Henge Man, by Matt Rich

A special treat for solstice! If Matt had not existed, we would have had to invent him. But here he is and we are delighted!

We came across him on Facebook and saw he was dedicated to henging as we once were to seeking out hengers and henges wherever they’re hidden. There he was, selflessly posting henge after henge,  barely noticing the acclaim that followed each.

We began to realise, here is the person we have dreamed of, The Henge Master, the person who not only builds a henge or to but who lives to henge! Our many years of study of Stonehenge replicas and their builders, including the inimitable Simon Burrow, had led us to suspect such people might be out there, but it was still a thrill to see him in action. We got in touch, watched his posts, and inevitably, asked him for an interview to try to learn what makes him tick. We are grateful to say he was more than happy to oblige. Matt Rich lives in Leeds and is in his 30s.

CH: Hi, Matt. How did you first get interested in henging?

Matt: I first started making single torii henges out of mud on the school playing field when I was in primary school. The kids used to kick them down, but I just made more.

I didn’t know about Stonehenge at the time. I found out when one of the teachers asked me if my parents were hippies. I had no idea what she was talked about, so I said no (which is true). When I found out that the megalithic builders had beat me to it, I felt embarrassed. So I stopped. Later in art class I made one out of clay, but it exploded in the kiln. After that I stopped for many years. I started again about 2 years ago.

CH: What was your first henge and how did it come about?

Matt: My first real henge was Cheesehenge.

(CH note: Cheesehenges are a classic beginning henge.)

Matt: I have to be honest. I henge for fun. I enjoy it. I love the henge formation.

CH: Best reason to henge! Have you been to Stonehenge and if so, how many times?

Matt: I have been to Stonehenge. I was 10 years old and I didn’t appreciate it. I was bored. I was expecting a theme park. I would probably like it quite a lot if I go now.

CH: Do you enjoy seeing other people’s Stonehenge replicas or is it more interesting to you as a way of expressing yourself?

Matt: I love seeing other people’s Stonehenge or clonehenge replicas. I really like it when other people copy my henge. I have posted them in many groups and  I have inspired many other people to henge.

CH: If you could visit any large permanent replica, which one would you visit? Or is there one you wish you could build for people to visit?

Matt: I would like to visit the pyramids at Giza. I would like to make a skyscraper henge or a tree henge before I die.

CH: Anything else?

Matt: I need to tell the henge story.

In September 2014 I purchased some ready-cut cheese from Marks & Spencer. I was trying to think of a post for The Boring Group [on Facebook], when suddenly I decided to make a  Henge. I posted a picture of the Henge to the group and I received 100+ likes and many comments. I also posted Change Henge to The Very Boring Group [also on FB] where it got 401 likes. A couple of weeks later I made Sock Henge and posted it to both groups. This also got many likes in both groups, but in The Very Boring Group, many people started to copy me.

At one one point one in four posts was a henge post. In the end Henges were banned under rule number 27. At the same time The Boring Overlord, who created The Very Boring Group, made a group called, ‘Will It Henge?’. I was made admin of this group along with 3 other people, we called ourselves Druids. I was not a big fan of the rules in, Will It Henge? so I rebelled and I was removed as admin by Dan The Unhenger. I later quite the group and made my own page called, This Is My Henge. My page did quite well generating nearly 2 thousand likes. I also continued to post my henges to The Boring Group and still do. In The Boring Group my Henges are liked by many people, and every time I post a Henge I get many likes and comments.

I recently discovered the Clonehenge group where I met [you] The rest is history.

Yes, folks, Matt posted so many henges to one group that all henges ended up being banned!

To finish, rather than say more words, which you will just skim through anyway and not really read, because, seriously, who has time???, we’ll finish with a few sets of thumbnails of Matt’s prolific output of henges. When we started this blog many years ago, we did not even dare to think that such an array and variety of henges could exist, let alone be built by one person. We applaud Matt and his one-man championing of the henging craft! May he live long and henge often!

And a very happy solstice to all of you, winter or summer, depending where you are. Until next time (and we do have a treat in store!), we wish you happy and fruitful henging!

decoupaged plaster trilithon and photo by Kathleen Kelly, used with permission

Yes, hello, we still exist, at least sporadically. Hope you are doing well, gentle reader. Much has been happening in the Stonehenge replica world, and we can’t keep up, but this brilliant model has been top of our list of things to be posted!

Created by Kathleen Coyne Kelly, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston, it is a plaster model of a Stonehenge trilithon, papered over with images of pages from scholarly books and manuscripts, all writings about Stonehenge. She writes:

In the game rock-paper-scissors, paper covers, or beats, rock. And Stonehenge is indeed covered by paper. Reams of paper have been produced by archaeologists, historians, literary critics, poets, neo-pagans, and travel writers, describing, explaining, and speculating about the origins and purposes of Stonehenge.

So true! In our 8+ years doing the Clonehenge blog and curating (??) the Facebook Clonehenge group (where most of the henging news and activity takes place, if you’re interested!) and page, as well as our Twitter account, it has become glaringly obvious to us that the many ideas, theories, concepts, and even jokes about Stonehenge have served to almost completely overwhelm the experience and existence of Stonehenge itself as a physical object.*

Stonehenge replicas rarely look like Stonehenge or each other, despite being, to be necessarily redundant, replicas of Stonehenge, and this seems to be largely because people’s ideas of what Stonehenge is, although usually inaccurate, supersede, in their minds, Stonehenge as a real ancient stone construction standing on Salisbury Plain in England in the U.K.

It sometimes seems as if the physical thing could fall and hardly affect Stonehenge as a concept. Maybe that what is meant by the word iconic, when people say Stonehenge is an ‘iconic’ monument. Stonehenge isn’t stone, primarily. The hulking grey mass itself is just a symbol for some kind of archetype embedded not only in Western culture but in minds worldwide, as evidenced by Stonehenge replicas around the world and in books, films, and television shows**.

An example of a similar process would be how we just took Professor Kelly’s wonderful trilithon and ran with it in order to illustrate our own thoughts and experiences just now.😉  Sorry. Our point is, we think the concept behind, and the trilithon itself is just brilliant!

A few more words from the estimable and perceptive Professor Kelly:

I also got a tattoo—I had wanted something connected to Stonehenge, and it seemed like the right time, since I was giving this paper at a conference with the theme, “Off the Books.” I ended my talk with this:

Professor Kelly’s Stonehenge tattoo

“And here is another way to remember Stonehenge—off the books and on the skin.”

She adds:

I’m giving another paper on Stonehenge in January: the theme of the conference is literature and its publics, and I’m focusing on homages to and parodies of Stonehenge as examples of appropriation . . . Your site is of course discussed!

But of course!😉

We hope we hear more about that paper, and we’ll pass along anything we think you would find interesting, gentle reader. Until then, all who wonder, happy henging!

*This may be why some of the most interesting discoveries about Stonehenge in recent years have been made by Tim Daw, who for a while did some groundskeeping work at the site. Working the actual site puts you in an ideal position to see Stonehenge as it is and not as the ideas about it.

**We recently, for example, learned of a Turkish television drama that featured a Turkish mafia family meeting at Stonehenge, or at least a Stonehenge

The famous Britton “Celtic” Cabinet at the Wiltshire Museum in Devizes

Greetings and a very happy solstice to all of you out there in the increasingly strange world of now! We know that people generally don’t find time to read blog posts anymore, what with one apocalypse or another looming at any given moment, but in a contrary spirit we have decided to write a longer one than usual. But with pictures, so there’s that!

As some of you may know, a little over a year ago, the entire staff of the Clonehenge blog flew over the sea to the centre of henging contagion, that hulking grey pile of construction debris on Salisbury Plain, Stonehenge itself. We posted in October about the unabashed promotion of Stonehenge replicas we discovered at the shop in the Stonehenge Visitor Centre, but we have yet to share our other extraordinary encounters with replicas shown us by friends of the Clonehenge blog in the area.

The first of these was a huge concrete trilithon, currently being stored at the farm of Mr. Tim Daw  whose name may be familiar to Stonehenge fans as a result of theories and discoveries he made while employed at Stonehenge. He is also known for his remarkable construction, the Long Barrow at Al Cannings. He kindly treated us to a tour of that beautiful modern long barrow, and then, knowing our interests, led us through chalk mud, a remarkably clingy substance, to the three pieces of the trilithon, currently not set up as a trilithon but in repose. The two uprights, we are told, weigh 40 Tonnes each and the lintel 10 and a half!

concrete trilithon in the Vale of Pewsy (the markings are not tribal, 😉  but were painted there for visibility on the lorry journey to where they now rest)

These “stones” were used in the 1996 BBC documentary Secrets of Lost Empires: Stonehenge to to represent the stones of Stonehenge’s largest trilithon, in an attempt to demonstrate how those and the other large stones at Stonehenge may have been moved. We assume their length includes the section that in the original stones extended underground to keep them steady and upright. Pictures on this page show their size better than our poor picture above. They are imposing in person, even lying down. Mr. Daw and others are hoping to use them again to test various Stone-Age-appropriate methods for transporting and erecting megaliths, for a programme on how Stonehenge may have been constructed. We look forward to that!

For the next couple days of our trip, we enjoyed the wonders of Wiltshire, its landscape, and many ancient stones and sites (including Stonehenge in the pouring rain, a quintessentially British experience not to be missed unless you have the opportunity to see it in any other weather!). Those days were overwhelmingly beautiful and fascinating, and we extend our thanks to many people for going out of their ways to make it so.

West Kennet Long Barrow with Terence Meaden, who was kind enough to accompany us there and share his knowledge

And then, on our final day in that county, probably still bearing chalk mud in the treads of our shoes, we visited the Wiltshire Museum in the town of Devizes in the company of long-time friend of the blog Pete Glastonbury. There, to our astonishment, we were greeted by people who already knew of the name of Clonehenge, and who were therefore willing to reveal to us deeply secret Stonehenge models  hidden from the prying eyes of the general public! (Or, yes, possibly just Stonehenge models that would be of absolutely no interest to anyone one but us, but let us have our fantasies.)

After a few minutes surveying small Stonehenge models available in the museum shop, we were introduced to none other than Director David Dawson and led upstairs to view the wonderful Britton Cabinet whose picture adorns the top of this post. We posted about it on this blog years ago, with photos by Mr. Glastonbury, but it was another thing to see it in person! If we described it in detail, this post would be insufferably long (like it is already, only more so), but as it says on this page, “Integral to the design of the cabinet are three models of Stonehenge and Avebury made by Henry Browne.” We are not ashamed to say that we were moved to see in person some of the historical Stonehenge models made by Mr. Henry Browne himself. Browne’s models were, as far as we can tell, the first Stonehenge models to become popular enough to create a demand. The sale of small Stonehenges that we see today in such profusion probably started with him!

A drawer of the cabinet was opened for us, and protective covering carefully lifted from a model so that we might see it. Unlike the model under coloured glass atop the cabinet, which is meant to show the monument as it now stands, this one represents Stonehenge as it is thought to have looked before the destructive forces of time acted upon it.

in the drawer, a Henry Browne model

model of Avebury in a drawer of the cabinet, overseen by Pete Glastonbury

When we had finished looking at and photographing the cabinet and its contents, Mr. Dawson then kindly brought out two more Stonehenge models: a resin one made by Michael Postins, who made the ‘template’ for models sold by English Heritage for tourists,

resin model by Michael Postins, here held by Director Dawson

and a smaller metal one with various military badges, a bit eccentric, which, of course, appeals to us. No history is known for this, but it’s a nice portrayal with stones that look a bit organic, as if they were about to come to life.

There is much more to the museum, of course, including fascinating and beautiful artefacts from Wiltshire, some found at and near Stonehenge and thought to have belonged to the ancient people who built it and celebrated there. If you’re visiting Stonehenge and want more of its story, you should make a point to stop at the Wiltshire Museum.

We had many more adventures worth telling, and saw more Stonehenge and Avebury models on our trip. But solstice awaits, and the long journey toward shorter days. If you have read this far, we thank you for your time. There truly is a wonderful world of Stonehenge replicas out there, and wonderful people who make them or are fascinated by them. Until next time, friends, happy henging!

Transformers 5 Stonehenge replica, photo by Rose Senior

This is it—the new standard for hengers everywhere! It is only a partial replica, but the part they did build captures the feel of the real—the right size, shapes, proportions, placement, colours, indentations, markings. Attention was paid to the real thing.

We don’t know what it’s made of or who made it, but we do know the why. It was created for scenes in the fifth and latest movie in the Transformers franchise, a film series based on, well, toys, not to put too fine a point on it. We laugh, but the Transformers series of movies is the: “4th highest-grossing when averaged to gross per film, behind the The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Pirates of the Caribbean film series.” So says Wikipedia. Big movie stars including Anthony Hopkins, Mark Wahlberg, and Stanley Tucci will be in this film. In fact, the first two were in Wiltshire this past week filming at Stonehenge and at the replica, and possibly at a rumoured secret second replica (!!!).

There is money behind this film. Big money. It is safe to say that this is the most expensive Stonehenge replica ever created. And we must say, we are impressed with what money can do! Brilliant work has been done in shaping, placing, and colouring these ‘stones’. They are so well done that even as respected an institution as the Daily F Mail briefly published an article with pictures of it that claimed it was the real Stonehenge.

This picture’s caption in the Daily Mail read: “The replica was so realistic it led many to claim the original structure had in fact been used by the filmmakers.” (And that ‘many’ seem to have been writers for the Mail.)

The figure standing in the above picture is Anthony Hopkins. We don’t often get to see celebrities at Stonehenge replicas, so we just wanted to point this out. This is henging at a whole other level.

Making false things appear real is what Hollywood excels at. In this case, how did they do it? There is a lot we don’t know, but the marvelous Rose Senior captured a bit of the magic and is kindly willing to share it with readers of the Clonehenge blog. The following photos show fake lichen being applied to the replica stones, and in one we see pictures of the lichen on the real stones, used as guidance for the ‘painters’ of the false ones.

‘Lichen’ being applied to the ‘stones’. Photo by Rose Senior.

Pictures of the real stones being used to guide one of the painters of the replica stones. Photo by Rose Senior.

Rose tells us that when the paint was being thrown at the stones, it made a hollow sound. It isn’t surprising that the stones were hollow, but the question of the material involved remain tantalisingly unanswered. The hollowness of these stones, which were just by Bilbury Rings Hillfort off the A303, also brings us back to rumours of a second and mysterious Stonehenge replica, secreted somewhere in the Wiltshire countryside. Hollow stones might not be ideal to use if you want a good scene of Stonehenge being blown up (and blowing things up is another thing Hollywood and in particular this film series is known for), so might the rumoured secret replica be solid and possibly smaller, built solely for blowing up and exploding the stones in a visually satisfying manner? That is our guess.

If anyone has further information (or photos!) on the rumoured replica or on the materials and creators of the known one, please tell us and we will add the information to this post. There are so many things our inquiring minds want to know! It is exciting to have Hollywood with its famous people and huge quantities of money walk right into our wheelhouse, so to speak.

Once again we are left to marvel at how many walks of life a fascination with Stonehenge replicas can draw one into. Science, religion, art, foods, politics, movies—Stonehenge replicas are built in connection with all these topics and more. Not to mention little toy cars that can change into monsters!

And with that profound philosophical note, we wish you all, friends, some very happy henging!

P.S.: Our thanks to Rose Senior, Tim Daw, Simon Banton, and @Fromegooner for help with this post!

Aaron Burell, aligner of the Odessa Stonehenge, at the henge itself

Summer solstice about to happen in the northern hemisphere and if there is to be a Clonehenge holiday, this is as good as any. After all, there is nearly consensus that winter solstice was the big holiday for which Stonehenge was built and yet summer solstice draws the largest crowds there. After all, it’s warmer!That is the sort of irony for which Clonehenge is made.

Clonehenge was created because in honesty we were flabbergasted at the discovery that people all over the world at any given time are making Stonehenges out of any available material. From time to time you see someone trying to claim the making of henges for herself or himself, but the whole principle of Clonehenge is that the making of Stonehenges is universal and quite beyond logic and explanation, a human phenomenon that is not likely to end any time soon.

Of course over the years we have not been the only ones tracking henges, although we like to think we have been the most comprehensive. Among the people watching and thinking about the proliferation of henges is a radio producer for the BBC called Mark Burman. In his words,

“I guess when I first fell under the stony shadow I was envisaging a picaresque, mildly piss taking, kookiness road trip through America. Problem is—it is a long, bloody road trip and every story has to be researched and a journey has to be planned and the nature of radio schedules and radio budgets is I don’t have 2 months to scoot through America-which is what it would take. I began in 2014 in Texas as I was making a story out there on the real Searchers. But that’s as far as I have got and my nice WS editor has been happy to wait. So it has been a story greatly interrupted but as I am back in the States at least twice more this year as it seems nuts not to add to my Henge stories.”

Rehearsing MacBeth at Stonehenge II

Aboveyou can see pictures from his visits to two of Texas’s Stonehenges, the somewhat humourous and strangely proportioned but popular Stonehenge II and the beautifully made Stonehenge at Odessa, surely one of the five best in the western hemisphere if not the world.

The news is that Mr. Burman may be making the trek back to the States once or twice in 2017 and it is possible he may be accompanying the staff of Clonehenge to a Stonehenge replica or two in the eastern United States. It will not be in time for solstice, of course, but as at solstice a person’s fancy turns to thoughts of Stonehenge, it seemed as good a good time as any to bring it up. If we begin the Clonehenge year at solstice (and why not?), this may be the beginning of a resurgence in the vitality of henging and stories of henging! We hear of much worse things on a daily basis, so perhaps people are ready to permit a little weirdness in the mix.

Best wishes to all and of course, happy henging! The entire staff at Clonehenge wishes you well, O Gentle Reader! May the year that begins now bring you good things and better days than we can currently envision!

The so-called Bluestone Throne, as posted by Cross Keys Arcade on Twitter

Just feast your eyes. We love this!

The “Bluestone Throne”, as seen above, is a marketing aid for the cathedral city of Salisbury in Wiltshire, the county of the U.K. that is (blessed with? burdened with? guilty of?) Stonehenge. Cleverly made from wood by a local craftsman, it is painted to resemble stone, not actually the famous bluestones, but the equally famous sarsen trilithons that are so emblematic of the ancient heap of rocks we keep talking about here.

The back of the throne is made to look like one huge trilithon and the seat’s arms are made up of two smaller trilithons. The proportions and the stone shapes echo those of the real monument, which may not sound like much but is actually quite unusual when it comes to Stonehenge replicas. We applaud the efforts at making it look real.

And the idea is clever, isn’t it? We think some smart entrepreneur should use this design and create inflatable thrones to sell for sitting in the back garden or by the seashore. How glorious!

From the back. Photo by @cgiAlexis

Are we still giving tongue-in-cheek Druid ratings on this long-neglected blog? If so, we grant this a solid 8 druids, which is very good for something that doesn’t even form a circle. But it is surely in the Clonehenge tradition—a bit humourous, almost a cheeky (Oh gosh! We’re going to pretend that pun was intended!) thing to do with the idea of the world-renowned monument of mystery and wonder we all know so well. And we like it all the more for being named Bluestone Throne when there is nothing resembling a bluestone in it! Just the sort of thing that delights us.

The selfie-friendly seat will be placed in different spots around Salisbury over the coming weeks, then tucked away over the winter, and if it is popular enough, brought back out for next year! So please, we beg you, make sure it’s popular so we can see it again, or, alternatively, have it sent to us at the end of the season, for us to put in the front garden. Wouldn’t the neighbours talk!

So get thee to Salisbury to sit on the stoney throne. We have a list of people we would love to see in it. Feel free to post Bluestone Throne selfies on our Facebook Group, or tweet them to @Clonehenge on Twitter. And until next time, kind friends, happy henging!

Jeremy Deller’s bouncy Stonehenge, called Sacrilege, seen here in Hong Kong. Photo link.

We are chuffed! Clonehenge somehow caught the eye of someone at BBC Wiltshire and we ended up having a brief but delightful chat with Breakfast Show presenter Ben Prater. Now you lucky readers can hear it here, should you so choose. Fear not. It is short and will be over before you know it!

All right, yes, during the interview we did forget to mention the blog address, our Facebook group and page, and our Twitter account, which in retrospect seems to suggest a certain lack of presence of mind, but in our defense, it was 3:00 in the morning here. On the up side, no one can accuse us of too-zealous self-promotion! Here’s the interview:

Fun! Don’t forget to send us your messages and your henges on the Facebook or Twitter links above, and until next time, friends, happy henging!

Stonehenge Merapi, photo by rovi tavare

This is your up-to-date Stonehenge reporter, with the latest news tracking Stonehenge as it spreads itself around the globe! Today we present to you…drumroll…Stonehenge in Indonesia! Not just in Indonesia, but on the slope of a recently-erupted volcano!

Built some time in late 2016, it stands on the island of Java, on the slope of Mount Merapi, a volcano that erupted in 2010 and is still considered active. One site, translated from the Indonesian reassures us, “Stonehenge building is actually also located in KRB III (disaster prone area) but not to worry because the manager also provides evacuation routes.” Comforting!

“No need to go to England!” one site proclaims. You can save yourself a trip and take those selfies here!

One remarkable thing we have never seen at another large Stonehenge replica is a sign in front of the monument, a set of large red letters that spell STONEHENGE in our familiar Latin alphabet! Take note, English Heritage!

Stonehenge Merapi, sign and all, photo by Angki Hermawan.

A surprising number of photos and videos of this Stonehenge can be found online, especially considering how new it is, a testament to its popularity with tourists and locals alike. Someone must have known it would receive a hearty welcome. There are even some of those misty, moody photos that reveal the presence of that kind of monument photographer with nothing to do but lurk about in all weathers waiting for the perfect shot—stone botherers, as we’ve heard them called. Doesn’t take them long to show up when something like this appears. They certainly have kindred spirits back in sites around Wiltshire!

And what do we think of it? The stones are nicely uneven if a bit lanky. It does look as if the builders paid enough attention to face the inner trilithon horseshoe toward the three-lintel stretch in the outer circle. But few bluestone-like bits and no ditch or bank, so we’ll award it 8 druids. No, wait! 8 1/2 druids—the extra half is for building it on the slope of an active volcano. That is very much in the spirit of Clonehenge! Kudos to the builders, whoever they are!

So if you find yourself on Java, in the city of Yogyakarta, famous for the beautiful 9th century temple of Borobodur, be sure to make a detour to Lost World Castle to see this amazing lava Stonehenge, and don’t wait too long. At any time another eruption could end its brief but brilliant life! And until next time, friends, happy henging!

It was suggested to us that we should do a post every month this year, and for each month choose the best Stonehenge replica from the corresponding year of the blog. What a good idea! What a shame we aren’t the kind of people who act on good ideas. But there it is.

And anyway, when we took a look back at all of those early posts, two things leapt out at us. One is that no one should ever have to read their own writing from almost a decade ago, and the other is that somehow every single henge seems like the best henge in its own particular way! So in the real tradition of this blog, we’re just going to ramble aimlessly and pretend it’s a good post. Thank you very much. No applause necessary. Really. We’re good.

It is widely, although not universally, agreed that Stonehenge is mysterious. It was mysterious to me as a child, a representation of the mysteries of the distant past, when people had to wrest their livings directly from the earth, with no social networks but their communities, no videos but the night sky.

Standing alone on Salisbury Plain, unaccompanied by evidence of a city or other signs of advanced civilisation, it went on to tantalise us with its complexities, the carefully worked curved lintels on the outer circle, the woodwork-like mortise and tenon joints that held those lintels in place for millennia, the astronomical alignments, the surrounding landscape with Aubrey Holes, barrows and cursus, to name but a few.

Who built Stonehenge? Why did they build it? How did they build it? What did it look like at its height? Those were the well-known mysteries on which I cut my metaphorical mysteries teeth. But then, through an intricate series of unusual circumstances that seemed to flow normally as they happened but seem strangely contrived in retrospect, I stumbled upon what seemed to me to be a greater mystery still: why are so many people even now in our modern but bewildering times building so many Stonehenge replicas?

I mean, seriously, what is it about? People all over the world are making Stonehenges, large and small, out of materials edible and inedible, from single trilithons to elaborate facsimiles, many if not most of them thinking they are the first to make one like theirs. And that’s true, in a way, because although they are all replicas of the same thing, no two are the same! Although there are countless Stonehenge replicas, a student of the subject can over time learn to recognize each of them by sight.

In the famous words of one Jubal Early of the brilliant but prematurely lamented show Firefly, “Now, does that seem right to you?”

Since then we, which is our polite form of “I”, have been wandering a side path. Let others stop at the enigma Visitor Centre and board the bus to the external mystery. We instead have been set to wander over the Stonehenge landscape of the modern mind, seeking the archetype that will help us make sense of the conundrum of an upsurge of Stonehenge and of faux Stonehenges in the age of Instagram, Google Street View, and virtual reality.

Some will say it all stems from Spinal Tap and make that stale quip about dwarves, but the building of Stonehenges far precedes their time. Henry Browne, by all accounts, was building and selling small cork Stonehenge replicas by some time in the early to mid-1800s. The Quinta Stonehenge in Weston Rhyn, Shropshire is variously said to have been built some time in the 1840s to 1870s. The well known Maryhill replica in Washington State was built in the 1930s. And so on. The famously small stage prop replica in the movie This Is Spinal Tap was just part of a long tradition, itself rumoured tonhave been inspired by a too-large replica built for a Black Sabbath tour.

So instead of a sensible effort like the suggested ten henges for ten months, we, that is to say I, am embarking on a ten month examination of the phenomenon and idea of Stonehenge replicas. What kinds are there? What’s funny about them, what’s poignant about them? We hope to do an interview or two (or three) with people who have special knowledge of the subject of Stonehenge, both in real life and in media perceptions. And some of the people who have built and are building the Stonehenges of our time.

As we approach Clonehenge’s tenth anniversary, we finally plan to confront some of the questions we have playfully raised all this time, and while we do so, we will show you some extraordinary henges/replicas on the way. We invite you along for the ride!

And until next time, Gentle Readers, we wish you happy henging!

*At the top, a Henry Browne Stonehenge, photo our own, taken with permission at the Wiltshire Museum in Devizes. Our thanks to the gracious David Dawson, the indispensable Pete Glastonbury, and the kind and brilliant Jezreell.

Image from the article: art by Alison Dubois

It’s in Good Magazine this month, and its title is How Stonehenge Replicas Became the World’s First Meme.

A number of people who are significant in the henging community were interviewed for this article, notable among them the irrepressible Mark Cline of Virginia Foamhenge and the fibreglass Bamahenge fame, and Jim Reinders, builder of Nebraska’s famous Carhenge. The author, Jed Oelbaum, also sought out prolific hengers of the small henge variety, long time and beloved friend of the blog Simon Burrow, and Matthew Richardson, known as Matt Rich on Facebook where he posts pictures of his endless and innovative henges.

It is a fun read for those of us who have been following henging for many years now, but the most jarring bit was the claim that some person who calls themself “Nancy Wisser” is the perpetrator of the Clonehenge blog and related Facebook and Twitter accounts. We questioned everyone on the large staff here at our luxurious suite of offices at Clonehenge, Incorporated, and at our satellite office complexes throughout the world, and no one had even heard of this alleged person.

“It sounds like a fake name to me,” said Hedgehog von Tapwater, a high-paid manager in the Clonehenge hierarchy, absentmindedly brushing back his fashionably purple hair. “And the things said about them are just absurd. Listen to this:

‘There’s almost no way to seriously research the phenomenon of Stonehenge recreations without interacting with Wisser’s exhaustive work. She might be the only one out there with enough of a bird’s-eye view of the Stonehenge pandemic to understand it. Her mix of humor and historical rigor has allowed her to build relationships with the full range of Stonehenge aficionados: astronomers and archaeological experts, compulsive micro-henge builders, and conspiracy theorists who suspect it was built by aliens.’

It makes it sound as if there’s just one eccentric person out there managing the Clonehenge empire as an unpaid hobby rather than the team of skilled experts we have monitoring the news from the world of henging 24 hours a day!”

And that seemed to be the consensus of the entire staff here. It is a fantastic, extremely well-written article, except for this peculiar detail. In fact, we recommend everyone read it and try to help us understand, if you can, how this Wisser character, whoever he or she is, wound up being interviewed about perhaps the most important topic facing the world today: Henging–why the heck is it happening and down what unfathomable path is it leading mankind?

Again, here is the link: How Stonehenge Replicas Became the World’s First Meme.

And the best part? The article does not even mention Spinal Tap! For this reason alone, we couldn’t be happier.

The worldwide proliferation of Stonehenge replicas is being recognised ever more widely. Become a henger now, so you can say you did it before it was cool!* Until next time, Gentle Readers, we wish you, of course, the happiest henging!

*It has always been cool.

Above: Simon Banton at that famous pile of rocks:

“You can notice a lot of subtleties about Stonehenge if you spend 6 years looking at it from all angles in all weathers and lighting conditions.”

It may seem to go without saying that the idea of Stonehenge replicas is inextricably tied to Stonehenge, but we’ve been thinking it needs a little more talking about. What do all these Stonehenge replicas look like to people who are actually familiar with Stonehenge?

Well, a peculiar outcome of doing Clonehenge over the years has been the unexpected pleasure of getting to know a number of people who are connected with Stonehenge in one manner or another. Those people have made us aware of aspects of Stonehenge and its landscape that we knew nothing of before we began this blog and our life of folly. That, in turn, has changed what we see and look for in Stonehenge replicas.

It is in this context we would like to introduce to you Mr. Simon Banton. A few readers may remember him as the fellow who when he found himself at a pub that had children’s toys, made and sent us some Clonehenge art on an Etch-A-Sketch (How do we love this? Let us count the ways!).

But there is a great deal more to him than that, as the photo at the top suggests. He is good natured and deeply knowledgable and has two blogs, The Stones of Stonehenge, with a page devoted to each stone at Stonehenge, and Stonehenge Monument, with information about Stonehenge and the surrounding landscape of the World Heritage Site. We asked him for an interview, and to our delight he agreed. The result is remarkable, if a bit technical in places. We intended to post only a short edit of the interview, but it is so full of information and good thoughts, stories, and ideas that we’ve decided to post most of it, split into two parts, with helpful (we hope) commentary, links, and photos added.

A note to start, because this will come up:

As some will know, there is a commonly agreed-upon numbering system for the stones at Stonehenge. For example, this trilithon, originally part of the outer circle so it would have supported the ends of two more lintels, shows upright stones 4 and 5 plus the lintel, which is 105.
(Just ignore the show-off bustard. Apparently bird tourists are permitted inside the circle of the ditch and bank, unlike the rest of us that day. Not fair, but as they say, what is?)

Stonehenge numbered stone plan by Author ©Anthony Johnson 2008

The plan on the right, showing numbers for each stone, is linked to a larger version. And now, the first part of our interview with Simon:

1) First, for the reader, what has been your involvement with Stonehenge over the years? I understand you worked there. For how long and in what capacity?

I first saw Stonehenge when I went to the very last Stonehenge Free Festival in 1984, before the authorities clamped down on it at the infamous Battle of the Beanfield of 1985 (Google it and watch the YouTube vids). Being in and around the monument had a profound effect on me, at the time I was only 19 years old.

When, in 2000, English Heritage, the Police and Wiltshire Council did away with the 3 mile radius exclusion zone that had been in place at Summer Solstice ever since 1985, I felt compelled to go along to that first “Managed Open Access” event to get back inside the stone circle. That, too, was a transformative experience. It poured with rain all night long and 5000 people were thoroughly soaked by the time dawn arrived, with no sign of the Sunrise.

I’d developed a keen interest in archaeoastronomy in the mid-1990s (I’ve been an amateur astronomer since I was 9 years old) and I was actively researching Egyptian sky-mythology. Stonehenge was the next logical step. By 2010 I’d moved to within 3 miles of Stonehenge and I became an Education Volunteer for English Heritage… Within a couple of months this turned into a job as a member of the Visitor Operations Team, standing on the path next to the stones and getting paid for telling people about the place. I did this for 6 years and loved it – it gave me unprecedented levels of access to the stone circle and allowed me to carry out my own research. You can notice a lot of subtleties about Stonehenge if you spend 6 years looking at it from all angles in all weathers and lighting conditions.

Simon Banton and a rook at an undisclosed location, photo by Wendy Pallesen or perhaps Carol Druce

“…there’s something about the trilithon form that aches with antiquity and latent symbolism.”

Here is the second half of our interview with Stonehenge man Simon Banton.

5) Why do you think so many people continue to make Stonehenges of all sizes and materials all over the world?

The act of creation lies deep within most of us, and creating a clonehenge seems to foster a deep sense of satisfaction. It has the huge advantage of being instantly recognisable, so no special talent is required. I can’t draw for toffee, but you were kind enough to feature my Etch-a-Sketched clonehenge [see previous post] even though it was 2D. There’s also the growing awareness that there’s a community of clonehengers, and I guess a desire to belong to this elite club must factor in somewhere.

[Editor’s note: You, too, can belong to an elite club!]

6) Why do you think Stonehenge models and replicas so often wind up being an assemblage of trilithons rather than being more like Stonehenge? Why is the trilithon such a powerful and memorable symbol?

That is a very significant question. There’s no doubt that “two uprights and one horizontal” is immediately Stonehenge and it’s been a famous icon in the public’s attention for at least 300 years now. From the standalone pylons of Egyptian temples, through the Temple of the Sun at Tiwanaku to the Greek letter PI [Editor’s note: one could add the Japanese Torii gate and Tonga’s Ha’amonga’a Maui Trilithon.] there’s something about the trilithon form that aches with antiquity and latent symbolism.

Perhaps it’s the “doorways upon doorways” meme that Henry of Huntingdon came up with in the early 12th Century AD [Editor’s note: English scholar Henry of Huntington wrote in 1130, describing Stonehenge as a place “where stones of an amazing size are set up in the manner of doorways, so that one door seems to be set upon another. Nor can anyone guess by what means so many stones were raised so high, or why they were built there.”]  that’s the root of it for our culture, or maybe Spinal Tap have had a fundamental impact on humanity that will echo down the ages.

I also think that the idea of a continuous “ring beam” [Editor: Simon is using the term “ring beam” here to refer to the continuous circle of curved lintels that is thought to have topped the upright sarsens of Stonehenge’s outer circle.] doesn’t figure in many people’s consciousness, so they end up doing a ring of separate trilithons instead.

7) Is there anything you would like to say about Stonehenge replicas? Do you have any stories connected with one that you would like to share?

More full size ones please! I realise that’s a big ask, but perhaps it’s something for an ice sculpture festival to tackle. I’ve had a small involvement with one full size trilithon replica with my friends Tim Daw and Julian Richards. Julian’s an archaeologist and Stonehenge obsessive. Back in the 1990s he made a TV documentary called “Secrets of Lost Empires” where he and a team of engineers and volunteers attempted—successfully —to erect two 40 ton concrete uprights and a 10 ton lintel as a replica of the tallest trilithon that ever stood at Stonehenge.

After the programme, the components were dismantled and stored on a nearby military base, in a car park, until a few years ago when the army rang him up and asked if he wanted them back as they were getting in the way of their tanks. Julian asked me if I knew anyone who had some land where they might be moved to, and perhaps re-erected in a new project—and I immediately thought of Tim.

Tim’s a visionary. He built the first new “long barrow”, as a columbarium, in 5,500 years and has spawned an industry of modern barrow-makers as a result. [see Clonehenge’s post on the Long Barrow at All Cannings here] He jumped at the chance and these large lumps of concrete were low-loaded from the military base to Tim’s farm, where they await the attention of an intrepid bunch of Stonehengineers. [see Clonehenge’s post about the rediscovery and moving to Tim’s farm of the pieces of the concrete trilithon here]

photos of the parts of the concrete trilithon at rest on Cannings Cross Farm

Stonehengineers, those who helped erect the concrete trilithon the first time

8) Is there anything you think more people should know about Stonehenge itself?

Everyone who’s interested in the astronomy of the site should read Gordon Freeman’s “Hidden Stonehenge”—not least because he is one of the few archaeoastronomer researchers who actually spent considerable time on-site observing and photographing at key points in the year, over many years. He identified a secondary solstitial axis that runs from Winter Sunrise to Summer Sunset and explains why the Altar Stone is (a) flat on the ground and (b) at 80° to the primary axis. I helped Gordon confirm some of his observation data and had the pleasure of meeting him a few years ago.

More generally, the most recent research is suggesting that the society responsible for Stonehenge’s construction was almost completely eradicated by an incoming population from the Continent in the early Bronze Age. If this is true, then we have—in Britain—no direct ancestral connection to the builders of it. That’s something of a shock, as Stonehenge is a touchstone of British identity. The argument about the DNA evidence from early Beaker graves that suggests this is likely to get quite heated.

9) Do you have any advice for hengers?

If you’re going for realism, don’t forget the Heel Stone, the Slaughter Stone, the Station Stones and the Altar Stone. Note that the central trilithons increase in height towards the southwest and they’re all taller than the sarsen circle that surrounds them. If you’re going to include figures in the middle, make them archaeologists having a fight and—above all—think BIG and have fun! (Hengers, take heed!)

10) Do you have any advice for Clonehenge itself?

Frankly, I don’t think it could be any better. [!!!] Except, maybe—Clonehenge merchandise? I feel the need to make a Clonehenge out of Clonehenge coffee mugs—or is that too much like meta-henging?

[Editor: Not at all. Plus, meta-henging is a good thing! We will be working to make Clonehenge mugs and perhaps eventually other merchandise available from print-on-demand sites in both in the UK and the States, so that neither place will have to pay exorbitant postal fees, hopefully some time in the near future.]

Thank you very much, Simon! Thus ends our two-part interview with the illustrious Stonehenge devotee. We hope you have enjoyed it and perhaps learned something! You can find the first part of the interview here. We should note with gratitude that upon the occasion of our visit to Stonehenge in 2015, Simon went out of his way to meet us there and give us a calendar with his own photos of Stonehenge. We were quite honoured!

Gentle Readers: Do you have questions about Stonehenge or about Stonehenge replicas in any form? If you have a question that is in any way connected to our topic, get in touch on Facebook or Twitter, or leave a comment below, and we will answer or get in touch with someone who can answer your questions. We will also consider requests for posts on related topics.

And of course, until next time, friends, happy henging!

small Stonehenge at Maryknoll Ecological Sanctuary, Baguio, on Luzon Island, the Phillippines

What a month April has been here at Clonehenge Central! In our continual searches for henges that will amuse you, we discovered three large permanent Stonehenge replicas that weren’t on our list. We have been working on a post about the different varieties of henges, but we put that on hold to bring you these latest finds!

First is the one seen above, our first Phillippine replica. It’s one of the prehistory-related stations along a nature trail set up to help teach history to children who visit. The cobbled floor is lovely and artistic. The proportions of the uprights are rather nice, so we won’t complain too loudly about the extra-long lintels extending out on either side of their trilithons. A delightful find!

Stonehenge, County Durham: ponies and a view, but blue skies not guaranteed!

Next up, this lovely garden henge is in County Durham, UK, in the gardens of the luxury self-catering cottages at Keaton Cottages. There is a wagon wheel bench inside the circle, a whimsical addition, which, along with a gorgeous long-distance view of the Yorkshire Dales, and frequent grazing visits by Shetland ponies, gives the whole thing a unique and undeniable charm. There are three trilithons and a number of single uprights, very consistent with the pattern of most garden henges.

It seems they light it with colourful lights during nights in the some of the colder months months! Unfortunately this henge is probably accessible only to those staying in the cottages, and such a stay appears not to be inexpensive. Perhaps when this Clonehenge empire has (finally!) made us insufferably rich, we will stop in for a stay. We still dream of making that tour of all of the large henges!

Two trilithons at the Stonehenge Grille in Crossville, Tennessee, Traveler photo submitted by Richard E (Sep 2014)

Last, and yes, probably least, there are these two trilithons (once again with lintels extending out beyond the uprights, something the previous henge managed to avoid) outside the Stonehenge Grille in Crossville, Tennessee! We may have to call or message them one of these days and ask how the name and little Stonehenge came about. Those stories are always interesting to us. For now all we know is that the grill is part of the Fairfield Glade Community Club and someone there appears to like marigolds.

That about catches us up. Once added to the List of Large Permanent Replicas, these will bring their number to 88! It is likely, though, that there are enough out there somewhere to bring it up to 100. Don’t forget, you are our eyes and ears out there, friends! Have a look at the list and please report any henges that aren’t on it! What better way for us to celebrate Stonehenge’s 100 years of belonging to the nation that is now the United Kingdom than to build the list to 100 henges?

Remember: if you can’t find one, why not build one? We are counting on you! Until next time, Gentle Readers, happy henging!

An assemblage of trilithons at Oberlin College, November, 2008. Photo by Jonas Wisser This was the Clonehenge blog’s first posted henge!

Happy solstice!

Well, we were trying to do at least one post per month, but somehow May got away from us and now we’re well into June. Our inability to meet blog deadlines will come as a surprise to no one who has been paying any attention here. Ah, that wonderful deadline whooshing sound!

But part of the delay has been us trying to think of any method at all by which we could make this long-planned post anything less than a snooze fest. The bad news is, we have come up with nothing. The good news is, you should probably all be getting a lot more sleep anyway! So here goes.

The variety and number of constructions that can still fall under the topic of this blog—replicas of Stonehenge, in case some poor soul has stumbled in unawares—is great. There are so many potential variables that it’s impossible to put them in neat categories. Some broad categories, however, are:

a single trilithon

One trilithon: two standing stones with a third set on top, connecting them. This is visual shorthand for Stonehenge and it doesn’t seem to matter if the stones are the right shapes or proportions or even if the lintel, that is, the one across the top, extends out past the upright stone on either side so it looks more like the mathematical symbol for pi. This is the classic glyph for Stonehenge, the most obvious example being the famously small trilithon in the movie This is Spinal Tap.

Then there is the classic grouping of a single, or sometimes two trilithons with accompanying standing stones. You see this most often in garden henges, especially larger ones. Trilithons are trickier to make than you would think, so maybe after going to that trouble, the henger decides many won’t be necessary, or maybe they prefer the simpler look. Maybe some of each.

A classic garden henge, with two trilithons and some standing stones—Cleveland, Ohio

Next is the assemblage of trilithons, (see top of post for photo) including the classic (but inaccurate) foodhenge, the circle of trilithons. We see these so frequently that we’re convinced that many people think this is Stonehenge’s real form. There are certainly some people who build these and call them henges even once they know the difference. Many of these include something in the center. Sometimes something very odd.

Stonehenge more or less as it is now

From there it becomes more complicated. Do you intend to recreate Stonehenge as it was thought to be at its height or Stonehenge as it is now? And which of the many many elements that make up Stonehenge and it’s landscape will you choose to include? The Heel Stone? The Station Stones? The so-called Slaughter Stone? The ditch and bank? (Which after all, is what makes it a henge. Sort of. But not actually, because Stonehenge’s ditch and bank are not quite right for a henge. The sad truth is, in the truest sense of the word henge, Stonehenge is not a henge. This is the sort of knowledge that separates the Stonehenge nerds from actual human beings.)

Stonehenge more or less as it is thought to have been

But we digress. There are other elements. Do you include, as some have, the dagger and axe carvings on the stones? The Aubrey Holes? The avenue? Remnants of old graffiti? The fence? The tourists? The jackdaws? The sheep?? How closely do you model each stone to the shape of the corresponding real stone? On the famous Transformers replica, someone carefully copied the pattern of lichens on the stones! And a Kickstarter project called BuyStonehenge has gone to even more minute detail than that. Check it out!

We’ve seen a replica from back before the new tourist centre that included not only the old parking lot but the lights that lit it. We’ve seen a replica that included President Obama visiting! We have yet to see one that included Gertrude, the great bustard who is seen at Stonehenge from time to time, but it is there to be done. Your move, my friend!

Stonehenge in the show Britannia is a sort of Super Stonehenge, with many exciting added features, including a raised platform and carved stones! (honestly not sure of the source for this photo, but we didn’t take it)

And what of the people who like to go beyond the real Stonehenge when they make their replicas? The ones who add dinosaurs or aliens or both? We’ve seen a small Stonehenge that included the full ring of lintels, but added train tracks on top and ran a train around it. We have seen more than one model that uses the form of Stonehenge as the foundation for a roofed building. We’ve seen elaborations that include carvings on the stones and a mighty platform from which priests and leaders addressed gathered peasants. Stonehenge Improved is a big category that seems to imply that Stonehenge isn’t good enough just as it is, but we must admit, many amusing henges fall into that category!

There is also speculative history. Were great colourful hangings once put over the stones on great occasions? Were people or animals once sacrificed within the circle? Was there at one time a hedge around it? Was Stonehenge in fact, as some have said, never completed? How were the stones brought there and lifted into place? Every possibility suggests a diorama.

Stonehenge stone #56, photo by Simon Banton, from his blog at this link

Theoretically, even a single stone could be considered a Stonehenge replica if it is an exact scale replica of a recognisable stone—take Stone 56, for example. Many of us would recognise a good copy of that one!

The point is, the definition of what is a Stonehenge replica is wide, but not all-inclusive. A mere circle of standing stones is not a Stonehenge replica. But many various things can be. As you build your henge, don’t be afraid to include some little authentic detail, as in the case of the snowhenge we saw that included the axe and dagger carvings. Little touches mean a lot! Don’t settle for that lowest common denominator, the circle of trilithons, unless you have embraced it as your style. Anyone can do those. You be you!

We haven’t even covered here, the other henge variations, those of size and materials, and location. Factor those in, and the possible varieties of Stonehenge replicas seem to be endless. No wonder no two look alike!

What is your favourite style of Stonehenge replica? Do you have a favourite Stonehenge replica in particular? What is it? We would love to hear from you, on Twitter or Facebook or in the comments below. Thank you for keeping in touch.

Do we promise you a more interesting and exciting post next month? Heh. Surely you jest! We’re hoping for an interview with a long-winded scholar, it seems. But we’ll post memes with it or something! Maybe cats!! We know what you cool people like in this modern era of, you know, the interwebs, phones and selfie sticks and whatnot! We’re hip like you, fellow kids!!

But now until next time, gentle readers, we wish you dreams of new kinds and sizes of henges! And as always we wish you happy henging!

*All photos by the author of the Clonehenge blog unless otherwise noted.

An assemblage of trilithons at Oberlin College, November, 2008. Photo by Jonas Wisser This was the Clonehenge blog’s first posted henge!

Happy solstice!

Well, we were trying to do at least one post per month, but somehow May got away from us and now we’re well into June. Our inability to meet blog deadlines will come as a surprise to no one who has been paying any attention here. Ah, that wonderful deadline whooshing sound!

But part of the delay has been us trying to think of any method at all by which we could make this long-planned post anything less than a snooze fest. The bad news is, we have come up with nothing. The good news is, you should probably all be getting a lot more sleep anyway! So here goes.

The variety and number of constructions that can still fall under the topic of this blog—replicas of Stonehenge, in case some poor soul has stumbled in unawares—is great. There are so many potential variables that it’s impossible to put them in neat categories. Some broad categories, however, are:

a single trilithon

One trilithon: two standing stones with a third set on top, connecting them. This is visual shorthand for Stonehenge and it doesn’t seem to matter if the stones are the right shapes or proportions or even if the lintel, that is, the one across the top, extends out past the upright stone on either side so it looks more like the mathematical symbol for pi. This is the classic glyph for Stonehenge, the most obvious example being the famously small trilithon in the movie This is Spinal Tap.

Then there is the classic grouping of a single, or sometimes two trilithons with accompanying standing stones. You see this most often in garden henges, especially larger ones. Trilithons are trickier to make than you would think, so maybe after going to that trouble, the henger decides many won’t be necessary, or maybe they prefer the simpler look. Maybe some of each.

A classic garden henge, with two trilithons and some standing stones—Cleveland, Ohio

WotsitHenge by @jothekendall on Twitter

Next is the assemblage of trilithons, (see top of post for photo) including the classic (but inaccurate) foodhenge, the circle of trilithons. We see these so frequently that we’re convinced that many people think this is Stonehenge’s real form. There are certainly some people who build these and call them henges even once they know the difference. Many of these include something in the center. Sometimes something very odd. As in the accompanying WotsitHenge by Jo Kendall with central small ducklings.

Stonehenge more or less as it is now

From there it becomes more complicated. Do you intend to recreate Stonehenge as it was thought to be at its height or Stonehenge as it is now? And which of the many many elements that make up Stonehenge and it’s landscape will you choose to include? The Heel Stone? The Station Stones? The so-called Slaughter Stone? The ditch and bank? (Which after all, is what makes it a henge. Sort of. But not actually, because Stonehenge’s ditch and bank are not quite right for a henge. The sad truth is, in the truest sense of the word henge, Stonehenge is not a henge. This is the sort of knowledge that separates the Stonehenge nerds from actual human beings.)

Stonehenge more or less as it is thought to have bee

But we digress. There are other elements. Do you include, as some have, the dagger and axe carvings on the stones? The Aubrey Holes? The avenue? Remnants of old graffiti? The fence? The tourists? The jackdaws? The sheep?? How closely do you model each stone to the shape of the corresponding real stone? On the famous Transformers replica, someone carefully copied the pattern of lichens on the stones! And a Kickstarter project called BuyStonehenge has gone to even more minute detail than that. Check it out! 

We’ve seen a replica from back before the new tourist centre that included not only the old parking lot but the lights that lit it. We’ve seen a replica that included President Obama visiting! We have yet to see one that included Gertrude, the great bustard who is seen at Stonehenge from time to time, but it is there to be done. Your move, my friend!

Stonehenge in the show Britannia is a sort of Super Stonehenge, with many exciting added features, including a raised platform and carved stones! (honestly not sure of the source for this photo, but we didn’t take it)

And what of the people who like to go beyond the real Stonehenge when they make their replicas? The ones who add dinosaurs or aliens or both? We’ve seen a small Stonehenge that included the full ring of lintels, but added train tracks on top and ran a train around it. We have seen more than one model that uses the form of Stonehenge as the foundation for a roofed building. We’ve seen elaborations that include carvings on the stones and a mighty platform from which priests and leaders addressed gathered peasants. Stonehenge Improved is a big category that seems to imply that Stonehenge isn’t good enough just as it is, but we must admit, many amusing henges fall into that category!

There is also speculative history. Were great colourful hangings once put over the stones on great occasions? Were people or animals once sacrificed within the circle? Was there at one time a hedge around it? Was Stonehenge in fact, as some have said, never completed? How were the stones brought there and lifted into place? Every possibility suggests a diorama.

Stonehenge stone #56, photo by Simon Banton, from his blog at this link

Theoretically, even a single stone could be considered a Stonehenge replica if it is an exact scale replica of a recognisable stone—take Stone 56, for example. Many of us would recognise a good copy of that one!

The point is, the definition of what is a Stonehenge replica is wide, but not all-inclusive. A mere circle of standing stones is not a Stonehenge replica. But many various things can be. As you build your henge, don’t be afraid to include some little authentic detail, as in the case of the snowhenge we saw that included the axe and dagger carvings. Little touches mean a lot! Don’t settle for that lowest common denominator, the circle of trilithons, unless you have embraced it as your style. Anyone can do those. You be you!

We haven’t even covered here, the other henge variations, those of size and materials, and location. Factor those in, and the possible varieties of Stonehenge replicas seem to be endless. No wonder no two look alike!

What is your favourite style of Stonehenge replica? Do you have a favourite Stonehenge replica in particular? What is it? We would love to hear from you, on Twitter or Facebook or in the comments below. Thank you for keeping in touch.

Do we promise you a more interesting and exciting post next month? Heh. Surely you jest! We’re hoping for an interview with a long-winded scholar, it seems. But we’ll post memes with it or something! Maybe cats!! We know what you cool people like in this modern era of, you know, the interwebs, phones, and selfie sticks, and whatnot! We’re hip like you, fellow kids!!

But now until next time, gentle readers, we wish you dreams of new kinds and sizes of henges! And as always we wish you happy henging!

*All photos by the author of the Clonehenge blog unless otherwise noted.

Stonehenge Chubb Centenary Day Stonehenge Replica Competition guide:

Henging contest alert!!

All of you master hengers out there, your hour has come! This will be a short post, but the length does not reflect its importance, only our laziness!

The contest will be held on 8th July, 2018, in the Wiltshire village of Shrewton. A note to irreverent Americans among us: yes, town names like this are real and historic and were not, as you suppose, invented by fantasy writers! The town, for example, is not populated by little shrews in vests and dresses.

That said (we continue a bit sheepishly), there will be several cricket matches, traditional games, and music from the time of the gifting of Stonehenge to the nation, that is, 1918, and the Shrewton Silver Band.

Yes, we concede, it does all sound a bit like the Shire or some kind of England theme park, but please put all that aside. BECAUSE THE POINT IS, friends, THERE WILL BE A HENGING CONTEST!!!! With prizes! See the diagram above.

Please note there is a size limit. No henge shall exceed the maximum diameter of 300mm, which is slightly less than 12 inches. This seems small, but great things can be achieved in small packages!

The categories for prizes are by age: A. Under 11, B. 11 to 14, C. 14 to 18, and D. Adult, as shown in the pictures below:

Prizes include a Stonehenge book and a Stonehenge bag, and an actual model of Stonehenge for the adult winner. (Stonehenge replicas are far too addictive to be given to children as it could turn them into those useless kinds of people who think about Stonehenge all the time and are always thinking up new theories about it or arguing about old ones. Society does not need any more of those. Trust us on this! Take us as an example. Say no more.)

Below is the poster for the Stonehenge Chubb Centenary Day. Note how it is not at all stereotypically English. Not even a bit. You are not required to dress like that, incidentally, but let’s face it—you’ve been dying to and here’s your chance!

We at Clonehenge urge you to build a henge, accurate or quirky, simple or elaborate, and take it to Shrewton on 8th July to celebrate the gifting of Stonehenge by Sir Cecil and Mary Chubb to the nation! Encourage friends and children to do the same. SWAMP the judges with little Stonehenges! Make your friends at Clonehenge proud. We’ve already asked for pictures of the henges and judging so that we can post them here and on Facebook and Twitter afterward.

Oh, should you meet a certain Mr. Edwards there, do ask him about his experience making the experimental cheese puff henge! He will not try that again. Quite amusing.

And so, until next time, gentle readers, happy henging!

Simon Banton and Neil Wiseman ponder their remake of Stonehenge. Photo by Andy Burns.

Actual plan of Stonehenge to compare

We know it for ourselves: these grey blocks are irresistible. Off in one corner of the wonderful Wiltshire Museum which displays, among many wonderful things, a collection called Gold from the Time of Stonehenge, there is a children’s section that includes rectangular grey blocks and a round green base to build on. What possibilities! The very sight of it casts a spell of inevitability on any true henger.

Neil Wiseman admiring his handiwork at the Wiltshire Museum. Photo by Simon Banton.

Enter, from stage left, two Stonehenge experts and over-qualified hengers: Mr. Simon Banton, introduced to our readers a few posts ago and whose blog includes a page for each stone at Stonehenge, and Mr. Neil Wiseman, author of the book Stonehenge and the Neolithic Cosmos: A New Look at the Oldest Mystery in the World. The two gentlemen assert that they did not actually visit the museum solely to make a Stonehenge replica, but the same siren song of the grey blocks that sang to us during our visit three years ago lured them to the children’s section. The result was both extraordinary and, in a way, hilarious—hilarious, we mean, by virtue of the contrast between the simplicity of those grey children’s blocks and the level of expertise Wiseman and Banton brought to bear on them.

You may compare their accomplishment with the aerial view of Stonehenge we have provided for that purpose. Within the limitations of the medium, this is probably the best Stonehenge replica possible. If we were still handing out Druid scores for henges, we would have to give this one 9 Druids. And yes, as the cognoscenti might remind us, Druids had nothing to do with the building of Stonehenge, but it is so much a part of public perceptions of the monument that it amuses us to use it as our metric.

Of course, we hasten to say that we do not expect this kind of precision from the common henger. It is, however, not cheating to actually look at a picture of Stonehenge before you build. You, too, can beat the dreaded Circle of Trilithons Syndrome!

Addendum: pertinent to our previous post about Stonehenge Centenary Day, below is a picture of Mr. Tim Daw (of the first modern long barrow, and the resting concrete trilithon we’ve mentioned here in the past) at that event* and rather dapperly dressed for it, putting together a wooden Stonehenge he made for English Heritage. It is a lovely thing, in the category of replicas that show Stonehenge as it is thought to have looked at its height. Note the diagram at the lower left, being used as a guide.

Photo by Brian Edwards.

If these people who know Stonehenge so well and have spent time there are compelled to build their own, how then are the rest of us to resist the imperative? Give in. Make henges and be happy!

Until next time, friends, we wish you happy henging!

*We hope to post some pictures of henges from the henging contest at the centenary event at some future date.

Photo by Attila Kovácsics, used with permission.

To be honest, we don’t know much about it.

When was it built?

Why was it built?

Who built it?

We would love to know!* But for now we just know that this Stonehenge exists in Dalat, in Vietnam’s central highlands, and it is on the grounds of a park that was created because of gorgeous waterfalls there.

We do know that, although the stone shapes are way off, there is a three-lintel stretch and the inner trilithons are taller than the outer circle. So bravo to someone! A few things right is better than none. And it is another for our list of Large Permanent Replicas, which is now up to 90, and could soon be 91, pending information on a Stonehenge sculpture in Kansas.

What makes someone build a Stonehenge replica in a park in Vietnam? That is just part of the mystery that keeps us in a state of wonder here at Clonehenge headquarters!

We have more posts coming up for you. One is about a Stonehenge replica in Magdeburg Germany, built by a man who is enthusiastic about Scottish culture. We have seen a picture of him wearing a kilt and standing inside his Stonehenge. So that’s fun, isn’t it?

And we have another long-ish interview post, this time with a historian who has a unique perspective on Stonehenge and the proliferation of Stonehenge replicas.

In the meantime, follow @Clonehenge on Twitter, or join the Facebook group or page to keep up with frequent postings of henges large and small, or to send us henge photos of your own!

And until next time, Gentle Readers, thank you and happy henging!

*If you have any information on this henge, please comment below or send it to nancy at clonehenge.com .

Photo copyright Dennis Kotzian, used with permission

A translation from German of the original caption of this photo reads:

“Stonehenge in Magdeburg

During a walk around the Salbker Lake, you can see a replica of Stonehenge, which is the stone circle cult site of the Celts in southern England.

Stone mason Jörg Sorge from Magdeburg has built this on his property.”

There is so much to unpack here.

For one thing, a little research makes it clear that although he is a stone mason, Sorge has fashioned these ‘stones’ out of concrete, texturing and painting them to resemble stone. A lot of time and creativity, and so presumably love and enthusiasm, has gone into this.

And then of course there is the whole Celtic thing, which we learn more about in another article, where Sorge, who plays the bagpipe and sometimes wears a kilt, asserts that “inside i am a Celt”. In one article, featuring a picture of him in said kilt, standing in his Stonehenge, we read:

“The culture of the rugged Scottish highlands has fascinated Jörg Sorge for years. He has long felt like a Celt, last summer he also fulfilled the dream of Stonehenge. Now the replica of the Bronze Age stone circle stands in his garden and serves as a backdrop to the Celtic Fire Festival.“

Copyright Dennis Kotzian, used with permission

Well, we’ll allow them the Bronze Age bit. Stonehenge was started and much work was done long before that, but the stone circle the replica depicts does seem to have been completed in the Bronze Age. Certainly the dagger art on the stones dates to that time.

Jörg Sorge in kilt at his Stonehenge, photo from this link

But by all accounts, whether ‘Celtic’ culture (no, we’re not going to enter the discussion of whether the term Celtic itself is so broad as to be almost meaningless, an attempt to lump together too many diverse smaller groupings–such discussions are for serious people and we just ain’t one of them, thank whatever gods there be!) washed in like a tide over peoples already in Britain or if it arrived along with new groups of people landing on the island from the continent, it had not yet arrived when Stonehenge was completed. Of that we can be sure. There is certainly no evidence of kilts and bagpipes in any burial in the area of Stonehenge, then or since!

But luckily, Stonehenge replicas are just for fun, and far be it from us to discourage people from championing their inner Celt, whatever they fancy that means, or their inner Viking, or their inner Elf or Ent for that matter. It is useful to explore what has meaning for you, however outlandish it might seem to others. We may find real hidden parts of ourselves by starting with fanciful things we’re drawn to. We at Clonehenge have seen it happen.

This replica that Sorge has built from his inner inspiration and by the work of his own hands has already brought delight to other people, like those who attended the Celtic Fire Festival, and it is certainly worthy of inclusion on our list of large permanent replicas. Well done,sir, say we!

Let this be a lesson to us all, Gentle Readers, and let us not fear to pursue or more whimsical inclinations, regardless of what others think of them. They may turn out to be a way to enhance not only our lives but the lives of others, and encourage them to be more free as well.

So until next time (which may well be after the official Clonehenge trip to Stonehenge and environs!*), dear friends, happy henging!

*if you are at Stonehenge equinox access on the morning of the 23rd, we may see you there!

Clonehenge mug. Oh yes, Gentle Readers!

It has happened. As you knew it would. You knew that we were luring you in, posting without any attempt to get your money for almost ten years, just to give you a false sense of security. And now that you have taken the bait, we are setting the hook with this unimaginably deluxe item: an ordinary white mug with a poorly-designed Clonehenge-ish logo on it and a tacky clonehenge.com printed along the bottom! How can you resist?

Another glorious view!

It isn’t as if we have thought this through. We make so little on each mug that we are actually completely indifferent as to whether or not you buy one. The advert copy reads:

“Not only are they overpriced, but once you receive them they turn out to just be more stuff you have to deal with!”

Still, you never know. Our original run, which looked a little different, ended up in the hands of luminaries like Simon Banton, Andy Burnham of the Megalithic Portal, Pete Glastonbury, David Dawson of the Wiltshire Museum, Nigel Swift of the Heritage Journal, and Stonehenge scholar Michael Parker Pearson!* Now you, like them, can own a Clonehenge mug! And wonder, as they no doubt have, where on Earth to put it once you have it. Convinced? The mugs are available at this link.

So there you go. We have done a post about a thing that has our logo on it and is being sold. Apparently, judging by the sales site, which offers other items with our logo automatically, you can also buy phone skins that, since phones are too narrow for the whole logo, just say ONEHEN! Even Michael Parker Pearson doesn’t have one of those! (And it would be especially apt for that individual who has only a single chicken. )

Buy, buy, buy! Spend, spend, spend! Or don’t. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But until next time, friends, when we will post something more in keeping with our usual nonsense, we wish you happy henging!

*Because we gave them to them for free.