The Thornborough Henges 71
Image by goffik
The Thornborough Henges

Setting

Taking the example of Stonehenge or Avebury, land around the henges has to come under special protection, such as SSI, it has to revert back to natural cover, and the archaeology as such has to be explained to the general public. Cope's map of the Neolithic environment of the Ure/Swale Plateau has to be married to Hardings archaeological findings. The Guardian's article referring to it as something like the Natzca Inca lines is a good parallel, it has to be interpreted and then, to quote; "all the magic of modern, sustainable, landscape-respecting tourism will be deployed here." The Stonehenge/Avebury landscapes got there, (not mentioning roads here) so perhaps Thornborough can also retrieve its magic divorced from hedgerows and large gravel holes........

It wouldn't harm to do more prospecting around the wider site. Possible avenues include - Rock Art on the faces of Devil's Arrows? (I'll volunteer Hob to take the X-Ray photos), where in the bridge is the fourth Arrow?, and I remember a sequence of standing stones, shown on a quite old map, that appeared to be an arc of a very large circle (it wouldn't harm to walk out the circle and see if there's anything to be found). The wider site certainly stretches from the henges, at least, to the Devil's Arrows, in that direction. This is too large a size for planners and administrators to comprehend.