STONEHENGE, a circular group of huge standing stones (see STONE MONUMENTS) situated on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, England, about 7 m. N. of Salisbury. The amenities of this, the most important antiquity in the British Isles, have recently been marred by the erection of bungalows, aerodromes and tea houses. But now, thanks to the activities of The Stonehenge Preservation Committee (1927), an undertaking is near com pletion (1928) for purchasing and vesting in the National Trust the land for about a mile radius round Stonehenge, and the work of demolishing the buildings is in hand. In 1915 Sir Edmund Antrobus sold Stonehenge to Sir Cecil Chubb, who generously presented it to the nation, and since that date it has been under the charge of H.M. Office of Works. Professor Gowland in 1901 restored to a vertical position the leaning upright (No. 56) of the great inner trilithon, and in 1919 and 1920 H.M. Office of Works re-erected uprights 29, 3o, 1 and 2 securing lintels.
Neither Roman historian nor Saxon chronicler makes mention of Stonehenge. Perhaps the earliest reference to it is in the writ ings of Henry of Huntingdon (died 1154), who cites Stonehenge as the second of the four wonders of England, but confesses ignorance of its origin. Geoffrey of Monmouth relates in his Historia Britonum (written before 1139) that Ambrosius Aureli anus, desirous of setting up a memorial to those slain in the battle with Hengist in 470, by the advice and with the aid of the magical powers of Merlin, removed the stones of The Giants' Dance from Kildare, Ireland, whither, according to Giraldus Cambrensis, they had been brought from Africa by giants, and re-erected them on the site of Stonehenge. This legend with slight alterations was current until Edmund Bolton in 1624 made the suggestion that Stonehenge was the tomb of Boudicca. Inigo Jones in his treatise on Stonehenge, written at the command of James I. and published in 1655, timidly puts forward the sugges tion that Stonehenge was built by the Druids, but goes on to state with more emphasis that it is a Roman temple inscribed to Coelus. In opposition to this, Dr. Charleton, a court physician, propounded the theory in 1663 that Stonehenge was the work of Danes. It was John Aubrey (1626-1697) who first claimed Stone henge as a Druidical temple, and this theory was elaborated by William Stukeley in 1742. Thus originated a belief which up to the present day has found favour with the public, although there is no evidence to support it. As late as 1872 James Fergusson
contended that Stonehenge was a sepulchral monument of the Saxon period.
Stonehenge is approached by an ancient banked trackway, the so-called Avenue, on the north-east. As viewed to-day, it consists of an encircling earthwork and the remains of four series of stones, viz.: an outer circle of sarsens with lintels; an inner blue stone circle ; a horse-shoe of five great sarsen trilithons ; and an inner ovoid of bluestones. There are also two sarsen stones lying north-west and south-east of the circle close to the inner edge of the earthwork ; a recumbent slab of sarsen, the so-called Slaughter Stone, near the south-east edge of the north-eastern causeway in the ditch ; an upright sarsen, the Hele Stone, situated in the Avenue ; and a recumbent block of micaceous sandstone, known as the Altar Stone, within the bluestone ovoid. The outer circle has a diameter of 100.75 ft., and consists of thirty large up right sarsens, carefully dressed into shape by pounding with stone mauls, of which sixteen remain standing. Their average height above ground is 131 ft., depth below ground 41 ft. and weight 26 tons. Their flat sides face inwards and they are secured by means of sarsen lintels, each lintel dovetailing with its fellow, and a mortice at each end of every lintel fitting over one of the two conical tenons on each upright. The inner circle of blue stones has a diameter of 761 ft. To-day nine of the stones are standing, while eleven are overthrown. Recent excavations by the Society of Antiquaries of London have shown that the original number of stones in this circle exceeded the previously estimated number of forty. The five great sarsen trilithons are arranged in a horse-shoe with the opening to the north-east, and rise grad ually in height towards the south-west. Only two are standing to-day. The height above ground of the great upright (No. 56), raised and made secure in 1901, is 22 ft. The inner ovoid con sisted of dressed bluestones, of which twelve are visible now. The original number is uncertain, but excavation has proved that the series formed an ovoid and not a horse-shoe as was formerly sup posed. The bluestones now remaining are of two varieties—dia base and rhyolite, but fragments of basic tuffs and agglomerates, grey wackes and argillaceous flagstones and slates may have be longed to stones now missing.