Woodhenge, Amesbury
Just 1.5 miles northeast of Stonehenge, across a quiet field on the edge of Amesbury, Woodhenge is marked by low concrete posts that trace the outlines of six concentric oval rings of timber posts — the remains of a Neolithic ceremonial building erected around 2300 BC. Almost nobody stops here, which means you often have the whole windswept site to yourself.
What You Are Actually Looking At
Aerial photographs taken in 1925 revealed the crop-mark rings that led to excavation by Maud and Ben Cunnington in 1926–28. The 168 post holes they found held timbers up to a metre in diameter — this was a roofed or semi-roofed building, possibly a mortuary house or a place of feasting, aligned on the midsummer sunrise just like its stone neighbour.
At the centre of the rings the Cunningtons found the crouched burial of a three-year-old child whose skull had been cleft before interment — a sobering reminder that these monuments were places of real ritual significance, not merely astronomical calculators.
Visiting and Combining with Durrington Walls
English Heritage manages the site and entry is free and open year-round. The concrete posts are colour-coded by ring and a simple information panel explains the layout; it takes about 20 minutes to walk around properly and the views across the plain are lovely.
Immediately north of Woodhenge, the vast henge earthwork of Durrington Walls — once the largest henge in Britain at 500 metres across — is visible as a grassy bank. Recent excavations here revealed evidence of massive midwinter feasting by the people who built Stonehenge, making this corner of the plain feel thrillingly alive with prehistory.
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