As to the kinds of stone actually employed in the building of Stonehenge, the whole of the outer circle and the four stones lying beyond that circle are undoubtedly “Sarsen” (which are the boulder stones left by the ice-sheet of the glacial period on the Wiltshire downs). There are, in the inner circle, four stones which have been called “horn-stone.” The remainder are “diabase,” commonly called “bluestones,” and similar are found in Wales, and in parts of Cumberland and Cornwall, the so-called Altar Stone being a kind of grey sandstone, not sarsen. The large outlying stone, known traditionally as the “Friar’s Heel,” from a legend that when the devil was busy erecting Stonehenge he made the observation that no one would ever know how it was done. This was overheard by a friar lurking near by, and he incautiously replied in the Wiltshire dialect, “That’s more than thee can tell,” and fled for his life; the devil, catching up an odd stone, flung it after the friar, and hit him on the heel. This stone is also named the “Pointer,” because from the middle of the Altar Stone the sun is seen at the summer solstice (21st of June) to rise immediately above it. The Hele Stone is the true name, “Hele” meaning “to hide,” from Heol or Haul of Geol or Jul, all names for the sun, which this stone seems to hide. From the Friar’s Heel it is about 66 yards to a low circular earthen boundary, enclosing the area within which Stonehenge stands. Just within the entrance to this earthen ring lies a large prostrate stone called the “Slaughter Stone,” supposed by some to have been used for the slaughter of victims about to be offered in sacrifice at the altar. The Slaughter Stone (at the end nearest to the Friar’s Heel) bears evidence of tool-marks, there being six small round cavities made in it by blows from a flint tool. On the margin of the earthen ring, one 55 yards on the left, the other 95 yards on the right of the entrance, are two small, unhewn stones.
Stonehenge stands about 440 feet above the sea-level. The outer circle measures 308 feet in circumference, and is supposed to have been formed originally of thirty upright stones, seventeen of which are still standing, and the remains of nine others are to be found fallen to the ground. These stones formerly stood 14 feet above the surface of the ground, but now are of different heights. Their breadth and thickness also vary: the former averaging 7 feet, the latter 3½. The stones were fixed in the ground at intervals of 3½ feet, connected at the top by a continuous line of thirty imposts forming a corona or ring of stone at a height of 16 feet above the ground, and were all squared and rough hewn, and cleverly joined together. The uprights were cut with knobs or tenons, which fitted into mortice holes hewn in the undersides of the horizontal stones. About 9 feet within this peristyle was the “inner circle,” composed of diabase obelisks; within this, again, was the “great ellipse,” formed of five, or, as some think, seven trilithons of stones, each group consisting of two blocks placed upright and one crosswise. These structures rose progressively in height from N.E. to S.W., and the loftiest and largest attained an elevation of 25 feet. Lastly, within the trilithons was the “inner ellipse,” consisting of nineteen obelisks of diabase. Within the inner ellipse we find the Altar Stone. At the present moment, there remains of the outer circle or peristyle sixteen uprights and six imposts; of the inner circle, seven only stand upright of the great ellipse—there are still two perfect trilithons and two single uprights. The Duke of Buckingham, in his researches in 1620, is said to have caused the fall of a trilithon. He was at Wilton in the reign of James I., and he “did cause the middle of Stonehenge to be digged, and under this digging was the cause of the falling down or recumbency of the great stone there, twenty-one foote long.” “In the process of digging they found a great many horns of stags and oxen, charcoal batter-dishes (?), heads of arrows, some pieces of armour eaten out with rust, bones rotten, but whether of stagge’s or men they could not tell.”
In 1797, on a rapid thaw succeeding a severe frost, another trilithon fell; of the inner ellipse, there are six blocks in their places; and in the centre remains the so-called Altar Stone.
In Sir R. C. Hoare’s “History of Wiltshire,” he mentions that Inigo Jones observed a stone, which is now gone, in the inmost part of the cell, appearing not much above the surface of the earth and lying towards the east, four feet broad and sixteen long, which was his supposed Altar Stone. Also “Philip, Earl of Pembroke (Lord Chamberlayne to King Charles I.), did say ‘that an altar stone was found in the middle of the area here, and that it was carried away to St. James’s.’”
The entrance to Stonehenge faced the N.E., and the road to it, “Viâ Sacra,” or avenue, can be traced by banks of earth.
It is the opinion of competent authorities that many of the stones should be underpinned in the manner of the “Leaning Stone,” as any violent storms, such as periodically sweep across the Plain, might bring them down. The fall of two of the stones from the outer circle (supposed by the superstitious to foretell the Queen’s death) on December 31st, 1900, the last day of the old century, and 103 years after the last stones fell, was caused by a gale from the west.
There are the two opinions as to the right course to pursue regarding Stonehenge—some people considering it would be well to leave it to fall down, so that eventually it would appear like a jumbled heap of ninepins, others (myself among the number) that the necessary steps for its Preservation, not Restoration, should be taken.