning (and for Tourists!)

Stonehenge model, photo by Pete Glastonbury, used with permission

One of the things that have become apparent in the last ALMOST FIVE YEARS that we have been posting on the Clonehenge blog is that there are many different categories of Stonehenge replicas—many reasons for making them, many sizes, many materials, many styles, many places where they are made and where they end up. Generally, each replica falls into several categories, for example: small, carrot, before-it-was-ruined, just-for-fun; large, metal, partial, sculpture/art, or full-sized, edible, citrus, trilithon, parade float (with druid).

There are several kinds of museums that may have Stonehenge replicas (large or small), as we have shown in posts over the years. A clock museum may depict Stonehenge as an early time piece. Astronomical museums often have replicas as examples of how even our distant ancestors were fascinated by the movement of the sun, stars. and planets. Archaeological and historical museums, of course, depict and talk about Stonehenge and the light it sheds on the lives and thoughts of early civilisations.

The Wiltshire Museum, in Devizes, Wiltshire, UK (formerly known as the Wiltshire Heritage Museum), falls more or less into the last category. We’ve shown you some of their Stonehenge and Avebury (and West Kennet Long Barrow and Marden Henge) models before, as well as their stunning and unique “Celtic” Cabinet, all courtesy of friend of the blog and fine photographer of ancient sites, Pete Glastonbury.

Avebury model, photo by Pete Glastonbury, used with permission

Well, HERE ARE MORE! More model, more label, more learning, more fun! The photo at the top is a labeled model of Stonehenge as it may have looked at its height, including station stones, the slaughter stone, and the ditch and bank that (almost) make Stonehenge officially a henge. (Technically it isn’t, quite, but you can look that up yourself.) We don’t know what the model is made of or who made it, but as you can see, this is a very good model.

The lower photo is of Avebury as it may have been at its height in the Bronze Age, with the South and North Circles, including the Cove, and beginnings of the avenues that lead to the Longstones at Beckhampton, and to West Kennet Long Barrow. Nice!

While things like the shapes of individual stones seem not to be addressed (do we even know what shapes the stones were thousands of years ago?), these are about as close as we get to definitive models. The anonymous model makers would probably be offended by our units of reward, but we nevertheless give these models a 7 druids score! Very good score, considering their size.

Models like this aren’t as whimsical or exciting as many of the others we’ve posted, but they are still Stonehenge replicas and our blog would be incomplete without them, and that, friends, cannot be allowed.

Our deep gratitude once again to Mr. Pete Glastonbury! Remember, as Christmas approaches and you need something unusual for your discerning family members and friends, Pete’s unique photographs of Stonehenge, Avebury, and Silbury Hill make great gifts! And if you’re truly interested in knowing more about Stonehenge and the surrounding ancient landscape, AND you have iBooks, you’ll enjoy the unusually broad spectrum of knowledge in his Stonehenge Guide. [Spoiler: he actually admits he knows us!]

We don’t make any money from those promotions, but when you buy something because we said so, it gives us a false feeling of power and importance. We need that gratification, people!

Thank you for reading, and until next time (when we have a new large permanent replica to share), happy henging!

Stonehenge Pumpkin, Just a Photo for You

Stonehenge-Carved pumpkin by Elly

This was brought to our attention on Facebook by Kevin Smith. It had been posted by Stonehenge Stone Circle. We’re not sure who Elly is. But we thought you would want to see it. Very nicely done!

Candy Corn Henge Redux, with Instructions: Happy Halloween from Clonehenge!

from fiveandspice on food52.com

A quick post to share this post from Food52, not only showing the henge, but telling how to create it!

Attending a Halloween party soon? Unable to attract as much attention as shapely she-devils, vagina masks, and Boston terriers dressed as walruses? Now you can be the life of the party and wow everyone with your candy corn Stonehenge creation!!

Okay, it’s true, people may still completely ignore you, but you’ll be doing your part to bring back that old time religion and put the Samhain back in Halloween, so there’s that!

And you can send Clonehenge your photos afterward!

See another candy corn henge from 2009. And here’s another Halloween post on Clonehenge: the Witch Henge. And possibly our scariest post of all was about the Caelum Moor sculptures in Texas!

Keep safe, bring a costumed dog to your party, and until next time, friends, Happy Halloween henging!

The Henge on a Hill off Longhollow Road: It’s a Mystery!

Photo of the Longhollow Road replica, by Karl J Mohr, used with permission

Recent update since this page is getting some traffic: this Stonehenge is no longer a mystery. In fact its builder, Ralph Radke, even joined the Clonehenge: Stonehenge Replicas Unleashed group on Facebook. And here is a delightful article about him and his henge from the Galena Gazette, June 2020: Building his very own Stonehenge. Anyway, we welcome any new visitors and invite you to have a look at our list of large permanent replicas around the world!

________[the original article below]________

Happy October and welcome! When we last left the state of Illinois (almost five years ago!), it was boasting a single, rather idiosyncratic Stonehenge replica not far outside Chicago at a paragliding and flight field. That one has since gone to new owners and for all we know may no longer be there.

Illinois was chugging along with that large replica and one or two smaller museum replicas, and then in late winter or early spring of this year we heard from a fellow named Chad Delhotal, who said,

“There is a fairly large stone replica of Stonehenge on a road (could be Longhollow Rd) just north of Rt 20 between the towns of Galena and Elizabeth in northwestern Illinois. No mention of this anywhere, but it’s there.”

He sent us a link to a site that included this photo, and then managed to get us the coordinates so we could find it on Google Maps. We sat back and stared. It is rare for us to hear about a full-sized United States replica that is in plain site these days. We thought we had them all, dammit!

Megalithic thingie in Galena Illinois

It was suspicious. When a new Stonehenge replica shows up, there is invariably an article about it in the local or regional newspaper. It’s the kind of wacky thing papers love to put in the lifestyle section, and usually henge builders like to show their henges off. There was nothing at all online about this, although there seems to be some other megalithic structure/thingie in the car park of the Irish Cottage Boutique Hotel in nearby Galena, Illinois.

We added the new henge to our List of Large Permanent Replicas and sat back, hoping for more information to roll in. Surely the Clonehenge Faithful (an imaginary fan club we talk to a lot when no one’s around) would get us more information! Right? Months went by and nothing,. Nothing, we tell you! A maddening silence of epic proportions. Dammit, humanity, you had ONE job!

Then six months later we received this email from a Karl Mohr (surely a pseudonym or maybe an acronym—let’s see…Keeping A Replica Lost…, well, maybe not.). The email said,

“I was at a scenic overlook area near Elizabeth, IL and saw a Stonehenge type of structure about 2 miles in the distance (It was barely visible to the naked eye – I caught it thru my 300mm zoom lens). I decided to drive there and snap a few shots from the road. I’d be willing to share them if you’re interested.”

Aerial view from Google Maps

We were interested, and one of his brilliant photos is at the top of his post, another below. BUT the mystery remains. We have scoured maps and done searches, but we can’t even find the names of the people who live in the house closest to the replica, surely the first suspects we would like to interrogate. We don’t know when this henge was built, who built it, why it was built, or what it’s made of.

We can see from the aerial view that it consists of the sarsen ring and an inner trilithon horseshoe. It appears to be large, if not full-sized, and fairly new but not brand new, judging from the lack of a visible road by which the stones may have been hauled there.

Of course, the stones could have been lowered by alien space ships, but our doctor tells us not to think about things like that these days!

Someone has gone to the trouble of planning and building this Stonehenge replica in rural Illinois without seeking the spotlight, without any major news outlets picking it up, and without advertising. Why? Questions abound, my friends! But we have, alas, no answers, the definition of a mystery.

As for a score, hard to say, but it looks very nice. We award it a tentative 7 druids! For size and looks, mostly, and a little extra for the whole mystery going on.

If any of you live or visit nearby, please ask around for us and find out what the locals know! Why would you build a huge Stonehenge replica and not tell anyone about it? The force of the Stonehenge-building urge never fails to amaze.

Photo by Karl Mohr, used with permission

Keep reporting those replicas, large and small. And until next time, friends, happy henging!

“Tonehenge” in Massachusetts: Henging Inspiration in the Wake of the Flood!

One of the trilithons with another in the background, photo by permission of Pat

Greetings, henge-O-philes! Welcome to another edition of Wow, People Sure Make a Lot of Henges! also known as Clonehenge. Today for your viewing pleasure we journey to Colrain, Massachusetts, where a couple of years ago, in August of 2011, a devastating storm by the name of Irene tore through, wreaking havoc. Among many things that were damaged and destroyed was the beautiful garden of Tony Palumbo and his partner Michael Collins.

Probably everyone here can guess the rest. In an effort to link art and the earth, and to express the grandeur of the place and what had happened to it, they ended up designing a new garden worthy of Clonehenge. This creation, affectionately known as Tonehenge after its designer, Tony, is the 77th addition to our List of Large Permanent Replicas!

For those who have a few minutes to spend, here is a video tour of the new garden. We include this in the post largely because in it Mr. Palumbo says one of our favourite words: trilithon! And you thought we just made that word up, didn’t you?

At just about 3 minutes in, Mr. Palumbo says, “As we look around, we can see the second arch. There’s an actual word for it. I don’t have it right now…trilithon or something. [a few sentences, and then…] And as we look around we see the rest of the Stonehenge area. It’s getting to be known as Tonehenge, but I love Stonehenge…”

And there you have it. If any of you wags had doubts about this garden (which is 100 feet across, by the way) belonging in the Clonehenge blog, there is your proof. He loves Stonehenge, which we translate roughly as, ‘Stonehenge has used this man’s feelings and brain to reproduce itself yet again!’

The whole story is more involved and interesting than we have room for here. You can read more about it and see more pictures on the Commonweeder blog, whom we thank for photo permission, on Mike and Tony’s own Green Emporium blog, and in this article in the Massachusetts Republican, which was sent to us as an actual newspaper clipping (!!!) by Carolyn Bradley, friend and family of the bloggers here at Clonehenge. (Eventually everyone we know gets sucked in. Stonehenge is very powerful.)

Tony’s vision was brought to fruition by the work and creativity of neighbour and stone artist Paul Forth, who chose the stones with care and made some subsequent creative decisions. May we all have such neighbours when we go to rebuild our gardens!

This is not, in the strictest sense a Stonehenge replica, but, like many others before it, is sort of a Stonehenge sculpture. We don’t always give them druids, but we happen to have a few druids lying around right now, dying for a good home, so, Score: 6 druids for this use of Stonehenge as recovery from disaster and symbol of rebirth. Bravo, gentlemen!

We have more new henges to bring to the table, but all good things take time! Until next time, sweet friends, happy henging!

Guest Post: The Cyber-Coenobite Goes to Hemsby!

“A henge? At Hemsby? How could it possibly be?“

A warm welcome to friend of the blog Burton Dasset, and thank you for permission to use this post, only slightly altered, from his blog, The Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley!

…somebody put a sack over my head. I was thrown into a car, and driven for a number of hours, and then I was thrown out onto a beach. When I had pulled the bag off my head, I investigated the pain I had been suffering from in my chest. I discovered somebody had stapled an envelope to it. Inside the envelope was a chalet key, and the message “research the Henge”.

A henge? At Hemsby? How could it possibly be? And yet, there it was:

“And yet there it was!“

Its location took some time to understand. My first thought was that it was placed there, almost the most easterly point of England, to receive the first beams of the Summer Solstice sunrise. However, the enormous dunes that block off the henge from the eastern horizon suggest that this is not the case.

View-blocking dunes

It is, however, close to a couple of bars, and very handy for the cafe next to the beach. On closer investigation, I was able to start to piece together some of the details of the way the Henge was created. It seems that the structure was built in three distinct phases. I call these Hemsby Stonehenge Phases I, II and III. However the man in the guardian’s hut referred to them as “9-hole, 12-hole and 18-hole”. He also claimed it was built in about 2003. Which is later than the Wiltshire Stonehenge, of course, but still – a 4,000 year old monument is quite something.

In fact, I suspect I may have found signs of an earlier-yet construction: for are these posts not remnants of the “Hemsby Woodhenge”, which predated the pink concrete version? The hole in the centre may be used for ritual purposes, akin to the Aubrey Holes at the Wiltshire version of this great monument.

Hemsby Woodhenge

And so we are left with a mystery. We may know where Hemsby Stonehenge is, we may be able to see the wondrous way the sun sets through the Great Trilithon, and over the chip shop opposite. But what can we make of the strange rituals of the Pilgrims at this monument? They walk around the Henge as if it is labyrinth – making strange swinging motions with their metal sticks, which gleam in the sunlight. Perhaps they are honouring their dead? Or is their clockwise path round the monument an homage to the sun’s diurnal journey? Are they walking alongside the sun? Or attempting to strengthen it – to bring back the long days of summer – maybe even encourage it to stay out for more than ten minutes at a time? Do the mats of green represent the world of life – while the gravel and stone-effect surroundings represent the world of the dead?

I believe that the ritual where the pilgrims roll small balls down a slope and into a brook represent the very act of passing over to the afterlife. Certainly, when they enact this ritual they say some very strong oaths. At other times, the Pilgrims seem to speak in strange tongues, or at least in code – for what could “That number 11 is never a par 2” possibly mean?

I have had a couple of pints of Old Speckled Hen and will now lay me down to rest in my little chalet to ponder further into these things. But I believe that it will always be with me – the mystery of the Hemsby Stonehenge.

Our heartfelt gratitude to Burton Dasset and whoever kidnapped him to Hemsby! For the curious, Clonehenge’s former mentions of the Hemsby golfhenge can be seen here, and here. Until next time, friends, happy henging!