GREAT STONES AND FIELDS OF GOLD: Salisbury and Stonehenge

“Can you imagine trying to talk six hundred people into helping you drag a fifty-ton stone eighteen miles across the countryside and muscle it into an upright position, and then saying, 'Right, lads! Another twenty like that, plus some lintels and maybe a couple of dozen nice bluestones from Wales, and we can party!'” -Bill Bryson, from Notes from a Small Island

There is a place where fields of barley give way to fields of wheat that give way to fields of corn and on to fields of potatoes. This was the roadside from Salisbury, a city where the medieval and the modern seem to intertwine seamlessly, to Stonehenge, that most mysterious and ancient site of standing stones.

"You'll remember me when the west wind moves upon the fields of barley 

You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky as we walk in fields of gold"

-Sting, who lives in nearby Wiltshire, was inspired by this scenery to write Fields of Gold

Salisbury Cathedral

In Salisbury, the magnificent cathedral came first, in the 1220s, and then the city grew around it. Prior to that, a smaller cathedral existed in nearby Sarum, an iron age hill fort upon which a Norman castle was built some 1,000 years later.

The cathedral is still an active house of worship, and the centerpiece of the city, its steeple visible from miles around. A light atop the steeple warns airplanes away from its tip. Once a year, someone must climb that steeple to change the lightbulb! Within the cathedral’s close is an equally active community of homes, many of which were built in medieval times, and today comprise some of the priciest housing in the region.

These millions of tons of sandstone, granite, and other stones are constructed on what is, in essence, a bed of gravel. In order to keep the massive structure upright, the gravel must be fortified by a substantial amount of water. Fortunately, Salisbury is at the confluence of four rivers, so a system of sluice gates from the rivers allow control of the amount of water underneath. But how do they know if more or less water is needed? The use a wooden dipstick lowered into a hole in the floor of the cathedral. Really. Literally. See the photo of the hole below and of the lady with the dipstick.  It measured a safe level, equal to about ten inches.

The dipstick

The dipstick hole in the cathedral floor

A 45-minute ride across Wiltshire’s farm country led us to the famous Neolithic site of Stonehenge. The first portion of the henge was built some 5,000 years ago. The most famous part, the stone circle, was erected around 2500 BC.  Then, sometime around 700 BC, round barrows, in which an individual would be buried with some of his worldly goods, started to emerge in the area. It is not known if they are related to the stones, but it seems likely that Stonehenge’s proximity was motivation for their locations.

A typical round barrow

Also unknown is the purpose of Stonehenge. The stones were brought there from about 18 miles away, no easy feat in prehistoric times, and were arranged in a way that highlights astronomic patterns. Whether it was meant as a form of science, a form of religion, a form or art, or some other reason lost to history, remains the source of speculation and study. We do know that there were more stones in the past, but were removed over the years for practical uses when archaeology was not yet a “thing.” Indeed, some homes in the area are constructed with pieces of Stonehenge.

The inevitable Stonehenge shot

The visit to Stonehenge was a bit crazy, as it was a beautiful Saturday in summer and the site was swarming with school groups and fellow tourists. What appeared to be a long line of traffic was visible from the site, but our guide informed us (and we learned first-hand upon our exit) that there is always a line a traffic at that point because people always slow down at the point where the stones are visible from the road. This includes the locals who pass that point twice every work day. There is something just that arresting about them.

Was this Stonehenge face sculpted originally, sculpted later,
weathered this way in situ, or just what the
original rock looked like?