Move Aside, Stonehenge

Author and photographer Rupert Soskin is no stranger to stone circles. He visited and recorded more than 100 of them for his latest book, Standing With Stones. In this article, written specially for Heritage-Key.com, he argues that there is a whole megalithic world out there just waiting to be experienced. 

Ask anyone to name a megalithic site and it's fairly certain that the first name to anyone's lips will be Stonehenge. Any visitor to this jewel of the Salisbury Plain will most likely have shared their time with vast numbers of tourists. Coaches, buses and hundreds of cars filled with curious people flock to the site, making it almost impossible to experience its grandeur with uncluttered views. This is all the more extraordinary when one considers that Britain is home to many thousands of megalithic sites, most of which remain deserted.

Whilst travelling the length and breadth of the British Isles exploring our ancient megalithic sites, I have been constantly amazed and delighted to find myself alone. So why does Stonehenge stand out so much in people's minds? Most probably it is the hanging lintels which are unique amongst stone circles. These beautifully worked stones make it the closest thing we have to a roofed circle, which makes it strangely more familiar. Or perhaps it is partly the fault of our own tourist industry. You seldom see adverts for trips to other neolithic or Bronze Age monuments, despite the fact that many of them are just as impressive in their own way.

Many people are astonished to learn that Britain and Ireland hold over a thousand stone circles. But why focus on circles? For example, how many people know that Dartmoor in Devon is home to over 60 stone rows, one of which is the longest in the world? Or that Callanish on the Hebridean isle of Lewis is a breathtakingly complex astronomical observatory? Throughout the countryside, the remains of our distant ancestors' extraordinary work stand timelessly, waiting for the next infrequent visitor.

As stone circles go, with a diameter slightly under 30m, Stonehenge is not very big. In fact, compared to some, it is tiny. The great circle at Avebury is over 10 times larger, measuring a staggering 335m across. Stanton Drew in Somerset, Britain's second largest, measures over 112m, and the third largest, with a diameter of over 103m, is the Ring of Brodgar, way up on the Orkney isle of Mainland. The wide distribution of huge sites shows that their importance was unconfined. Stonehenge comes way, way down on the list, posing even more questions, and hinting that it was simply never meant to hold so many people.

Sites need not be huge to be enchanting. Tiny circles or the remains of houses can lie tucked away in woodlands, lost in barren landscapes or perched on cliff-tops. Communities of every size left their mark, and even the remains of the most isolated homesteads have a story to tell.


All of our prehistoric sites remain mysterious. Excavated remains may offer clues to a site's purpose, but we have no idea what sort of social structure existed around them. Human remains may tell us that a site was used for burials, but our churches too are surrounded by burials which form only a small part of their place within the community. As is so often the case, the more we find, the more we realise how little we know – and this can make the exploration even more exciting.

Very occasionally, intriguing signs of life can give way to intimate signs of lives. At Formby Point, north of Liverpool, the sea has washed away thousands of years of sands to uncover a neolithic beach filled with human footprints and animal tracks. Walking alongside these trails brings the past alive. Sharing a space with a distant ancestor feels like reaching back through time. What would they have thought if they had known that their footprints would still be there 6,000 years later?

Whether captivated by size, complexity, variety or mystery, there are countless thousands of sites across Britain to keep a questioning mind busy for a lifetime. Sometimes close to the road, sometimes hidden in remote hills, hunting them out is half the fun and can turn a simple day out into days of wondering. If only they could speak, what stories these stones could tell.

Rupert Soskin is an author and photographer. He has a lifelong passion for natural history, which led him to further his research into geology, archaeology, anthropology and evolutionary psychology. He lectures and has led group visits to ancient sites in Britain and abroad. For his bookStanding With Stones: A Megalithic Journey Through Britain and Ireland (£19.95), published by Thames & Hudson, he visited more than 100 megalithic and Bronze Age sites across the British Isles. The project was also made into a film, which is available on DVD.

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About The Author

Lynette Eyb

Last three pieces by this author:

Did Ryszard Kapuściński Follow Herodotus' Example and Make Things Up? | Top 10 Ancient Sites in Syria | People Power Could Signal the End of Uluru Tourist Climb

Lynette Eyb is the books editor of Heritage-Key.com. She trained in Australia as a journalist before moving to London, where she wrote for and edited various magazines. She has travelled extensively, exploring the ancient wonders of China, Turkey, Greece, Egypt, the UK and Ireland along the way. Lyn lives in Bordeaux with her partner and their young daughter.