This summer Salisbury Museum is joining forces with archaeologist Julian Richards to produce a truly inspirational exhibition about Stonehenge. Using a wide range of original artefacts, graphics, music and moving images, this exhibition will explore the many ways people have experienced and been inspired by Stonehenge.
Exhibits include unique posters from the rock festivals of the 1980s; recordings, photographs and postcards relating to people’s reminiscences of visiting the stones; publicity using Stonehenge imagery ranging from beer to lawnmowers; rock music and album covers; and more unusual items including toasting forks and Wedgwood ceramics. We will even have on display one of the Bogles used to decorate the stones in a mysterious prank in the 1960s!
There will also be a whole range of exciting activities to accompany the exhibition – not least National Archaeology Day on 12th July when Julian Richards will be building a replica Trilithon with help from Museum visitors. Julian will also be conducting special access tours of the stones with groups from South Wiltshire Mencap and the Museum will be delivering sessions in local schools about the exhibition.
But what did it actually look like in its day? It’s widely assumed that Stonehenge once stood as a magnificent 'complete' monument, but we need to bear in mind that this can’t actually be proved – about half of the stones that should be present are missing, and many of the assumed stone sockets have never actually been recorded through excavation. Experts suggest that the monument’s construction spanned anything from 1500 to 6500 years, and took place over at least three separate major phases. Which ought we to consider as Stonehenge’s ‘quintessential’ era?
Richard Colt Hoare led the first recorded excavations at Stonehenge in 1798
9 December 1758
Sir Richard Colt Hoare was an English antiquarian, artist, traveler, and archaeologist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
He was a descendent of Sir Richard Hoare - the Lord Mayor of London and the founder of the family banking business.
Richard Colt Hoare led the first recorded excavations at Stonehenge in 1798 and again in 1810. They excavated the trilithon and a fallen slaughter stone, which they stood up.
Colt Hoare also excavated almost four hundred barrows on Salisbury Plain and identified, recorded and published his findings on many other sites. As the three-age system had not been introduced he was not able to date his finds and so could not easily interpret them in a recognised manner.
Hoare lost his wife in 1785 and to distract himself from grief he decided to travel. He travelled extensively through Europe, visiting and exploring archaeological sites, filling a portfolio of drawings of the most interesting objects he saw.
Colt Hoare's most important work was The Ancient History of North and South Wiltshire which he wrote between 1812 and 1819. He also contributed to eleven volumes of the History of Modern Wiltshire between 1822 - 1844.
