Tag Archives for California Stonehenge

Claremont Henge, California

P7200031photos by Simon Burrow, with permission

The old question–doth a trilithon a Stonehenge make? And the answer may be, It depends how desperate you are for material for your blog. In this case we have no qualms including the item since  noted Stonehenge replica scholar Simon Burrow suggested it. We’ll blame him! Looking at his blogs, he seems like such a thoughtful, intelligent, good-hearted person, it’s difficult to understand how he became involved in this sordid henge business, but there it is. You may see his posting of this trilithon here.

You may remember Mr. Burrow from such feats of henging as LaptopHenge and the magnificent Cellphonehenge, as well as some of the photos on the International Virtual Henge Fest page. (Click on the word Henge on the side of his blog, linked in the photo caption above, to see still more.)

P7200032Mr. Burrow likens the spiral on the hitching stone near the trilithon to the Anasazi snail design, but some of our readers may be reminded as we were, of the spiral designs carved in to stones at the Newgrange passage grave in Ireland. Although California is closer to the Anasazi sites, the trilithon’s possible reference to Stonehenge makes the Newgrange reference just as likely. Of course, the spiral is universal, and for all we know could be the logo for their tanning studio!

It’s just a trilithon with two shorter stones that we could charitably call bluestones. As for the spiral stone, well, at least it’s not an Easter Island head! Score: 5 druids. Of course, if it should turn out that everyone on this block had a trilithon and two bluestones, the score would rise rapidly. A community Stonehenge replica . . . for now it remains but a happy dream!

Springhill Gardens, Replica in California

springhill-3photos by Dan Koellen, with permission

At Springhill Gardens near Lincoln, California, somewhere amid the 400-foot-long statuary garden, the Tequila Hill garden, full of agaves, the shade garden, a knot garden, a rose garden, a palm garden and–most intriguing to us–the pink-flamingo-and-gnome garden (!!), there stands a Stonehenge replica of sorts (the photographer says it is not made of stone but of something resembling stucco). It isn’t small but might be almost lost in this huge  garden of many parts. The garden is owned by John Poswall, a Brit (mystery solved!) and his wife Peg.

springhill-2It’s an odd-looking one, we have to say, reminding us a bit of the post-henge at Rainwater Observatory in French Camp, Mississippi (seen with hemispherical addition in photo).  We don’t know if this replica is of stone. It must have taken some doing to vary the lengths of the uprights in order to keep the lintels level! To be honest, the resemblance to Stonehenge itself is a but tenuous, but the owners call it a Stonehenge replica and we’ve been in this business long enough to know that people always have their reasons. It certainly has a lovely setting!

Score: 6 druids. It’s trilithon-free, but we like the outlying stones  and we’re sentimental about beautiful landscape settings. Landscape seems to have been important to the builders of the original.

If we owned it, we might look into training some ducks to walk in a circle, just to stun visitors approaching on a tour!