About the model
A Late Neolithic henge in Wiltshire: a bank with an internal ditch, broken by four causewayed entrances (north, east, south, west), enclosing the largest stone circle in Britain (originally about 98, or 98-105, sarsens set just inside the ditch) and two inner circles, the Northern (about 27 stones, with the three-sided Cove at its centre) and the Southern (29 stones round the Obelisk, a stone about 5.5-6.4 m tall, with the small 'Z-feature' setting beside it, now argued to be part of a 30 m square). The earthwork seen today was built about 2580-2470 cal BC over a smaller first bank; the outer circle a little later; the Cove may be as early as 3000 cal BC. Villagers buried many stones from the early 14th century (the 'barber-surgeon' was crushed by one) and broke up most of the rest by fire and water in the late 17th-18th centuries; the Obelisk went after 1725. Alexander Keiller excavated the West Kennet Avenue (1934-35) and the NW (1937), SW (1938) and SE (1939) sectors, re-erected the buried and fallen stones he found in their own stone-holes (the western half of the outer circle and the Southern Inner Circle) and set concrete pillars on the holes of destroyed stones; the eastern half was never excavated and several stones still lie buried there (2003 survey). Today about 30 stones of the outer circle are visible and 16 more positions are marked by concrete pillars (Wessex Archaeology); of the Northern Inner Circle two stand and two lie; of the Cove two stones stand (straightened in 2003). The earthwork and its present heights come from the EA LiDAR; quotes below give the original depths.