stonehenge - English Heritage

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medieval or later times (RCHM 1979, 25). There are a
number of other undated enclosures on the SMR, which
may also be pennings (see also McOmish et al. 2002, 117).
The place-name Coneybury Hill in West Amesbury refers
to a rabbit-warren in the area during medieval times. The
earliest records date to an Inquisition of 1382 in which the
lord of Totness and Harringworth granted the manor of
Amesbury called ‘le Conynger’ (Bond 1991, 398). Another
medieval warren site is at the Coniger, an earthwork
enclosure at Winterbourne Stoke, first mentioned in 1574,
and recorded as encompassing a number of Bronze Age
barrows (RCHM 1979, xxi). The utilization of barrows as
rabbit warrens was probably fairly widespread, but is hard
to document because rabbits naturally seek accommodation
in such features. Documentary evidence is the most reliable
source of information (RCHM 1979, xxii), although
excavations around the North Kite by W F Grimes in the late
1950s included the examination of a pillow mound
southwest of Druid’s Lodge.
The creation of parks was a feature of the Wiltshire
landscape during medieval times, but the Stonehenge
Landscape is remarkably devoid of known examples (Watts
1996, figure 2).
Stonehenge itself is first mentioned in available written
sources around AD 1130, presumably as a place of interest,
intrigue, and the source of patriotic and mythical schemes for
early British history (Chippindale 2004, 6). To what extent
Stonehenge was robbed of some of its stones during later
medieval and post-medieval times has been a matter of some
discussion. Newall (1921, 435) records a fragment of
bluestone, perhaps originally from Stonehenge, in a cottage
garden at Lake, and two sarsens that are thought to have
come from Stonehenge have been recorded at Berwick St
James some 6.5km to the southwest of Stonehenge, although
their status is far from certain (Wiltshire SMR PRN 2606).
Following earlier writers, Atkinson (1979, 85–6; cf. Long 1876,
75–7) favoured the deliberate destruction of parts of the site,
perhaps in the Roman or early medieval period, but Ashbee
(1998) suggests that noncompletion may have as much to do
with its present condition as slighting and dilapidation. The
discovery of pottery dating to about AD 1400 inside the main
cist of the primary burial at Amesbury G85 suggests that here
at least there was robbing or investigation of the mound
(Newall 1931, 433). A bronze skillet handle of medieval date
found within Durrington Walls (Short 1956, 393) may indicate
activity at this much earlier monument too.
POST-MEDIEVAL (AD 1500–1800)
From about AD 1500 the Stonehenge Landscape and the
communities living within it come into sharper focus as
additional written and cartographic sources become
available. These have been extensively discussed by Bond
(1991) as part of a landscape regression analysis for the
Stonehenge Conservation and Management programme.
The wider background is provided by Bettey (1986) and
Lewis (1994). Map O shows the distribution of recorded
sites and features relevant to the archaeology of the postmedieval
period within the Stonehenge Landscape.
Through the sixteenth century the traditional medieval
settlement pattern prevailed, dominated by the town of
Amesbury and the villages along the Avon and the Till
valleys, as too the agricultural regime based on sheep
rearing and corn husbandry. Compared to the claylands of
northern Wiltshire, the Stonehenge Landscape was a
relatively unpopulated area through the post-medieval
period (cf. Lewis 1994, figure 8.5). The land needed to
support the population included valley-bottom meadowland,
valley-side land, and upland pasture. Access to
these three resources by the inhabitants of each settlement
is reflected in the organization and lay-out of manors
Illustration 63
Aerial view of abandoned
watermeadows in the Avon
Valley. [Photograph:
English Heritage.
CCC8603/1688 (NMR).]
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