THE BIG ROCKS TO THE WEST

Since settling in London, the kids have become involved in weekend sporting activities on both Saturday and Sunday mornings (which is terrific), the upshot being we aren't getting the opportunity to explore as much as we'd like. BUT, here's the cool bit - in the UK you are NEVER more than 113 km away from the sea, which fundamentally means nothing is too far away. And so last Saturday we piled into our trusty new steed Concord at 1:30 pm and headed west. Ninety minutes later we were in the visitor centre car park at STONEHENGE!

How groovy is that, and along the way we passed signs pointing to historic locations such as Southampton, Salisbury, Windsor and Winchester, and not to forget Legoland as well; everything is so close.

The Heel Stone

 I don't mind telling you it was bitterly cold (presuming you think 1C in mid-afternoon is cold), but it was worth it to show the kids the famous temple ruins that date back 4,500 years, construction spanning from the Neolithic to Bronze Age.

The Slaughter Stone in the foreground - but how do archaeologists know??

So much of Stonehenge still remains a mystery and let's face it, always will. For instance, the bluestone rocks were transported (somehow) from west Wales and the huge sarsen stones from north Wiltshire - why, how, who knows.

Is this how they transported the 'rocks'?

How did they erect it? How did they manage to lay the lintel stones perfectly horizontal on the trilithons....simply amazing.

Horizontal lintel stones

Trilithons

One thing that is known is that approximately 1/3 of each vertical stone is buried in the ground and the tallest great trilithon pillar stands 7 metres above ground. Did I say 'amazing' already?

Standing silently on the Salisbury plains, this ancient temple is an inspiring sight that even drew admiration from the children - now that's a vote of confidence. Stonehenge is one of those rare sights that offers up many more questions than it provides answers, truly fascinating.We nipped into the nearby village of Amesbury and found a little 'wet' pub (i.e. it didn't serve food) where we thawed ourselves in front of a raging fire and with a glass of Spain's finest vino blanco, and then pointed Concord home to Ealing. and we were back by 8:00pm........how good is that!

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