Roll
your mouse over the name of the stone to find it's location and read the details.
The
map on the right
shows the layout of the
stones at Stonehenge.
The
stones marked in
white are still standing
today, the stones in
grey are either missing
or fallen over.
North
and South are
the barrows topped by
now missing station
stones all surrounded
by a ditch and bank.
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The
5 meter long Alter stone is a dressed block
of blue/grey sandstone
positioned central within
the great sarsen trilithon
The stone originally
stood upright but now
lies buried in the ground
with only it's surface
showing. The stone is
believed to have been
quarried from the shores
of Milford Haven, Wales.
At around
2600 BC the
first Bluestones
arrived
at Stonehenge, each
weighing around 4 tons.
They were transported
all the way from the
Preseli Mountains, Wales
using the sea, river and land, a total distance
of 386 Km. They were
originally set in a double crescent but were later
reset at the time of
arrival of the Sarsen stones as we see today
60 stones make up the
outer circle and 19 form the inner crescent.
The Heel
stone is a an
undressed piece
of Sarsen sandstone. It
marks the original
approach to Stonehenge
It is believed to be one
of a pair and were set to mark the point of
the suns rising on midsummer day when
viewed from the central
Alter stone.The stone
was named by John
Aubrey due to it's heel
shaped dent on the stone that was formed
from the Devil throwing
the stone at the friars heel, "in legend".
The
sarsen circle is a
30m diameter circle of
30 upright stones and
30 lintels weighing 25
and 7 tons respectively.
They arrived on site
around 2400 BC brought
from the Marlborough
down some 30Km away.
using Massive sledges and rollers as well s100's of people to carry out the
task, calculations recently made have estimated this may have taken over a
year to transport each stone over this distance.
The
slaughter stone stand at the entrance
of the site forming a
doorway with another
similar stone that has
now vanished. The stone
originally was over 6m
in length but now lies
in the ground with only
the surface showing.
There
are five Sarsen
trilithons consisting of
two uprights weighing
45 tons (each) and a
huge lintel weighing over
7 tons. They would have
arrived on site around
the same time as the sarsen circle (2400 BC)
and are quarried from the same hard sandstone
found 30Km away on the
Marlborough down now
known as sarsen. The
tallest trilithon, so called
after the Greek word
meaning three stones.
is still standing 6.7m
above ground level.
The
four Station stones
lay just inside the bank
and ditch that surrounds
Stonehenge, all in line with the "Aubrey holes".
The stones were all erected during the third
phase but only two stand
today. The two missing
stones were positioned
in a small ditched area
now called the North and
South Barrows. If you
connect each opposite
stone this will form an
intersection in the
centre of the stone circle.
