CPRE’s Dark Skies adviser Richard Miles delves into the past to discover some remarkable connections hidden in our local landscape
Image: Laura Hitchcock
You may be surprised to learn that relics of the late Neolithic – the era of Stonehenge – survive to this day in Dorset, reaching to the edge of the Blackmore Vale. This story relates to Stonehenge, famous for its summer/winter solstice alignment, built into its design around 4,500 years ago.
The Altar Stone and central trilithons were arranged along this solsticial axis, as was the Heel Stone, used for sighting the sun.
When the sun god stood still
Each solstice was important to our distant ancestors: the motion of the sun had an enormous influence on their lives. Few, if any, people these days know what it is like to survive without modern conveniences and comforts. Neolithic folk had virtually none – even their firewood was collected and cut up without the aid of metal implements and burned on an open fire – no woodburning stoves in those days! Long winter nights were particularly hard to survive and people fully appreciated that the sun was both the bringer of light and heat, without which life was impossible. Cultures around the world have worshipped solar deities and the people who built Stonehenge were no exception.
Stone circles such as Avebury in Neolithic Britain were centres for gatherings during the summer and winter solstices, when the days are at their longest or shortest. Around these times, the sun appears to rise at nearly the same point on the horizon for several days in a row.
The word ‘solstice’ comes from the Latin sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still), and it was this “standing still” of the sunrise that early people sought to observe.
While stone circles made excellent venues for communal gatherings, they were not designed to be precise observatories. Accurately tracking the direction of sunrise or sunset required a clear, distant horizon. If a convenient natural landmark aligned with the sun’s position, so much the better. But here in Dorset, the sun at midsummer would rise close to a bearing of 49°, and at midwinter around 129°.
So how did Neolithic people pinpoint these directions so precisely? The answer, perhaps, lies in the very landscape we’ve inherited.
Ball, Bell and Bul
In ancient Dorset, setting up sun temples to worship the sun god and sight the rising or setting sun at solstices appears to have been the practice, thanks to the geography of the North Dorset Downs. The population lived on the uplands and travelled by highways and ridgeways. Valleys were filled with dense woodland. The Blackmore Vale is a good example, with the clue in its name, ‘black’ being its winter aspect. Settlements were situated on or near upland plateaus and vistas stretched to the distant horizon many miles away – great places for sighting the solsticial sun.
Hambledon Hill was the site of a community in prehistory, so where would their sun temple have been located? One contender is Turnworth Clump, a prominent group of tall trees visible from much of the Blackmore Vale.
It happens to lie on Bell Hill in the direction of the setting sun on the winter solstice, as seen from near the centre of Hambledon. From the northern end of the hill, another sightline for sunset on the solstice exists eight miles away, at the top of Ball Hill (see map opposite). Turnworth Clump could also have been used as a sightline for sunrise on the summer solstice, as seen from an obvious viewing point on a spur of Bulbarrow close to Rawlsbury Camp.
Bel, Baal and variants of these names were gods of the sun, light and fire from the first and second millennium BC. I suggest the Bul in Bulbarrow is also linked to the sun god. Finally, Ball Hill lies across from Nettlecombe Tout, another prehistoric community. Seen from there, the sun appears to rise from the northern edge of Hambledon on the summer solstice.
Similar sightlines
How significant are all these sightlines? Were they really used in this way all those years ago? Potential confirmation can be found in the position of another important Dorset hill fort, Eggardon Camp. The map shows a remarkable similarity to the set-up of Hambledon.
Two sightlines exist, one from each side of the Iron Age hillfort towards Hill Barn (next to Ball’s Hill) and Gore Barn high on the plateau above Up Cerne. Looking back from Gore Barn towards Eggardon, the sun set on the winter solstice above a ridge to the north-west of Eggardon called the Bell Stone. Finally, to round off the remarkable parallel, seen from Eggardon, just framed beneath Hill Barn on the skyline eight miles distant is another feature called ‘Ballbarrow’ on the one-inch Ordnance Survey map of 1805.
Conserving and protecting our heritage?
Places like Turnworth Clump, Gore Barn and Hill Barn might well have been temples to the sun gods of yesteryear and, thankfully, half a dozen geographical features passed to us down the generations (highlighted in bold above) have retained the names of these deities.
CPRE Dorset are concerned that these relics of the past are preserved as part of our heritage, but sadly must report that Hill Barn no longer exists! In his evocative 1935 book, English Fabric: A Study of Village Life, Harvey Darton described the inside of the barn, at a junction of the ancient ridgeway and surrounded by tree – but if you look at recent satellite images it has disappeared entirely and looks like any other nondescript ploughed field sewn with grass.
