The Festival of Archaeology at Thornborough took place on Saturday at West Tanfield Memorial Hall, which was the new Thornborough Archaeology Group (TAG) inaugural event in partnership with English Heritage. TAG’s aim is to foster and support community interest and activities in the historic Thornborough Henges landscape such as community centered fieldwork.
Dr Jan Harding gave a lecture about the henges, which was followed by a guided tour with Christine Clarke and Suzie Walker from English Heritage. It was an excellent day and a fantastic start to hopefully many more such events.
Jan spoke for about an hour; the talk was recorded and will hopefully be available soon. Until then, here is a brief summary of his main points:
- The Thornborough Henges were one of the largest building projects undertaken in the British Isles during the neolithic period and was a pilgrimage site. Each is around 240 metres in diameter. With the exception of four sites on the Wessex chalkland the Thornborough Henges are the largest henge monuments in the British isles.
- The siting of the henges close to the river Ure was important as rivers were important routeways for people to navigate the landscape, but the river also had an important symbolic role.
- The earliest monument to be built at Thornborough – the ‘founder monument’ – was a triple ditched round barrow consisting of three circular ditches. It was built around 3900 BC. It contained the disarticulated bones of five adults and two juveniles or infants. Around 3500 BC the barrow was covered by river cobbles.
- After the triple ditched round barrow, a cursus monument was constructed which ran east-west. The cursus has not been dated but was probably built around 3600 – 3000 BC. The cursus was not empty, excavations suggest that there were structures within the cursus. There were a series of post holes and circular arrangements of stones. Rituals and ceremonies may have been conducted within it involving large groups of people. The western terminal of the cursus was aligned to the three stars that make up the belt of Orion.
- During the fourth millennium there was widespread occupation across the landscape around the Thornborough Henges but it was not large scale.
- An 18 by 25 metre oval enclosure with a ditch and inner bank with causeway entrances, known as a ‘long mortuary enclosure’, may have had a direct relationship with the cursus. This may have been connected with the burial of the dead or ancestral rituals, possibly with the exposure of bodies for 6 or 12 months before the collection of the bones to be moved elsewhere, although no bones have been found within the oval enclosure.
- During the later neolithic there was a redevelopment of the landscape with the building of the henges, mobilizing large amounts of labour, time and effort.
- Although not identical, the similarity of the henges shows a pre-conceived intention, a unity of belief and practice across this landscape. This was not a one-off building event, they were developed over hundreds of years and added to in a series of phases. People were constantly coming back and adding to the monuments.
- The henges can be seen as a barrier in the landscape – a contrast between the outer world outside the henges and a highly sacred, highly religious inner world within them. The ditches were between 13 and 18 metres across. The banks were up to 5 metres in height. Moving between these two worlds would have been highly meaningful for the neolithic people who built them. The henges would have been the biggest built places the neolithic people would have seen in their lives, having the impact a large skyscraper may have in modern society, but the difference being that the henges were deeply spiritual places. There would have been a sense of awe and anticipation amongst the neolithic worshippers and would have greatly impacted on people psychologically as they moved across the landscape.
- The area around Thornborough Henges is well known for the presence of gypsum. Gypsum sink holes can be seen today and would have been in existence in the neolithic period. The inner henge banks would have been coated in gypsum. Rather than green or brown earthworks, the banks of the Thornborough Henges would have been white. Some small pits near the Southern Henge were found where a gypsum paint was manufactured by being burnt to break it down and then put into the pit and mixed with water. The symbolic importance of gypsum is that it comes from deep within the ground in sink holes that lead down into the underworld. Gypsum is a substance of the underworld that looks like human bone in colour.
- People always want to know what is inside the henges and the short answer at Thornborough is we don’t know. It’s possible that they were empty spaces, not necessarily full of timber uprights or stones. We do know that at Thornborough there were features associated with the entrance ways that suggests that the experience of people travelling from the outside world into the monument was being orchestrated – manipulated and controlled. A large post or a stone may have been in front of the southern entrance to the Central Henge. In the Southern Henge there may have been a bank with a series of postholes in front of the entrance way. People’s experiences were closed down and they were moved in certain ways at the entrances.
- There are astronomical orientations towards the entrances to the henges. This is unsurprising as there are bound to be – the entrances are very wide and there are thousands of stars. However there are two observations – there is a correlation between the midwinter sunrise and the entrance to central henge. Also Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, rises above the southern entrance ways of all three henge monuments.
- The plateau across which the henges are built were devoid of any archaeological deposits, almost as if it was a social taboo to leave anything. When they were excavated the henges were completely clean – not a single flint or a single sherd of pottery was found. The one location across the landscape where people did stay and flint and pot sherds were found is what is called Chapel Hill – this is the one place in the landscape where the henges could not be seen.
- Thornborough may have been an important location in the movement and exchange of objects from west to east and vice versa. Polished stone Langdale axes were being moved across the Pennines during the neolithic and large quantities of them have been found in the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Wolds. Wensleydale could have been one of the routeways from the Lake District to the east and this would have taken people past the Thornborough monument complex. Also distinctive flint from the Yorkshire Wolds area has been found in Cumbria so the trading routes went both ways. Thornborough may have been strategically located on the thoroughfare of movement from west to east and vice versa.
- The River Ure was important as a thoroughfare and the six other henges of a similar size to Thornborough emphasise this.
- The flints found in the Thornborough area were very lightly used which suggests there were not permanent settlements here, rather they were temporary camps made of shelters. People were making a pilgrimage to this area and not settling here.
- Around 2000 BC the henges fell out of use and what instead a series of burial mounds – round barrows – were constructed. This indicates social change from shared communal experiences and activities across the landscape to more private, family events with smaller groups of people. However these round barrows did spatially reference and respect the henges. The best example is the site called Central Hill Barrow, excavated in 1864 by the Rev. Lucas. He found a coffin with some human bone and a pot inside it. The bottom of the pit in the barrow was lined in gypsum. These new rituals still directly referenced and paid homage to earlier rituals and places.
- Although the henges monuments went out of use this around 2000 BC this was not the end of large scale monument building at Thornborough. In the latter part of the second millennium, at some point after 1500 BC, a double timber or pit alignment was constructed, which runs for 350 metres and is the longest in the British Isles. It contained substantial timber uprights containing posts that would have stood from around 3 metres to nearly 5 metres in height above the ground. This was a very impressive timber avenue around 10 to12 metres in width and at each end there was a round barrow – the Centre Hill Barrow was at the northern end and an unexcavated round barrow is at the southern end.
- In 10, 15 or 20 years time we may have a different story for Thornborough due to the constant developments in archaeology and this is something to be celebrated. Hopefully at Thornborough the future is now rosier than the past now that English Heritage has purchased the site and land management practices are being enacted to help with preserving the site. Hopefully Thornborough will now become one of the centerpieces of British pre-history.
Questions after the talk covered the plan to reconnect the three henges so that people can walk from henge to henge as was intended when they were first built. This is not going to be straightforward due to having to cross roads. English Heritage wants this to happen but public safety must be paramount. Another question addressed the dating of the henge monuments, which are poorly dated at the moment and better dating is needed but further excavations will be expensive especially if they are large-scale. The final question touched on the possibility of a priestly class connected with the building of henge monuments coming to the UK from Iberia or Central Europe, which Jan felt may be possible and more research is needed.
After the talk we had a chance to look at some of the artifacts that have been found at Thornborough Henges:
And a very special mention must be made for the ladies of the West Tanfield Women’s Institute, whose cakes were legendary!
We then went over to the Central Henge for a guided tour:
Some geophysics work has been carried out recently near the Northern Henge in connection with a possible second cursus monument there and the report will be published on the Historic England website in December 2024.
Despite torrential rain having been forecast we managed to get away with just a few spots of rain. The bad weather remained in the distance and the sky over the henges stayed mainly clear – a phenomenon apparently known as ‘The Blue Hole of Thornborough’ in local folklore!
Christine showed us the ditch of the cursus, which the central henge is built over, which can clearly be seen near the southern entrance. It is a sacred place which those who are aware of it always ensure they step over out of respect, and now I am aware of it then this is something that I will make sure I do, and point out to those who are with me.
It was an excellent day and well worth the magical mystery tour through the dales to get there. Many thanks to Christine for the lift to the Central Henge and then on to Northallerton railway station. See you at autumn equinox all being well!
Thornborough Henge Tours:
These are run by volunteers for English Heritage and take place during August 2024 on Friday and Sunday mornings at 11am. They are free of charge and can be booked online via Eventbrite.
Further Information and Reading:
Thornborough Archaeology Group on Facebook
English Heritage – History of Thornborough Henges