Heelstone Ditch

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Heelstone Ditch (circular depression)
Heelstone Ditch (circular depression)

Heelstone Ditch is a roughly circular earthwork having steep sloping sides which end at a narrow flat base, being approximately 4 ft (1.2m) deep and 3.5 ft (1.1m) wide. It is located in England at Stonehenge around its outermost sarsen, the Heelstone (Stonehole 96). The ditch was cut into Late Cretaceous (Santonian Age) Seaford Chalk, the formation which geologically crops out at Stonehenge. It is some 12 ft (3.7m) from Heelstone's base, having a diameter of roughly 32 ft (9.7m). A broad arcing trench found in 1923 by Lt-Col William Hawley 9 ft (2.7m) wide cuts this ditch from the West, deepening towards the stone. Against the Heelstone Ditch (inside circle) is rammed chalk filled Stonehole 97, whose missing stone is known as Heelstone's twin. Stratigraphic sequence of these features, from earliest to latest, runs (southern) Avenue Bank - Heelstone Ditch - Stonehole 97 - Scroll Trench.

Early Carboniferous (Arundian Age) High Tor Limestone fossils identified from the lower-half fill of Heelstone Ditch include Aclisina, Aviculopecten, Bellerophon, Caninia cornucopiae, Chondrites, Cleiothyridina roissyi, Composita, Conocardium, Delepinea (Daviesiella) destinezi, Euphemites, Girvanella, Hapsiphyllum (Zaphrentis) konincki, Linoproductus, Megachonetes papilionaceous, Michelina grandis, Mourlonia, Murchisonia, Palaeosmilia, Plicochonetes, Rhipidomella michelini, Schellwienella cf. S. crenistria, Straparollus, Syringopora, and Zoophycos. The upper-half fill is silted-in periglacial cryoturbated Seaford Chalk. Only a small part of Heelstone Ditch, immediately behind the Highways Agency A344 roadside fence, now remains unexplored or undisturbed. General nature of the ditch and fill described in 1979 by Michael W. Pitts, et al. [1], compares well with Hawley's (1923, 1925).

[edit] Source

  • Atkinson, R J C, Stonehenge (Penguin Books, 1956)
  • Cleal, Walker, & Montague, Stonehenge in its Landscape (London, English Heritage 1995)
  • Pitts, M W, On the Road to Stonehenge: Report on Investigations beside the A344 in 1968, 1979 and 1980 (Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 48, 1982)
  • Hawley, Lt-Col W, Report on the Excavations at Stonehenge during the season of 1923 (The Antiquaries Journal 5, Oxford University Press, 1925)

[edit] Further reading

  • Cunliffe, B, & Renfrew, C, Science and Stonehenge (The British Academy 92, Oxford University Press 1997)
  • Newall, R S, Stonehenge, Wiltshire (Ancient monuments and historic buildings) (Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1959)
  • Pitts, M, Hengeworld (Arrow, London, 2001)
  • Stone, J F S, Wessex Before the Celts (Frederick A Praeger Publishers, 1958)