MYTHS OF A FICTIONAL PAST

The first known reference to Stonehenge is in the book Histora Anglorum (1129) by Henry of Huntingdon. Naming it as one of the four wonders of the world, he writes “no one has been able to discover by what mechanism such vast masses of stone were elevated, nor for what purpose they were designed”18 and ever since, a multitude of theories have been advanced.

Following from the fanciful tales told by Diodorus Siculus in the 1st century BC, in 1655 the architect Inigo Jones proposed a new understanding for the henge. Inigo was the first significant architect of England in the early modern period19 and founded the English classical tradition of architecture.20 On the behest of King James I, he was the first person to survey and reconstruct his idea of Stonehenge. Published posthumously his book, The Most Notable Antiquity of Great Britain, Vulgarly Called Stone-Heng, Restored (1655) laid down his hypothesis.21 He believed it couldn’t have been built by the ‘barbarian people’ of Britain, making it the work of the Romans as temple for their god Coleus or Uranus. For him, the open top and sides clearly gave worshippers unrestricted access to the heavens above.22 The theory had no evidence other than his belief that it had to be the work of people who understood the mathematical principles of classical architecture, explaining the lack of symmetry in today’s structure as a result of decay and ruin.23 Conclusively negating the theory, is that fact we now know that Romans first came to Britain in 55BC, making it impossible for them to be architects of monument built in the 3rd millennium BC.24

Fig 10. Plan by Jones showing his imagined original Stonehenge with a hexagon placed over. Although the reconstruction is accurate to 5% of the classical proportions set out by Vitruvius, he has added a 6th trilithon that never actually existed.

Fig 11. A coloured drawing from Charles Hamilton Smith (1815), dipicting an imaginary festival of Ancient Britons, derived from Stukeley’s intrepretation.

Fig 12. William Stukeley’s drawing of how he imagined a British druid of the Roman period to have looked.

At the turn of the 18th century a new theory began to form, advanced most prominently by the writers John Aubrey and William Stukeley. First came Aubrey with Monumenta Britannica, written between the dates of 1663 and 1693. This was his principal collection of archaeological material and it discussed his idea that Stonehenge may be a Druidic Temple. Known as ‘Britain’s First Archaeologist”25, he was the King’s Antiquarian and a fellow at the Royal Society.26 At the time there wasn’t any concept of a pre-historic timescale, so Aubrey believed it to be pre-Romanic, only suggesting it might be Druidic.27 This cautious approach wasn’t favoured by William Stukeley, after reading Aubrey’s unpublished notes he decided to carry on his work of documenting and analysing Stonehenge.28 It was due to his frequent linking of the two throughout the years and his book Stonehenge: A Temple Restor’d to the British Druids (1740) that when he died in 1765, the idea that Stonehenge and other stone circles were Druid temples had thoroughly became mainstream.29 Despite his infatuation of speculating without evidence, his work can’t be wholly disregarded; He’s credited for the discovery of the Avenue and Cursus at Stonehenge, and was the first to note its solstice sunrise orientation and provide a reliable surveying of monument.30

Support for Stukeley’s theory was well received and the myth still flourishes today, however towards the end of the 19th century, support among the scientific establishment was replaced with contempt.31 Nevertheless, these thoughts were somewhat muddled when the British astronomer, Sir J. Norman Lockyer, published Stonehenge and Other British Monuments Astronomically Considered in 1906.32 In it he argued that pre-historic “astronomer-priests” had been the architects of Stonehenge and they’d planned it as an astronomical calendar. However, the majority of archeologists attacked his conclusions and it would be decades later before it gained more recognition and respect for its merits.33

Before that though a new theory found ground: Alfred Watkins, a self-taught amateur archaeologist, claimed in The Old Straight Track (1925) he’d discovered a grid of pathways around the country that linked megaliths, burial mounds and other significant pre-historic sites.34 Calling them leys, he believed they were built around 4000 to 2000 BC but abandoned and forgotten shortly after. Interestingly, he also found many early Christian churches that had been built on them, presumably to replace previous pagan sites. His thoughts never pierced into the mainstream and gradually evolved fancifully into the territories of “mysterious earth energies” and dowsing rods, reaching a peak in the 1960s. The View over Atlantis (1965), written by the extravagant advocate John Michell, added his own mystical twist to the pathways. Despite these diversions, Watkins’ original thoughts are not implausible and have been noted across various civilisations from western Bolivian taki’is to early Spanish colonial churches supposedly standing on similar grids35

Finally, building on the ideas of Lockyer, Stonehenge Decoded was published by Gerald Hawkins in 1965. Hawkins was a professor at Boston University and by using a computer simulation, reached the conclusion that the site was a ‘Neolithic computer’ for predicting astronomical events.36 The book generated much public discussion, with many more people supporting this hypothesis after the work of the engineer, Alexander Thom, was published in 1975.37

Fig 13. Image showing a supposed ley line that runs from Stonehenge through to Salisbury Cathedral.

18 Huntingdon, Henry. 1996. Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon: Historia anglorum: The history of the English people, ed. by Diana E. Greenway (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press)

19 Strickland, Carol. 2018. The Annotated Arch: A Crash Course on the History of Architecture (Echo Point Books & Media)

20 Summerson, John. 2022. “Inigo Jones,” Encyclopedia Britannica

21 “British Library.” [n.d.]. Www.bl.uk <https://www.bl.uk/picturing-places/articles/inigo-jones-and-the-ruins-of-stonehenge> [accessed 18 January 2023]

22 Ibid

23 Inigo Jones and John Webb, The most notable Antiquity of Great Britain vulgarly called STONE-HENG on Salisbury Plain (London, 1655)

24 Bunson, Matthew E. 2002. Encyclopedia of the Roman Empire, 2nd edn (New York, NY: Facts On)

25 Burl, Aubrey. 2010. John Aubrey & Stone Circles: Britain’s First Archaeologist, from Avebury to Stonehenge (Oxford, England: Amberley Publishing)

26 Pearson, Stonehenge: Exploring the Greatest Stone Age Mystery

27 Aubrey, John, Thomas Gale, John Evelyn, Rodney Legg, and John Fowles. 1980. Monumenta Britannica (Wellington, England: Dorset Publishing Company)

28 Piggott, Stuart. 1954. “The Druids and Stonehenge,” South African Archaeological Bulletin, 9.36: 138 <https://doi.org/10.2307/3886827>

29 Pearson, Stonehenge: Exploring the Greatest Stone Age Mystery

30 Rykwert, Joseph. 1984. The First Moderns: Architects of the Eighteenth Century (London, England: MIT Press)

31 Time-Life Books. 1987. Mystic Places (London, England: Time-Life Books)

32 Lockyer, Norman. 2022. Stonehenge: And Other British Monuments, Astronomically Considered (Classic Reprint) (London, England: Forgotten Books)

33 Mann, A. T. 1993. Sacred Architecture (London, England: Element Books)

34 Watkins, Alfred. 1988. The Old Straight Track: The Classic Book on Ley Lines (London, England: Abacus)

35 Time-Life

36 Hawkins, Gerald S. 1988. Stonehenge Decoded (Buccaneer Books)

37 Heath, Robin. 2007. Alexander Thom: Cracking the Stone Age Code (Cardigan, Wales: Bluestone Press)