Wood henge
The other henge
Although it is often associated with Avebury, Woodhenge is actually situated near Durrington and Amesbury, in Wiltshire, within the wider Stonehenge landscape.
It is part of the Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites World Heritage Site, and stands only about two miles north-east of Stonehenge. Its address is Countess Road, Amesbury, Wiltshire.
Despite its modern name, Woodhenge was never a wooden version of Stonehenge in the simple sense. It was a remarkable Late Neolithic ceremonial monument made principally from enormous timber posts, accompanied by an earthwork bank and ditch. Today, the timber itself has disappeared, leaving concrete markers to indicate where the original posts once stood.
Discovery from the air
The story of Woodhenge’s modern discovery is particularly fascinating because it demonstrates the importance of aerial archaeology.
In 1925, Squadron Leader Gilbert Insall, flying over the Wiltshire countryside, noticed unusual patterns in a field of growing wheat. From the air, differences in crop growth revealed a series of dark spots arranged in concentric rings. The field was then known as Dough Cover, and the remains were initially thought to represent a Bronze Age barrow. Insall returned and photographed the area again, providing archaeologists with evidence that something considerably more complicated lay beneath the crops.
The following year, Ben and Maud Cunnington, accompanied by their nephew Robert Cunnington and a small excavation team, began investigating the site. Excavation between 1926 and 1928 revealed that the mysterious crop marks represented hundreds of postholes, together with an enclosing ditch and bank.
Maud Cunnington subsequently named the monument Woodhenge, partly because of its similarities to Stonehenge and because its principal structure had originally been made from timber.
The original construction
Woodhenge was probably constructed around 2500 BC, during the later Neolithic period. This places its principal construction broadly within the same extraordinary period of monumental building that produced Stonehenge, Durrington Walls, Avebury and other great ceremonial sites of southern Britain. Recent research suggests that the monument had more than one phase, with the timber monument probably preceding the later bank and ditch.
At its heart were six concentric oval rings of timber posts. The entire timber arrangement measured approximately 40 metres from north-east to south-west and 36 metres across. The posts varied considerably in size. The outer rings contained relatively small, closely spaced posts, while one of the inner rings contained sixteen particularly substantial posts. Some of these may have reached approximately 9 metres in height.
The appearance of the original monument must therefore have been dramatically different from what visitors see today. Imagine approaching a great oval enclosure of towering timber pillars, perhaps freshly cut, smoothed, decorated or painted. We cannot know exactly what the Neolithic builders did with the exposed wood, and archaeologists caution that possibilities such as decoration, carving or suspended objects remain speculative.
The timber structure was subsequently surrounded by a large henge earthwork consisting of an external bank and internal ditch. The enclosing earthwork was roughly 90–110 metres across, depending upon which archaeological measurements are used. It had a single entrance towards the north-east.
Interestingly, archaeological evidence now suggests that the bank and ditch may have been added after the timber circles had been constructed, meaning that Woodhenge was not necessarily conceived as one single monument built in one operation.
What Woodhenge looks like today
Very little of the original timber survives. Wood is naturally vulnerable to decay, and after the posts disappeared the monument gradually became almost invisible at ground level.
The excavators therefore installed concrete pillars in the positions of the original timber posts. These markers remain today and allow visitors to appreciate the extraordinary geometry of the monument. At the center of this remarkable structure lies a large rock formation of a crystalline nature. Whether this always there or if it is a recent addition I couldn’t find out ( if anyone does know I’d love to hear from you) .
The surrounding earthworks have also suffered from centuries of agriculture. Historic England notes that cultivation has considerably eroded the bank and ditch, although traces remain as subtle earthworks. The ditch originally reached approximately 2.4 metres deep and up to 12 metres wide, while the outer bank was around 10 metres wide and approximately a metre high.
Consequently, Woodhenge today is a place where archaeological imagination is almost as important as what can actually be seen. The concrete posts represent an enormous vanished structure, allowing modern visitors to reconstruct mentally what the Neolithic monument might once have looked like.
A place of ritual and ceremony
Having visited Woodhenge myself, I have to say that I was thrilled to walk inward along its spiral path to the center. It has a soft, magical energy that to me seems to get stronger as you reach the middle.
The archaeological evidence strongly indicates that Woodhenge was not simply an ordinary settlement or domestic building.
Excavations uncovered Grooved Ware pottery, animal bones, flint tools, antler picks, worked chalk objects, fragments of human bone and cremated human remains. Objects were deliberately deposited in and around the monument, including within the ditch and in hollows left behind when timber posts decayed.
There is also evidence of human remains being treated as significant objects rather than necessarily being buried as complete bodies. Individual bones and cremations were placed in various parts of the monument. An infant burial was also discovered in the centre of the monument, while another burial of a young man dates to the Early Bronze Age. Is this why the stones remain in place? I don’t know.
These discoveries reinforce the impression of Woodhenge as a place concerned with ritual, community, death, remembrance and perhaps transformation.
However, it is important not to impose modern religious concepts upon the Neolithic people. We do not know the names of their gods, their mythology or precisely what rituals were performed at Woodhenge.
The relationship with the Sun
One of Woodhenge’s most intriguing features is its astronomical alignment.
The long axis of the oval runs approximately north-east to south-west. Looking towards the north-east, there is a relatively clear horizon, while the south-western horizon is obstructed by rising ground.
This arrangement suggests that the monument was deliberately aligned towards the sunrise at the summer solstice.
The significance of this cannot be proved with certainty, but the precision of the alignment strongly suggests that the movement of the Sun through the yearly cycle was important to the builders.
The wider landscape strengthens this interpretation. Nearby Durrington Walls contained other timber monuments, while the Southern Circle at Durrington was aligned towards the midwinter sunrise. The monuments may therefore have participated in a larger ceremonial system in which different places were associated with different points in the solar year.
Woodhenge may consequently have represented a place where people gathered to acknowledge the changing relationship between Sun, Earth and season.
Woodhenge and the sacred landscape
Woodhenge should not really be considered in isolation. It formed part of an extraordinary ceremonial landscape extending across Wiltshire.
Nearby were:
- Durrington Walls
- The Southern Circle
- Stonehenge
- Avenue systems
- Numerous burial monuments
- Other timber structures
- The River Avon
Historic England describes Woodhenge and Durrington Walls as forming a particularly distinctive concentration of ceremonial and settlement features. Archaeological evidence suggests a close relationship between the timber structures at Woodhenge and those found within Durrington Walls.
This raises the possibility that people did not simply visit individual monuments. Instead, they may have travelled through the landscape as part of ceremonies, moving between settlements, rivers, timber circles, henges and stone monuments.
The landscape itself may therefore have been regarded as sacred.
What did Woodhenge represent?
There is no single accepted answer.
Early interpretations proposed that Woodhenge may have been a temple or open-air ceremonial structure. Later, archaeologist Stuart Piggott suggested that it might have been a large communal building. More recent archaeological evidence has made the idea of a free-standing timber monument more convincing.
The monument could have served several purposes simultaneously.
It may have been:
A solar monument — its orientation suggests careful attention to the summer-solstice sunrise.
A ceremonial gathering place — the size and complexity of the structure imply organised communal activity.
A place of remembrance — human remains and deliberate deposits suggest connections with death and ancestry.
A ritual enclosure — the bank, ditch and restricted entrance created a clearly defined sacred space.
A place of transformation — the cycles of building, decay, death and renewal may have had profound symbolic significance.
It is quite possible that these meanings were not separate. For Neolithic people, astronomy, ancestry, landscape, community, death and spirituality may have been aspects of a single worldview.
The spiritual significance of Woodhenge
From a modern Pagan or witchcraft perspective, Woodhenge can be understood as an evocative symbol of the relationship between humanity and the natural world.
Its apparent relationship with the summer solstice makes the site particularly meaningful to contemporary Pagans who celebrate the turning points of the solar year. The rising Sun, the great timber circle and the surrounding landscape can be interpreted symbolically as expressions of life, fertility, illumination, growth and the power of the Sun.
Wood also has a powerful symbolic dimension. Unlike stone, timber is living material. A tree grows, lives, dies and returns to the Earth. In this sense, a timber temple could symbolically embody the cycle of life, death and renewal.
The disappearance of the original posts adds another layer of symbolism. The monument that once dominated the landscape has vanished, leaving only markers where the trees once stood. For modern spiritual practitioners, this can become a powerful reminder of impermanence: structures disappear, generations pass, but the cycles of Sun, season and landscape continue.
It is important, however, to distinguish between archaeological evidence and modern spiritual interpretation. There is no evidence that Neolithic people practised modern Wicca, Druidry or witchcraft. Modern Pagans may find spiritual meaning at Woodhenge, but those practices are contemporary interpretations rather than surviving records of the original religion.
Woodhenge and the mystery of the Neolithic world
Perhaps the greatest fascination of Woodhenge lies in the questions it leaves unanswered.
Who built it?
What ceremonies took place there?
Who was permitted to enter?
What did the enormous timber posts represent?
Why was the monument aligned towards the solstitial sunrise?
Why were human remains and objects deliberately deposited there?
And how did Woodhenge relate to Stonehenge and the other monuments around it?
We may never know the answers with certainty.
What archaeology does demonstrate is that Woodhenge was part of a highly organised and sophisticated Neolithic ceremonial landscape. Its builders possessed an impressive understanding of timber construction, astronomy, geometry, landscape and communal organisation. Recent research also suggests that the monument’s history was more complex than the simple image of a single timber circle being built and then abandoned.
Woodhenge is one of Britain’s most evocative prehistoric monuments precisely because the wood has disappeared. What remains is a ghostly outline of something that was once much larger and more visually impressive: six concentric ovals of timber posts enclosed within a great earthwork.
It’s well worth visiting as part of an exploration of this magical location in England.
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/woodhenge/
