Hodson Stone Circle was a
stone circle
A stone circle is a ring of standing stones. Most are found in Northwestern Europe – especially in Britain, Ireland, and Brittany – and typically date from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with most being built from 3000 BC. The be ...
in the village of
Hodson in the south-western English county of
Wiltshire
Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...
. The ring was part of a
tradition of stone circle construction that spread throughout much of Britain, Ireland, and
Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...
during the
Late Neolithic
In the archaeology of Southwest Asia, the Late Neolithic, also known as the Ceramic Neolithic or Pottery Neolithic, is the final part of the Neolithic period, following on from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic and preceding the Chalcolithic. It is some ...
and Early
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
, over a period between 3300 and 900
BCE
Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...
. The purpose of such monuments is unknown, although some
archaeologists
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
speculate that the stones represented
supernatural
Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin (above, beyond, or outside of) + (nature) Though the corollary term "nature", has had multiple meanings si ...
entities for the circle's builders.
The circle was discovered and recorded by the antiquarian A. D. Passmore in the 1890s. He briefly mentioned it in an article published in ''The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine'', while detailing it in greater depth in his unpublished notebooks. He recorded the circle as consisting of eight stones at that time, with a possible avenue or stone row emerging from it and facing in the direction of the circle at
Coate. Later archaeologists have noted that some of the sarsens used as building material in Hodson were once part of the circle.
Context
While the transition from the
Early Neolithic to the Late Neolithic in the fourth and third millennia BCE saw much economic and technological continuity, there was a considerable change in the style of monuments erected, particularly in what is now southern and eastern England. By 3000 BCE, the
long barrow
Long barrows are a style of monument constructed across Western Europe in the fifth and fourth millennia BCE, during the Early Neolithic period. Typically constructed from earth and either timber or stone, those using the latter material repres ...
s,
causewayed enclosure
A causewayed enclosure is a type of large prehistoric earthwork common to the early Neolithic in Europe. It is an enclosure marked out by ditches and banks, with a number of causeways crossing the ditches. More than 100 examples are recorded in ...
s, and
cursus
250px, Stonehenge Cursus, Wiltshire
250px, Dorset Cursus terminal on Thickthorn Down, Dorset
Cursuses are monumental Neolithic structures resembling ditches or trenches in the islands of Great Britain and Ireland. Relics found within them in ...
es that had predominated in the Early Neolithic were no longer built, and had been replaced by circular monuments of various kinds. These include earthen
henge
There are three related types of Neolithic earthwork that are all sometimes loosely called henges. The essential characteristic of all three is that they feature a ring-shaped bank and ditch, with the ditch inside the bank. Because the internal ...
s,
timber circles
In archaeology, timber circles are rings of upright wooden posts, built mainly by ancient peoples in the British Isles and North America. They survive only as gapped rings of post-holes, with no evidence they formed walls, making them distinct fro ...
, and stone circles. Stone circles are found in most areas of Britain where stone is available, with the exception of the island's south-eastern corner. They are most densely concentrated in south-western Britain and on the north-eastern horn of Scotland, near
Aberdeen
Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...
. The tradition of their construction may have lasted for 2,400 years, from 3300 to 900 BCE, with the major phase of building taking place between 3000 and 1,300 BCE.
These stone circles typically show very little evidence of human visitation during the period immediately following their creation. The historian
Ronald Hutton
Ronald Edmund Hutton (born 19 December 1953) is an English historian who specialises in Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and Contemporary Paganism. He is a professor at the University of Bristol, has written 14 bo ...
noted that this suggests that they were not sites used for rituals that left archaeologically visible evidence, but may have been deliberately left as "silent and empty monuments". The archaeologist
Mike Parker Pearson
Michael Parker Pearson, (born 26 June 1957) is an English archaeologist specialising in the study of the Neolithic British Isles, Madagascar and the archaeology of death and burial. A professor at the UCL Institute of Archaeology, he previous ...
argues that in Neolithic Britain, stone was associated with the dead, and wood with the living. Other archaeologists have proposed that the stone might not represent ancestors, but rather other supernatural entities, such as deities.
Various stone circles were erected in the area of modern Wiltshire, the best known of which are
Avebury
Avebury () is a Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles, around the village of Avebury in Wiltshire, in southwest England. One of the best known prehistoric sites in Britain, it contains the largest megalithic stone circle in t ...
and
Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around high, wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connectin ...
. All of the other examples are ruined, and in some cases have been destroyed. As noted by the archaeologist
Aubrey Burl
Harry Aubrey Woodruff Burl HonFSA Scot (24 September 1926 – 8 April 2020) was a British archaeologist best known for his studies into megalithic monuments and the nature of prehistoric rituals associated with them. Before retirement he was Pr ...
, these destroyed examples have left behind "only frustrating descriptions and vague positions". Most of the known Wiltshire circles were erected on low-lying positions in the landscape.
In the area south of
Swindon
Swindon () is a town and unitary authority with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Wiltshire, England. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Swindon was 201,669, making it the largest town in the county. The Swindon un ...
, a town in northern Wiltshire, at least seven stone circles are reported as having existed, often only a few miles distant from one another; the Fir Clump Stone Circle was for instance a mile south of the
Broome Stone Circle. All of these northern Wiltshire circles have been destroyed, although the vestiges of one survives: the stones at the
Day House Lane Stone Circle in
Coate, Swindon
The Borough of Swindon is a local government authority in South West England, centred on the urban area and town of Swindon and forming part of the ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Wiltshire.
History
In 1974 the Thamesdown ...
remain, albeit in a fallen state.
Antiquarian investigation
In an 1894 article published in ''
The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine'', the antiquarian A. D. Passmore related that he was aware of "a number of
sarsen
Sarsen stones are silicified sandstone blocks found in quantity in Southern England on Salisbury Plain and the Marlborough Downs in Wiltshire; in Kent; and in smaller quantities in Berkshire, Essex, Oxfordshire, Dorset, and Hampshire.
Geology ...
s" which he thought might have been part of a stone circle. He noted that from these, a line of stones appeared to emerge and head in the direction of
Coate. Passmore also produced two notebooks during that decade in which he wrote down observations deriving from his archaeological fieldwork in the region. Here he recorded more about the circle. He observed that a road cut through the circle and several barns encroached on it, meaning that it was "very difficult to find". The contents of Passmore's notebooks and their references to the Fir Clump Stone Circle were not published until 2004, after they had been purchased by the
Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society
The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society was founded in 1853, and is one of the largest county-based archaeological societies in the United Kingdom. It runs the Wiltshire Museum in Devizes, Wiltshire which has the best Bronze Age ...
.
In his notebook, Passmore noted that he could find eight stones as part of the circle. He also discovered three stones inside the circle, suggesting that these may have been part of an inner circle – in which case the circle would have had two concentric rings, akin to the Day House Lane circle. Alternatively, he suggested that the stones inside the circle may simply have been dumped there by farmers wanting them out of the way. He also suggested that the circle was about 250 feet (76m) in diameter, and was thus of a similar size to the Day House Lane circle. He identified "4 distinct lines of stone" emerging from the circle, suggesting that if this line continued all the way to Coate then it may have attached to the row of stones he also thought emerged from the Day House Lane ring.
In their 2017 book on prehistoric Wiltshire, the archaeologists David Field and David McOmish noted that a stone circle was "thought to have been present" in Hodson, and that any stones once part of it might now be found as some of the sarsens lying loose around the village or incorporated into the fabric of various buildings.
References
Notes
Footnotes
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
{{coord missing, Wiltshire
Demolished buildings and structures in Wiltshire
History of Wiltshire
Megalithic monuments in England
Stone circles in Wiltshire