If this etymology is combined with the tradition reported by Geoffrey of Monmouth stating that Ambrosius Aurelianus ordered the building of Stonehenge – which is located within the parish of Amesbury ( and where Ambrosius was supposedly buried ) – and with the presence of an Iron Age hill fort also in that parish, then it may be tempting to connect Ambrosius with Amesbury.

Despite being contemporary with true Neolithic henges and stone circles, Stonehenge is in many ways atypical – for example, at over tall, its extant trilithons supporting lintels held in place with mortise and tenon joints, make it unique.

Professor Geoffrey Wainwright OBE, FSA, president of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and Professor Timothy Darvill, OBE of Bournemouth University have suggested that Stonehenge was a place of healing – the primeval equivalent of Lourdes.

* Stonehenge Landscape The National Trust – Information about the surrounding area.

* June 21 – British police arrest 250 people for celebrating the summer solstice at Stonehenge.

* c. 2400 – 2200 BCE: Construction of Stonehenge

" Mystery Man of Stonehenge " in Smithsonian Magazine August 2005, pp 62 – 7.

William Stukeley FRS, FRCP, FSA ( 7 November 1687 – 3 March 1765 ) was an English antiquarian who pioneered the archaeological investigation of the prehistoric monuments of Stonehenge and Avebury, work for which he has been remembered as " probably ... the most important of the early forerunners of the discipline of archaeology ".

* Stonehenge Kit the Ancient Brit ( 1939 – 50, drawn by Norman Ward )

# " Stonehenge " – 1: 58

Alexander " Sandy " Thom ( 26 March 1894 – 7 November 1985 ) was a Scottish engineer most famous for his theory of the Megalithic yard, categorization of stone circles and his studies of Stonehenge and other archaeological sites.

Lieutenant-Colonel William Hawley ( 1851 – 1941 ) was a British archaeologist who most famously undertook pioneering excavations at Stonehenge.

Following the 17th-century first flowering of Anglo-Saxon studies, there was a similar wave of enthusiasm for Northern culture in Britain, identifying as Viking remains Iron Age hill forts and even Stonehenge and exemplified by the antiquarian interests of George Hickes, who published a Linguarum veterum septentrionalium thesaurus grammatico-criticus et archæologicus in 1703 – 05.

* William Stukeley ( 1687 – 1765 ), antiquarian who pioneered the archaeological investigation of Stonehenge and Avebury, was born in the town

The movement had faced significant opposition from the British government and from mainstream media, epitomised by the authorities ' attempts to prevent camps at Stonehenge, and the resultant Battle of the Beanfield in 1985 – the largest mass civil arrest in English history.

* Stonehenge – Richie Havens ( 1970 )

John Henry Walsh FRCS ( 21 October 1810 – 12 February 1888 ), English writer on sport under the pseudonym of " Stonehenge ", was born at Hackney, London.

In 1824 the Antrobus family acquired the estate and it remained in their hands until 1915 when, after the last heir was killed in France, Lord Antrobus sold the grounds –- including Stonehenge -– to private bidders.

The estate ( formerly known as Stonehenge Historic Landscape and before that as Stonehenge Down ) covers surrounding the neolithic monument of Stonehenge which is administered by English Heritage.

During the 1970s and 1980's the estate was the scene of the Stonehenge Free Festival.

The hotly debated plan for the capital's Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial, a circle of huge tablets engraved with his speeches ( and promptly dubbed by one of its critics, `` Instant Stonehenge '' ), is another of Udall's headaches, since as supervisor of the National Parks Commission he will share in the responsibility for building it.

Prior to Parsons ' departure from The Byrds, he had accompanied the two Rolling Stones to Stonehenge ( along with McGuinn and Hillman ) in the English county of Wiltshire, where Richards had a house near the ancient site.

Monumental collective tombs were built to house the dead in the form of chambered cairns and long barrows, and towards the end of the period other kinds of monumental stone alignments begin to appear, such as Stonehenge, their cosmic alignments betraying a preoccupation with the sky and planets.

Ancient structures with possibly astronomical alignments ( such as Stonehenge ) probably fulfilled both astronomical and religious functions.

The complex including Maeshowe, the Ring of Brodgar, the Standing Stones of Stenness, Skara Brae, as well as other tombs and standing stones represents a concentration of Neolithic sites that is rivalled in Britain only by the complexes associated with Stonehenge and Avebury.

Increasing academic interest in Paganism has been attributed to the new religious movement's increasing public visibility, as it began interacting with the interfaith movement and holding large public celebrations at sites like Stonehenge.

Mike Parker Pearson, leader of the Stonehenge Riverside Project based at Durrington Walls, noted that Stonehenge appears to have been associated with burial from the earliest period of its existence:

Stonehenge from the heelstone in 2007 with the ' Slaughter Stone ' in the foreground

The timber circle was orientated towards the rising sun on the midwinter solstice, opposing the solar alignments at Stonehenge, whilst the avenue was aligned with the setting sun on the summer solstice and led from the river to the timber circle.

During World War I an aerodrome had been built on the downs just to the west of the circle and, in the dry valley at Stonehenge Bottom, a main road junction had been built, along with several cottages and a cafe.

Stonehenge with about 30 acres, 2 rods, 37 perches of adjoining downland.

They also discovered organic material from 7000 BC, which, along with the Mesolithic postholes, adds support for the site having been in use at least 4, 000 years before Stonehenge was started.

A licence for the removal of human remains at Stonehenge had been granted by the Ministry of Justice in May 2008, in accordance with the Statement on burial law and archaeology issued in May 2008.

Most henges do not contain stone circles ; Brodgar is a striking exception, ranking with Avebury ( and to a lesser extent Stonehenge ) among the greatest of such sites.

In King's Meadow, the hill at the far south of the site, is a small megalith circle which, like Stonehenge, is coordinated with the summer solstice, and since 1990 represents a Stone circle.

* The Neolithic monument Stonehenge is built in England near Salisbury, Wiltshire, comprising a circular earthwork 97. 5 m / 320 ft in diameter with 56 small pits around the circumference ( later known as the Aubrey holes ).

Constable's watercolours were also remarkably free for their time: the almost mystical Stonehenge, 1835, with its double rainbow, is often considered to be one of the greatest watercolours ever painted.

When he exhibited it in 1836, Constable appended a text to the title: " The mysterious monument of Stonehenge, standing remote on a bare and boundless heath, as much unconnected with the events of past ages as it is with the uses of the present, carries you back beyond all historical records into the obscurity of a totally unknown period.

In the late 1920s a nation-wide appeal was launched to save Stonehenge from the encroachment of the modern buildings that had begun to appear around it.

This is known as " MIThenge ", a reference to Stonehenge's alignment with the sun ( although the type of alignment bears a closer relationship with that of Newgrange and Maeshowe in that the sunlight passes through the mass of the buildings rather than through the standing stones of Stonehenge ).

* Newall, R S, Stonehenge, Wiltshire ( Ancient monuments and historic buildings ) ( Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London ).

He goes on to propose Hindu origins for the tombs of Humayun, Akbar and Itmiad-u-Dallah and " all historic buildings " in India as well as the Vatican, the Kaaba and Stonehenge.