The Devil’s Den is all that remains of a dolmen or portal tomb built in the Neolithic period. Two monoliths support a 20-ton capstone. Two more stones lie between the uprights. This quartet of sarsen stones created an entrance to a long barrow, 230 feet long, 120 feet wide and similar in size to its more…
Wiltshire in the Poly-Olbion
At the turn of the Century, in 1601 or 1602, William Shakespeare wrote Twelfth Night in which he warned his audience of the dangers of excessive drinking: OLIVIA: What’s a drunken man like, fool?CLOWN: Like a drowned man, a fool, and a madman: one draught above heat makes him a fool, the second mads him, and a…
Daniel Defoe in Wiltshire
The stones have always been with us, marking the passing of time like sundials, their shadows trace out days over the Plain. It’s hard to imagine, instead of the coach-deposited tourists today, a group of travellers, bewigged and perfumed, stepping down from their coach, to stand in the shadows of the great Sarsens. Even more…