History evolves! I used to visit this area as a kid – we knew it as Hardy’s Monument. More about that in a coming post. My father would pull into the gravel car park, park up, along with my mother, sister and I, and we’d all pile out for a walk or picnic or whatever. In those day’s it was known that there were a few neolithic barrows dotted about along the Ridgeway but no one paid much attention. The one near here was in a famers field, obviously the famer knew it was there, and perhaps a couple of locals who were really into their Neolithic history, but not many of the public for sure.
Then about 10 years ago, mainly through an article in a magazine, the “Valley of the Stones” came into the public conscience. A valley of stones, where it appears they were once “used” near the top of the ridge and spread out down the valley after the last ice age! It’s now a National Nature Reserve with sarsen stones.
It now appears that there is a stone circle there too and it’s not small! Increasingly it looks like there was a reasonable size neolithic settlement there, and to think we knew none of this as kids and were more interested in the ice cream! Above is the art installation/sculpture near the start of the valley, and following are photo’s of the bluebells flowing back in April, which technically are not in the nature reserve, but just next door.
Camera was the Hasselblad with the 80mm, loaded with one of, if not the, last roll of Fuji NPH400.
S.H.O.U.T. 