The Thornborough Henges 71
Image by Moth
The Thornborough Henges

Setting

"All related archeaology within the archaeological horizon of a national monument monument should be considered of national importance"

Rocks the existing boat too much, and unnecessarily?

But the term "archaeological horizon" is inspired, and this part, on it's own, is great I think –
"even though as an individual structure it may be regarded as being of lesser important, its relationship to the major monument confers additional status"

I love that. Another way of saying it would be
"there should be a presumption that super henges should be treated as having "super settings" – both in significance and extent"
- which is plain common sense, since they were self evidently of great original importance.

I don't see why that assertion needs qualifying as "unless shown not to be". It should be a presumption.

The viewshed, I think, is a distraction that weakens it - it'll be bigger than the archaeological horizon (in this case anyway) so is an irrelevance. You might be able to see ten miles, but that won't wash.
The archaeological horizon thing, if adopted, would win the thing anyway.

>> But the term "archaeological horizon" is inspired, and this part, on it's own, is great I think –
>> "even though as an individual structure it may be regarded as being of lesser important, its relationship
>> to the major monument confers additional status"

This is where I was talking about contemporary issues. A nearby site might have a locational relationship with the main one being considered, but if it was built 500 years after the main site was last used does it count? I think you'd struggle to argue that it does.

Yes, but what about the archaeology at the edge of the main archaeological horizon such as the settlement at Ladybridge is thought to be (by some)?

What about its setting? The henges side is not a prob, but the northern side apparently has no further archaeology. This was a very big settlement site - 45 acres minimum by my reckoning and almost certainly bigger.