17. It isn’t just a group of stones…
Not just because it’s far more interesting than that sounds. There are plenty of other things to see at Stonehenge. The oft-overlooked older circular ditch and bank enclosure within which the stones were arranged is a phenomenal thing in itself: it encloses an area of 10,000 square meters. There’s also the 1.8-mile long rectangular enclosure known as The Greater Cursus, which dates from around 3500 BC. Again, we have no idea what it was built for, but from the air it resembles something like a prehistoric landing strip, and was once thought to be a Roman Chariot-racing track.
There’s also the Stonehenge Avenue, a track enclosed by parallel banks and ditches which links Stonehenge to the River Avon, like a prehistoric red carpet for dignitaries arriving by boat. Its obvious function is as a processional route for important ceremonies. And Stonehenge was not the only henge at Stonehenge (there’s a tongue-twister for you) when it was built. At the same period, four others were erected: Coneybury Henge, an oval ditch which once surrounded a group of wooden posts, the self-explanatory Woodhenge, Durrington Walls Henge which has a whopping 400-metre diameter, and the smaller stone-henge, West Amesbury Henge.
