Marden’s bank, inner ditch and
northern entrance.
Marden Henge, about ten miles north
of Stonehenge in Wiltshire, is one of the biggest henges in Britain and
one of the most unusual. It is in a crook of the Avon, the river which is closely
linked to Stonehenge, and the river replaces the bank for part of its
perimeter.
The henge, roughly oval and 500
metres across at its widest point, had an entrance aligned precisely north, and
a second to the southeast, linked to a causeway which led to the river. Its
bank survives up to three metres high and forty metres wide.
The Avon at Marden
The henge was built on the flat river
plain where today, after heavy rain, the mud-laden river can be seen creeping
around willow trunks and through the long grass on its banks. It probably once
filled the henge ditch and waterlogged the surrounding land. Little can be seen
of the surrounding landscape beyond the river plain, with the exception of the
ridgeline which marks the start of Salisbury Plain, and water seems to be a key
aspect of the monument’s character.
The view across the henge towards the
river.
The henge has been associated with the
construction of Stonehenge. The huge sarsen stones, incorporated into Stonehenge
around 2500BC, were dragged from the Marlborough Downs in the north, through
the Vale of Pewsey and up onto Salisbury Plain. Recent work has shown that they
most likely crossed the Avon at Marden, and were then dragged up the gentle
slope which leads from the village onto the high plain, about the only feasible
route when dragging multiple twenty-tonne rocks.
Many henges were dug on sites with
already sacred or historical importance, perhaps as an act of enclosing and
formalising that memory. Marden’s enclosing ditch is dated to 2570-2290BC, the
same time or slightly after the sarsens were moved. Perhaps its creation was
the final act of Stonehenge’s builders after their work was done.
The slope likely used to drag
Stonehenge’s sarsens up onto Salisbury Plain
Marden was also the site of a large
earthen mound, similar to the much more famous Silbury Hill near
Avebury, but on a smaller scale. The mound, 70 metres in diameter and nine
metres high, built sometime during or after the henge’s construction, was
destroyed after antiquarians dug through it. Nothing now survives. Silbury Hill
was built around 2400-2300BC; Marden may have been a similar date.
Both mounds were linked to encircling
watercourses, and I feel the idea carries weight that they represent something
akin to the mythical island of creation, rising from the primeval waters. It
would certainly feel that way, as people watched the water silently creep
through grass and tree roots around the mound as heavy rain swelled its course.
Why was it built at Marden? Was
Marden linked to the birthpoint of Stonehenge? Perhaps the river was the
boundary between two communities, the point where the stones were ceremonially
handed over, and so this site was chosen for the great mound to be raised.
Unfortunately, thanks to clumsy treasure seekers, we will probably never know.
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