Littlestone
Trevethy Stone by Charles Knight, circa 1845. Private collection.
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East Kennet Long Barrow (right). Silbury (centre) and West Kennet near the skyline to the left.
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Church of St Mary the Virgin at Great Canfield, Essex, with the interesting fylfot/pagan reliefs in its porch, and a single large stone in its south wall.
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Large stone in the north wall of the Church of St Mary the Virgin at Little Baddow, Essex (notice also the puddingstones and Roman tiles/bricks in the wall).
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Fair fall on thee the morning light. Avebury from the south-east quadrant.
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Yet rest there, Shelley, on the sill,
For though the winds come frorely
I’m away to the rain-blown hill
And the ghost of Sorley.
From “Sorley’s Weather” by Captain Robert Graves (Fairies and Fusiliers, 1917) which ends with the above. See also Rhiannon’s link of 4 October 2005 – themodernantiquarian.com/site/2617/barbury_castle.html
Image credit: Littlestone
Alphamstone, ‘north’ interior sarsen. The sarsen is embedded in the foundations on the north side of the old west entrance (now blocked) to the church. See also northstoke.blogspot.com/ entry for 7 October 2008.
Image credit: Littlestone
Alphamstone, ‘south’ interior sarsen. The sarsen is embedded in the foundations on the south side of the old west entrance (now blocked) to the church. See also northstoke.blogspot.com/ entry for 7 October 2008.
Image credit: Littlestone
One of two sarsens at the entrance to Fryerning Lane
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One of two painted stones in front of Walkers Estate Agents
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One of two painted stones in front a Chinese restaurant
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One of the eight Ingatestone stones, now on the south side of Ingatestone church but discovered in the north wall of the church during building work for the organ chamber there in 1905.
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The astonishing puddingstone wall (Norman) on the north side of Ingatestone Church. Did the puddingstones once form part of the circle here?
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Where juggernauts thunder by. One of the eight Ingatestone stones, two of which are now perilously placed on either side of Fryerning Lane leading off from Ingatestone High Street.
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A chilling photograph of one of several defaced stones in the Avenue at Avebury taken twelve years ago. The sackcloth is not part of the vandalism, it was used by conservators from Bristol University to cover the stones while the graffiti was removed.
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One of two sarsens in front of the gate of the Church of St Mary with St Leonard in Broomfield, Chelmsford.
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Two sarsens outside The Church of St Mary with St Leonard in Broomfield, Chelmsford.
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Puddingstone in the south wall of The Church of St Mary with St Lawrence, Broomfield, Chelmsford.
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Close-up of the pudingstone in the south wall of The Church of St Mary with St Lawrence, Broomfield, Chelmsford.
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Recently exposed stone (ironstone?) in the foundations of the east wall of the Church of St John the Baptist, Pewsey.
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2007 Avebury Megameet T-shirt design.
Image credit: Stukeley/BuckyE
Puddingstone in the south wall of The Church of St Mary with St Leonard, Broomfield, Chelmsford.
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One of two sarsens in front of the gate of The Church of St Mary with St Leonard in Broomfield, Chelmsford.
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Puddingstone in the south wall of The Church of St Mary with St Leonard, Broomfield, Chelmsford.
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Church of St Barnabus, Alphamstone, with cup and ring marks? in stone along west front of church
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Church of St Barnabus, Alphamstone, with cup and ring marks? in stone along west front of church
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Christ Church, East Kennet. Christianised Site?
themodernantiquarian.com/post/66765/weblog/christ_church_east_kennet_christianised_site.html
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Four small sarsen stones lying alongside some of the steelwork taken from the Atkinson Tunnel, and now in the English Heritage/Skanska compound at the base of Silbury Hill.
Image credit: Anonymous
John Aubrey (1626-1697) visited Clyffe Pypard in, or around, 1660 – some twelve years after his visit to Avebury where he records being, “...wonderfully surprised at the site of these vast stones, of which I had never heard before, as also the mighty bank and graffe (grass) about it.” At Clyffe Pypard he describes the Church of St Peter as, “Here is a handsome Church, and have been very good windowes.”
While the tower, nave, aisles and porch of the Church of St Peter were built in the 15th century there remains some 14th century stonework in the south porch. Further study may show that the Norman church was built on the foundations of an earlier Saxon one and, as at other Christianised sites, the Saxon church may have been built on a pre-Christian structure. Six of the buttresses have sarsen stones under them, only one of which has been cut to the shape of the buttress. The other five sarsens, one of which is very large, are left protruding as they do under the buttresses of the Church of St James, Avebury; the Church of St Katherine and St Peter, Winterbourne Bassett and the Church of St John the Baptist, Pewsey.
The Church of St Peter is situated at the bottom of a steep escarpment and is set in a well-cared for graveyard surrounded by trees.* There is a distinct air of a ‘grove’ about the place which is reminiscent of the grove, and its disordered sarsens, by the river close to Pewsey Church. The leafy and sarsen-paved footpath that leads east past the church comes out on a secluded meadow with a magnificent oak tree at its centre. Nearby is a stream and lake. Nikolaus Pevsner, art and architectural historian and author of The Buildings of England, is buried with his wife at a place between the lake and the church – their grave is marked by a headstone of slate.**
About a mile from Clyffe Pypard, towards Broad Town and close to Little Town Farmhouse, is the cottage which Pevsner used as a country retreat. The cottage was formerly the home of the poet and literary critic Geoffrey Grigson, whose friends included Paul Nash and John Piper. Nash and Piper between them produced numerous paintings of Avebury, West Kennet Long Barrow, Stonehenge and other megalithic structures.***
* The ‘Clyffe’ of Clyffe Pypard refers to the adjacent escarpment. ‘Pypard’ refers to Richard Pypard who was Lord of the Manor in 1231.
** gsd.harvard.edu/research/publications/hdm/back/21_long.html
Image credit: Littlestone
John Aubrey (1626-1697) visited Clyffe Pypard in, or around, 1660 – some twelve years after his visit to Avebury where he records being, “...wonderfully surprised at the site of these vast stones, of which I had never heard before, as also the mighty bank and graffe (grass) about it.” At Clyffe Pypard he describes the Church of St Peter as, “Here is a handsome Church, and have been very good windowes.”
While the tower, nave, aisles and porch of the Church of St Peter were built in the 15th century there remains some 14th century stonework in the south porch. Further study may show that the Norman church was built on the foundations of an earlier Saxon one and, as at other Christianised sites, the Saxon church may have been built on a pre-Christian structure. Six of the buttresses have sarsen stones under them, only one of which has been cut to the shape of the buttress. The other five sarsens, one of which is very large, are left protruding as they do under the buttresses of the Church of St James, Avebury; the Church of St Katherine and St Peter, Winterbourne Bassett and the Church of St John the Baptist, Pewsey.
The Church of St Peter is situated at the bottom of a steep escarpment and is set in a well-cared for graveyard surrounded by trees.* There is a distinct air of a ‘grove’ about the place which is reminiscent of the grove, and its disordered sarsens, by the river close to Pewsey Church. The leafy and sarsen-paved footpath that leads east past the church comes out on a secluded meadow with a magnificent oak tree at its centre. Nearby is a stream and lake. Nikolaus Pevsner, art and architectural historian and author of The Buildings of England, is buried with his wife at a place between the lake and the church – their grave is marked by a headstone of slate.**
About a mile from Clyffe Pypard, towards Broad Town and close to Little Town Farmhouse, is the cottage which Pevsner used as a country retreat. The cottage was formerly the home of the poet and literary critic Geoffrey Grigson, whose friends included Paul Nash and John Piper. Nash and Piper between them produced numerous paintings of Avebury, West Kennet Long Barrow, Stonehenge and other megalithic structures.***
* The ‘Clyffe’ of Clyffe Pypard refers to the adjacent escarpment. ‘Pypard’ refers to Richard Pypard who was Lord of the Manor in 1231.
** gsd.harvard.edu/research/publications/hdm/back/21_long.html
Image credit: Littlestone
Stonehenge, by I Cowley in his 1744 map of Wiltshire for R Dodsley’s, The Geography of Britain.
Image credit: Littlestone
Sarsen under the north-east buttress (thanks to Nigel Swift for spotting this).
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The larger of the two trapdoors can now be lifted revealing a sarsen beneath.
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Willow and Stones at the Swallowhead Spring (1995)
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The sarsen under the north-west buttress of the Church of St James, Avebury.
Image credit: Littlestone
The sarsen under the south-east buttress of the Church of St John the Baptist, Pewsey. The stone has a soft red hue and appears to have been dressed. The tip (foreground) was perhaps the top of the stone when it was in a vertical position.
Image credit: Littlestone