Knowlton circles

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The Knowlton Counties are Henge Monuments and are located southwest of Cranborne and west of the B3078 road in Dorset , England (OSGB - SU 02 09).

Church ruins and henge
the Knowlton circles

Discovery and excavation

In 1995, after a dry summer, aerial photographs in a pea field were discovered, indicating human intervention in the soil. These were the great Knowlton Henge. The oldest human activities are shown in the large henge and the last are the ruins of a medieval church in the middle of the so-called "church circle". The monuments date from the Neolithic , Bronze and Iron Ages , Roman times and the Middle Ages . The photographs were compiled in a monograph in 2001 by Bournemouth University, which was investigating the complex. The archaeological digs so far have concentrated on the Henges and the largest round hill in Dorset.

Stone age

The four Neolithic henge monuments are:

  • the church district,
  • the north circle,
  • the south circle (220 m diameter)
  • the circle of the old cemetery

The aerial photographs also show the findings that have now been leveled. Three are possibly burial grounds, one a long barrow . Parallel trenches form a small cursus .

Bronze age

The 178 burial mounds of Knowlton, discovered through aerial photographs, are round mounds from the Bronze Age. They are located on the northwest slope overlooking the Allen River and show elevated concentrations at both ends of the range.

Iron and Roman times

Some structures may have been long mounds . They and other smaller structures suggest the continued use of the area for ceremonial and sepulcral use during the Iron Age and Roman Age.

middle Ages

Ruin in the church district

A church from the 12th century is the focus of the church district. The moat of the henge seems to mark the boundary of a medieval cemetery, which could also be from more recent times. Knowlton village was abandoned in 1485 when the bubonic plague wiped out its residents. The church was abandoned in 1747.

literature

  • Janet Bord & Collin Bord: Prehistoric Britain from the air . 1997 London ISBN 0-75380-707-6 .
  • Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society 117/1995 131-132.
  • N. Field, Discoveries at the Knowlton Circles, Woodlands. Dorset Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archeology Society, 84, 1962, 118-124.
  • Homer Sykes: Mysterious Britain - Fact and Folklore George Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd. 1993 ISBN 0-297-83196-8 p. 80

Web links

Coordinates: 50 ° 53 ′ 31.2 "  N , 1 ° 58 ′ 3"  W.