http://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/2009/08/01/stonehenge-theories-revisited/ News and debate from Gardenvisit.com Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:21:09 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 hourly 1 http://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/2009/08/01/stonehenge-theories-revisited/comment-page-1/#comment-1897 Tom Turner Sun, 02 Aug 2009 08:01:27 +0000 http://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/?p=2071#comment-1897 Thank you for an interesting post - and a wonderful poem, in which my favourite lines are "The answer to these clauses form the government Trustees/Was ‘Bother Mr Chubb, we’ll do exactly as we please'" The comment on EH has equal validity "Entitled ‘English Heritage’, and what these people do/Is bugger up historic sites; their head’s Lord Montagu." I'd like to hear what John Mitchell has to say about the National Trust! Re Stonehenge, I remain doubtful about it having been designed to be viewed from afar. Even if Mike Parker Pearson is right about the type of snail indicating a lack of woodland, (1) the earth mound could well have been high enough to prevent inward views (2) many other henges are in lower land, where as the archaeologists say, they "must" have been surrounded by woodland. There is, for me, a visual plausibility in Stonehenge having been a secret place seen only on special occasions, as was the case with Egyptian temples. There is some pleasant criticism of archaeologists in Norman Davies' history of <i>The Isles</i>. He argues that they are all scientists and therefore close their eyes to non-scientific 'evidence'. I would add that they also have a strange tendency to build the wildest theories on the skimpiest 'evidence'. One thinks, fondly, of convent girls throwing off the traces when they escape from the nuns. Thank you for an interesting post – and a wonderful poem, in which my favourite lines are “The answer to these clauses form the government Trustees/Was ‘Bother Mr Chubb, we’ll do exactly as we please’” The comment on EH has equal validity “Entitled ‘English Heritage’, and what these people do/Is bugger up historic sites; their head’s Lord Montagu.” I’d like to hear what John Mitchell has to say about the National Trust!
Re Stonehenge, I remain doubtful about it having been designed to be viewed from afar. Even if Mike Parker Pearson is right about the type of snail indicating a lack of woodland, (1) the earth mound could well have been high enough to prevent inward views (2) many other henges are in lower land, where as the archaeologists say, they “must” have been surrounded by woodland. There is, for me, a visual plausibility in Stonehenge having been a secret place seen only on special occasions, as was the case with Egyptian temples.
There is some pleasant criticism of archaeologists in Norman Davies’ history of The Isles. He argues that they are all scientists and therefore close their eyes to non-scientific ‘evidence’. I would add that they also have a strange tendency to build the wildest theories on the skimpiest ‘evidence’. One thinks, fondly, of convent girls throwing off the traces when they escape from the nuns.

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