Stonehendge

Sometime between 3000-2000 BC, animal skin clad people left their mud huts and shivering in the grey drizzle of what is now Wiltshire England decided to construct  a  circle of stones.. 

Why did they drag these multi-ton rocks miles to form a circle on a wind swept field?

Was it to greet the summer and winter solstice ( the idea in fashion today)?

Given  the culture and people of prehistory Britain left no written records, theories about Stonehenge's purpose are the subject of fierce debate and modern conjecture.

They're an impressive pile of stones at any rate.

Today the public is kept a respectable distance, but up until 1977 people were free to touch, climb all over them and chip off souvenirs to take home.

The day we went was plan B.

Our first foray was last Saturday which was characterized by horizontal rain necessitating a hasty retreat back to the car.

Though stormy on Sunday we dodged the rain and even saw a brief glimpse of sun.

Its in the 20th century all manner of New Age groups have embraced the site. Most notably the "Neo Druids"

This despite the almost universal agreement by scholars that the original Druids had nothing to do with it. 

As the historian Ronald Hutton put it ;"It was a great, and potentially uncomfortable, irony that modern Druids had arrived at Stonehenge just as archaeologists were evicting the ancient Druids from it."

Everything from Arthurian legends to "healing place" have been proposed and dismissed due to lack of any tangible evidence.

All we know is that scores of people  were buried there, so its status as a graveyard is clear..

"Neo Druids" ; some people have far too much time on their hands.

We stayed in Salisbury where besides taking in the new Bond film Sky Fall ( not bad), we went to Salisbury Cathedral.  

Its a gorgeous example English Medieval architecture (completed in the mid 12th century) and houses the original  Magna Carta (which we didn't see) in its Charter House wing.

The high light of the visit was hearing the angelic choir singing during the Sunday service.
Truly beautiful and atmospheric in the old church.

That's it for today.

Hope everyone is happy and healthy.

T