Book Log 2021 #8- STONEHENGE by Rosemary Hill
#8) STONEHENGE by Rosemary Hill.
A book about a subject that’s under constant study is always at risk of being superseded by new discoveries, and, having come out in 2008, this one was before the latest revelation a year or so back that a version of the monument had been set up in Wales first and was physically brought with its builders to the site in Wiltshire and remade…. And that doesn’t matter, where this book is concerned.
This book, you see, isn’t a history of the monument and how it developed. No, this is a book about the history of how it has been viewed and studied since its discovery- by Medieval chroniclers, 17th Century Antiquarians, Victorians, artists, archaeologists, architects, governments, and (of course) wannabe Druids.
It’s a highly readable and fascinating tour through history, taking in why people in different eras thought it was built by Romans; how the different focus of architects, antiquarians, and archaeologists gave them different views; just how the various Druid wannabes got so intertwined with it and their internicine feuding, and sidesteps into intriguing and often amusing bits of the lives and works famous people in the abovementioned fields away from Stonehenge. (To pick a random example, how Frederick Bligh-Bond impressed the Church by discovering lost wings of Glastonbury Cathedral very quickly, then got fired for revealing he had been told where to look by one of the original builders in a séance).
The chapter on more recent decades is also a good brisk eye-opener as to how it became a counterculture icon and the location for protests and violence in the 80s, and where English Heritage really spawned much of that.
And of course there’s a great round up of the physical facts of Stonehenge to start with, and some tips on visiting and further reading to end with.
Engaging, fascinating, good fun, educational, highly readable… Lovely bit of popular history. Very recommended.
A book about a subject that’s under constant study is always at risk of being superseded by new discoveries, and, having come out in 2008, this one was before the latest revelation a year or so back that a version of the monument had been set up in Wales first and was physically brought with its builders to the site in Wiltshire and remade…. And that doesn’t matter, where this book is concerned.
This book, you see, isn’t a history of the monument and how it developed. No, this is a book about the history of how it has been viewed and studied since its discovery- by Medieval chroniclers, 17th Century Antiquarians, Victorians, artists, archaeologists, architects, governments, and (of course) wannabe Druids.
It’s a highly readable and fascinating tour through history, taking in why people in different eras thought it was built by Romans; how the different focus of architects, antiquarians, and archaeologists gave them different views; just how the various Druid wannabes got so intertwined with it and their internicine feuding, and sidesteps into intriguing and often amusing bits of the lives and works famous people in the abovementioned fields away from Stonehenge. (To pick a random example, how Frederick Bligh-Bond impressed the Church by discovering lost wings of Glastonbury Cathedral very quickly, then got fired for revealing he had been told where to look by one of the original builders in a séance).
The chapter on more recent decades is also a good brisk eye-opener as to how it became a counterculture icon and the location for protests and violence in the 80s, and where English Heritage really spawned much of that.
And of course there’s a great round up of the physical facts of Stonehenge to start with, and some tips on visiting and further reading to end with.
Engaging, fascinating, good fun, educational, highly readable… Lovely bit of popular history. Very recommended.