Stonehenge

I got up in the middle of the night to travel to my daughters in Southampton where she lives. On the way I stopped off at Stonehenge, Amesbury, Wiltshire, to try and get a night time image.

It was pitch black, so it was a good job I knew my equipment as I'd never have managed. Sunrise seemed to come earlier than 7.47am predicted and the whole place was covered in thick fog, which persisted all the way to Southampton.

Stonehenge is a massive stone monument located on a chalky plain north of the modern-day city of Salisbury, England. Research shows that the site has continuously evolved over a period of about 10,000 years. The structure that we call “Stonehenge” was built between roughly 5,000 and 4,000 years ago and that forms just one part of a larger, and highly complex, sacred landscape.

The biggest of Stonehenge’s stones, known as sarsens, are up to 30 feet (9 meters) tall and weigh 25 tons (22.6 metric tons) on average. It is widely believed that they were brought from Marlborough Downs, a distance of 20 miles (32 kilometers) to the north.

Smaller stones, referred to as “bluestones” (they have a bluish tinge when wet or freshly broken), weigh up to 4 tons and come from several different sites in western Wales, having been transported as far as 140 miles (225 km). It’s unknown how people in antiquity moved them that far.

Thanks to those that left hearts for yesterdays photo. Much appreciated.