Jane

Quoit a resurrection

WOW! It’s true, the stones are all finally up!

Me and Rupe walked the dog round the bottom end of the lake this afternoon (rather than parking up by the recycling centre) to find this:

themodernantiquarian.com/post/68766/images/devils_quoits.html
themodernantiquarian.com/post/68767/images/devils_quoits.html

As well as the stones going up, the henge had been mown and looked all ‘coifed’ and magnificent, and the hundreds of rabbits I saw last month with ocifant were gone.

We paused by the biggest of the original stones – it was thrilling to see it back up again, looking just like in the 1882 photo by Henry Taunt. I took a photo, as the shadows looked remarkably similar to that in Taunt’s picture.

themodernantiquarian.com/post/68765/devils_quoits.html

To my knowledge this complete reconstruction of a site using what is left of the original stones, plus some new ones, is unique. Interesting that it’s the painstaking excavation of Oxford Archaeology working with site owner Hanson who have made it happen.

As we were leaving, two blokes wearing florescent yellow jackets and hard hats from the portakabin at the dump approached us. They had seen us as we walked round the top of the bank. One wore a tie and had clean hands (obviously the site manager) and the other wore a sweaty T-shirt, big shit-kicking boots and had dirty hands (obviously a workman). They asked what we were doing there as there is no public access. I told them the dog gets walked up there every day (by my kids) as we only live ‘over there’ *points towards to village*.

A charm offensive was needed to diffuse any whiff of trespass, so I enthused about the stones (not difficult!) and how over the years we’d watched the work continuing and how excited we were to see the stones go up on Wednesday. This seemed to do the trick.

The man in the tie said they’d be a public opening in late August/early September. He also told me that once it was open, they planned to limit access to it with a fence “like at Stonehenge”, he said, to stop people walking all over it, wearing it down and to prevent rabbits recolonising it and denuding it. “Like hell that’s going to happen” I thought. He said that all the rabbits had been gassed last week and they were keen to keep them off – they were damaging the ditch and bank very badly.

I asked the man with the dirty hands if he was part of the team who put the stones up. He was! He said it felt pretty special to be part of it, which I thought was nice.

So there you have it.

And as we walked back to Rupe’s house he said: “your stone-hugger friends will be excited … ooh, there’s two of them now!” and at that moment Vybik John and Common Era pulled up in a car. I told them which way to walk round the lake to the stones without being spotted by the site staff.

Please remember if you visit the henge that you are technically trespassing.

This single menhir stands against a hedge at the back of Eynsham’s catholic church, once the site of a flourishing Benedictine abbey.

The stone was found by Oxford Archaeology (OA) who were excavating the site (in 1989-92) of the abbey enclosure which had been built over a much earlier Bronze Age one.

The very rich ancient archaeological landscape around Eynsham (including the Devil’s Quoits stone circle just 3 miles away; the now trashed Tarr’s Grave close to the A40 and large circular crop marks in fields around the village) means the ditch in which OA found the stone may have been part of a thriving early settlement.

The stone was re-erected in its current position thanks to the then priest John Tolkein (nephew of JRR) who offered it a safe haven in church land next to the graveyard.

It is of oolitic limestone, the same kind of stone used to build the Rollrights and many other monuments in Oxfordshire. And looks to be weathered in the same way.

There’s more information in ‘Aelfric’s Abbey: excavations at Eynsham Abbey, Oxfordshire’, 1989-92, by Alan Hardy, Anne Dodd and Graham D Keevil.

This stone is marked ‘of disputed antiquity’ because it’s not in its original position and just because it was found in a Bronze Age ditch doesn’t actually mean it was a standing stone of that period, even though its discovery, size and weathering all point to an ancient provenance.

It was our final day in Sardinia and we wanted to return to Coddhu Vecchju to enjoy the morning light on the stones.

Tombi di giganti are aligned south-south-east, towards the morning light, which I suppose is symbolic of life and rebirth. This is certainly the case in ancient Egypt. The tombs’ grave corridors point north-north-west, towards evening and sunset, perhaps symbolic of death. So to get the best modeling light on the stones (for painting and photography) you need to be there late morning, so the sun is high enough to cast shadows and reveal the carving and sculpting.

At Coddhu Vecchju the carving is not deep at all (not like those more southerly stele we’d seen) so we needed all those shadows. And I wanted to see the pink granite sparkle in the sun.