Woodhenge

Amesbury, England

There are many prehistoric sites found throughout the British Isles. Some of them are world famous, like Stonehenge. Others are not as well known, including the nearby Woodhenge.

Although about the same age as Stonehenge, Woodhenge remained unknown for many years until Gilbert Insall conducted an aerial archaeological survey of Wessex in 1925. The site was known as an earthwork, but the photographs confirmed it as a henge. Ben and Maud Cunningham, the couple who confirmed that Woodhenge is a henge, purchased the land and had concrete posts installed to represent each of the original posts. Many items have been excavated from the site, including pottery, animal bones, and flint tools. 

At one time, Woodhenge was made of wooden posts that could have been as tall as 25 feet. The wooden posts were arranged in the same manner as Stonehenge, so the site remained important during the solstice events. Woodhenge was similar in size and shape to Stonehenge, so it is believed to have served as a celestial calendar used in ancient rituals. 

It is possible to walk amongst the replaced wooden logs. Unlike Stonehenge, visitors can walk amongst all of the concrete pillars. The monument allows the current visitor to speculate about links to our past.

I was glad to visit Woodhenge as it is different than Stonehenge. My best piece of travel advice from this post is: when you seek out the world’s famous sites, look around to see what’s close by, as you might be surprised by what you come across. Only two miles from Stonehenge, we got to experience a site just as old that we could walkthrough with only a few people visiting. With a prehistoric site that has only been rediscovered in the last hundred years, it leaves one to wonder just how much of our history is still out there to rediscover.