A New Dawn at Thornborough

20.06.2025

It would be a return to Thornborough Henge for the Summer Solstice and to see what English Heritage were doing with their newly acquired north henge. I had been there with a friend for the solstice in 2023 and had enjoyed the low key casual atmosphere there with only a handful of attendees. Also it was easy to park there on a quiet lane that cuts between the southern and central henges.

The Solstice this year was in the early hours of the 21st June so we arrived the day before to settle in and look around. I had not been to the southern henge before, so my first outing was to head down there to have a look. English Heritage had made some access changes and were asking that no one walked on the top of the banks. A flock of sheep had gathered by a hut at the north entrance. This henge was the shallowest of the three and more easy to observe from above. I kept off the path that looked like it was wearing into the banks and walked around the outside to the southern entrance. Archaeoastronomists had suggested that all of the henge’s southern gaps were aligned with the rising of Sirus at the time of their construction. As I walked back towards the central henge I crossed a Cursus that had preceded the henges and had been aligned to the rising of Orion in the west. This had prompted the theory that Thornborough had been laid out in the same configuration as Orion’s belt. In this area there had been a cairn too but years of ploughing had destroyed it. Nearer the central henge an avenue of timber posts once stood but this too was long gone.

I carried on through the central henge with it’s much higher banks. I had forgotten the scale of the site and it took a while to reach the road that dissected the central and northern henges. There was no route directly to the northern henge as a property stood next to it, so I took a side road that lead around the house to the edge of the wood where a gap in the brambles allowed me in. It was dense with mature trees but I could immediately make out a deep ditch that arced around a raised centre. It was completely overgrown but English Heritage had already constructed a woodchip path around the outside fringed with dead branches. I followed the path noticing how much more acute the banking was compared to the other two henges. It also appeared to be a similar circumference, maybe even bigger. In a clearing at the southern side a sign on the fence announced that English Heritage were in negotiations over a future connecting path to the central henge. It was all very positive and encouraging to see the progress that had been made.

That evening there were only four of us sat in the centre henge to watch the sunset with wine and nibbles. We relished the peace and the feeling of exclusivity of where we were. It was incredible to think there were tens of thousands gathered at Stonehenge at that very moment. The only other person present was a hiker tucked up in a sleeping bag on the far bank. The sun peeped out behind a cloud on the horizon. We raised our glasses and toasted it before it dipped down out of sight leaving the sky with a soft pink tinge.

The following morning a few more cars and vans arrived before the reappearance of the sun at 3.42am. We took to the central henge again and positioned ourselves to face the eastern horizon. The ground was coated in a low hanging mist. The hiker was still buried in his sleeping bag and in the centre a small group of people were sat around a rug with a display of crystals, listening to the beat of a hand drum. One of them was smudging with a sage stick so I went over and waited my turn, eventually wafting me head too foot, front and back. Like in 2023 the cloud blocked the sunrise but we all stood patiently by and waited for the first rays of the new dawn.