Yesterday we walked along the Avon to Old Sarum and then down into Salisbury. The villages are pretty – lots of thatched cottages and spruced up houses with Range Rovers in the drive. A reader in Beverly Hills sent me an extract from Pagan Britain by Ronald Hutton. (Yes, I expect you to be impressed that there is a reader for these esoteric offerings in LA.)
He sent me the bit about the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Ages that deals with the Wessex Superhenges. I’m looking forward to reading it and, to be truthful, feel more like sinking a G&T than writing a new post. So I’m fortunate to have another reader, Guy Jordan, who sent me this comment which I have hijacked and turned into a guest blog. So you read Guy while I settle down to Pagan Britain and that G&T.
“Your blog on “Great Stones” reminded me of a recent chance encounter with great stones of my own. On my way up to Scotland in April I spent the night at an Airbnb in Eskdale (Note: if something seems too good to be true it almost certainly is too good to be true!). Whilst there I went for a walk and followed signs for two stone circles, The Lupin Stanes and The Girdle Stanes. Set on the banks of the Border Esk and within a mile of each other they were apparently erected within a few hundred years of each other over two thousand years ago. The stones may not look large in the attached picture but I honestly have no idea how they could have been moved with modern heavy lifting equipment.
Standing in the circles I really felt that I could have been there all that time ago when they had just been completed. Very little would have changed in the valley. Inevitably my thoughts turned to why they had been erected. I then realised that I wish I had met him. Let’s call him Og. One morning Og got up and called together the tribe that was living in Eskdale at the time. I can only assume that, in his best Neolithic grammar, he said to the tribe “Listen team, I have this wonderful idea. I know that we are all starving and can hardly keep ourselves fed, dressed and warm, but I think that if we devote all our energies to building a stone circle down by the river everything will be ok”. I then assume that they said back to him “What a fantastic idea Og. Why didn’t we think of that for ourselves. Will you help organise us and we will do all the work”.
I am not sure whether we do not have enough Ogs about today or whether we have too many. Either way I think that I would have enjoyed sitting next to Og at your next party.”
It has been a super walk and an additional pleasure was stopping along the way to chat to locals who were full of interesting information. For balance I’ll let Robert have almost the last word.
“Honestly Christopher, you keep walking up to complete strangers and rambling on for ages.”
The Stones have to have the last shout.
Morning Christopher,
Have you visited the Rollright Stones outside Long Compton on the Oxfordshire/Warwickshire border? If not, I would suggest you might include them on one of your next walks; a friend of mine once tried to buy them – and they are only a short stroll from the Hook Norton Brewery, which may be another welcome stopping-off point on a warm day…….
James, I’ve never seen or even heard of the Rollright Stones until today. The Stones and brewery look like an excellent circular walk.