Standing Stones

Many years ago I visited the ancient stone-age sites in Wiltshire. It was amazing to see these still-standing relics of ancient human activity and feel the echoes of past religious significance. It is very hard to explain what you feel when you're there. A few years later I visited the sites again with my wife, we were recently married and my wife felt a strong relationship between our visit and her own fertility, again something that is hard to put into words without it sounding weird or just imagined. There was no inkling she was pregnant before our visit to Avebury but while we were there and she touched a few of the stones (you can touch them at Avebury but not Stonehenge) and leaned with her back to them she had such a strong feeling that she became convinced. Actually, she knew she was pregnant, when we got home a test confirmed it.
Stonehenge is a much more famous and recognisable monument. In order to respect and preserve it, due to the numbers of visitors every year there are some restrictions. You can't walk among the stones but you can get within 30 feet I'd say. There's only a small chain link fence so it's not like you can't feel their power or significance. The stones are so huge when you consider how deep they are too, that you wonder how on Earth they got there. The visitor centre nearby tries to explain all of that and it is fascinating when you think that it was done by early man. Although we can now only speculate why.
These photographs were taken by me with my manual SLR, it was a Praktica MTL5. A very trustworthy and reliable camera. I think I had a 35-70mm zoom lens and may have used that or it might have been a more powerful zoom, I was broke in those days so can't remember exactly what I did use.




West Kennett

Stonehenge