Armed with the new information I walked the Grimeston road, which is basically a broad U-shape. Coming up the northern leg you come to a T-junction. Here a short stretch of road goes north to the Stoneyhill Road. At the end of it is the field of the 'Feolquoy' mounds with another such to its north and that containing the Staney Hill long cairn to thats north. The field above this short piece [i.e to its east] has the Staney Hill standing stone itself. At this junction the main portion of Henge is in the field on the right, though of course this would have been one with the standing stone field before the'modern' road. In the near (SW) corner I could see a very well defined feature, a circular bank not many yards across around a flat depression full up with flat stones or slabs. When you are almost at the highest point of Staney Hill there is a very large curving ridge running across, with the supposed entrance a few yards wide clear to see. It is most definitely the line of an old track. Which isn't to say that this could not have been placed along a causeway which its construction destroyed. Turn your eyes to the other side of the road and at the highest point there is a distinct low mound that Dave said would originally have been the place to which all eyes were drawn, rather than the common idea that such heights are for looking down on folk and other sites. Looking downhill/W I could now make out another ridge. This is lower to the ground. Which is another reason to suspect we are dealing with natural features, for one would expect this to be the henge's higher standing section of bank (as with, say, the Hillhead enclosure). The whole of the Staney Hill and Grimeston area is covered with the likes of surviving and dead burns, rocky outcrops, marshy bits. Which would explain why the tracks shown in 1882 are very far from straight. Unfortunately there were several pockets of sheep preventing my closer viewing of the uphill part. Also if there is archaeology here it would probably need pointing out by those with the knowledge. At least I now know why there were so few photos - even my sites have to have something to them ! I did, however, investigate the [as it were] 'ringwork'. Definitely in need of a tidy up. As well as the slabs a lot of the central depression is taken up by a part-buried piece of modern machinery. There are a few visible voids, including one I could see inside. Kneeling down for a closer look in this latter there is about a foot of space into which a short piece of the machinery's cable projects. There was a possible large stone forming the bottom. Sticking my hand inside I unprofessionally tried to lift this. It broke in two and seems to be simply a clump of earth.
On another visit looking from a point S of Henge across from the south bit of road I could see the land distinctly drop off, and this edge is a very smooth curve visible on the 1:25,000 as a contour line. Roughly West of of Henge is the Staney Hill standing stone. Then there is that 'viewpoint' mound, maybe a couple of feet high. Come clockwise and further down is where Andrew extracted a piece of portable art from ploughsoil by the layby, the Grimeston Girlie http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/img_fullsize/90302.jpg having similarities to the Westray Wifie found this year. Unless O.A.S. publishes the chap's doctoral thesis we shall probably hear no more of Henge's real archaeology as an SMR seems unlikely.
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Posted by wideford
27th December 2010ce
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