Hello!
Yesterday we visited Stonehenge. As anyone who has also visited Stonehenge may agree, we were slightly disappointed. The actual location was a surprise. There is a main road that runs just a few metres away and if you didn't want to stop and listen to the running commentary on your handheld radio, the whole experience would only take about 10 minutes.
Having said that however, there were a few occurrences that got in our way! It would have been really nice to have a car and visit not just Stonehenge but some other sites of importance in the area as well. Also, due to our 1 and 1/2 hour train ride taking 2 and 1/2 hours we missed the last tour bus out there and had to catch a taxi instead. This meant that we missed out on the historical information on the place. But... we were given handheld radio's to hold to our ears which gave a bit of informtion. They actually don't really know the purpose of the stones and it was so cold out there that it was quite hard to hold it to your ear and concentrate with the wind threatening to freeze my hands and ears off!
I did pick up a few things though, there are 2 stones on the outer edge of the henge and they think that originally there were 4. Of the 2 that are left, one marks the place that is sunrise on the summer solstice and the other marks the place of sunrise on the winter solstice (I think that's what it is anyway). This could be a clue as to what the whole place was for however, some experts also think that the 4 original stones on the outside of the henge were markers that guided the builders contructing Stonehenge.
The information booklet says that the larger stones in the centre are Sarsen stones brought from the Marlborough Downs 30km away, the smaller ones are Bluestones from the Preseli Mountains in Wales, 385km away. The actual monument was constructed in 3 phases:
- 3050BC a circular ditch and bank (a henge) was built.
- Circa 2500BC Wooden structure constructed at centre.
- 2500-1500BC Stone moument constructed, arranged and re-arranged over almost 1000 years.
After Stonehenge we decided to have a very quick look at Salisbury Cathedral. We could see it's impressive spire from all over town and when we got close it was really impressive! I'll steal a bit of a blurb from a website for some info on the Cathedral:
"The first cathedral was built at Old Sarum by St Bishop Osmund between 1075 and 1092. A larger building was subsequently built on the same site in c.1120. However, deteriorating relations between the clergy and the military at Old Sarum led to the decision to resite the cathedral elsewhere. Thus the city of New Sarum, known as Salisbury, was founded in 1220, and the building of the new cathedral begun by Bishop Richard Poore in 1220. The main body was completed in only 38 years and is a masterpiece of Early English architecture, the stones which make up the cathedral came down from Old Sarum The spire, which is 404 feet (123 metres) tall was built later, and is the tallest spire in the UK.
The cathedral is built on a gravel bed with unusually shallow foundations of 18 inches upon wooden faggots: the site is supposed to have been selected by firing an arrow from Old Sarum, although this is clearly legend due to the distance involved (although it is sometimes claimed the arrow hit a white deer, which continued to run and died on the spot where the Cathedral now exists).
The cathedral's library contains the best surviving of the four remaining copies of the Magna Carta.
The novel Sarum by Edward Rutherford, is an imaginary retelling of the history of Salisbury."
We were reading a local magazine while having lunch in Salisbury that the 'Time' team (a TV program that looks at Archaeological sites) had just recently done a section on this cathedral. Apparantly, they found that due to it's shallow foundations it shouldn't really be standing!
After having a quick look at the outside of the cathedral we wandered through a park back to the train station. Check out the pictures of the park... it's a very pretty place!
That's all for now.
x S & J
