Outlines of Grandeur plate featuring Stonehenge, designed for Wedgwood by Laurence Whistler, 26.5 com diam.

Our seasonal decorations range from a stained glass Christmas tree, made by a talented friend, to bats and flying monkeys.

Winter Solstice lantern lighting at sunset at Stonehenge today.

Since working on the reenactment of some photographs of Morris dancers at Stonehenge for English Heritage in 2023, I occasionally sketch dress, presentation and movement from online photographs. In this example the seasonal garlands worn by Hawthorn & Hare Morris form a canopy.

On entering a Pizza Express for the first time I encountered Lord of the Flies.

Humour for my grandsons. What is the difference between a Klingon battle cruiser, a Romulan battle cruiser, and a carrot that resembles a battle cruiser? Only the latter is found in a bag of 'Wonky carrots' from Morrisons and gets turned into a Christmas greeting. Merry Christmas.

Part of my fag packet survey at Clatford - back then I couldn't afford film, only had a pocket tape rule. 5 much larger sarsens plus others within 200 metres. All but the three largest (in a line in this drawing) have been moved. 1 of 3 possible locations of the Clatford Circle.

A large ivory handled folding knife signed M. VERINDER, LUDGATE HILL scrimshawed with a scene of Stonehenge.

Awaiting peer feedback on a draft (5,500 words) about threats to chalk figures in the landscape. If it makes it into print it will be my 75th article/ paper/ chapter published in 30 years. Think I should host drinks somewhere?

Removing the rear layers of the 1960s frame we encounter confirmation of the date from a January 1968 copy of the Bath Evening Chronicle, and access to the details - the artist is J.Baker, the publisher is William Baily, bookseller of Calne. It is dated July 20th 1798, and Bluck was the engraver.

I bought this hand coloured copy of the 18th century engraving of Cherhill White Horse some time back. It was inexpensive because someone started recolouring it in the 60s judging by the paint applied to the traveller's coat left.

Maud Cunnington new photos www.sarsen.org/2025/11/maud...

Stonehenge c. 1846 by William Turner of Oxford, who was born on this day in 1789. Turner was an English painter who specialized in watercolour landscapes. The Ashmolean has a collection of works by this artist.

The blue Uffington Horse road sign erected by North Wessex Downs National Landscape where the Cherhill White Horse comes into view on the Bath Road on travelling east from Calne - too tricky standing in traffic so have included two composites. The 18th century image is by John Bluck. Your thoughts?

My new book, all about how, in the 1970s and 80s, the good architects and planners of the Peterborough Development Corporation tried to create pedestrian-friendly places to live. Available here: theradburnidea.bigcartel.com/product/the-...

My new book, The Radburn Idea 2: A Peterborough Effect, is now on sale! 76pp, with 32 photographs/illustrations. £12 incl postage. theradburnidea.bigcartel.com/product/the-...

The Making Of David Bowie's 'Sound And Vision': "He encrypted everything with hidden meaning": How Monty Python, Brian Eno and "a little Bo Diddley kind of thing" helped create Bowie's Low hit www.uncut.co.uk/features/the...

Questions on hill figures on University Challenge this evening.

The Alton Barnes White Horse was for many years lit with tea candles in jars to mark the winter Solstice in the present century. It was a sympathetic tradition, albeit walking back and forth over the vulnerable edges and chalk surface was a little less mindful of potential change.

Happy #DoctorWhoDay!

Two fascinating 1918 aerial photo albums, and lots of crashed planes. Hackpen White Horse, Wiltshire. kresenkernow.org/SOAP/search/...

Been popping into my head all day.

Happy birthday to us! Cake from Zuzilicious Cakes in Tonbridge. Rather well done. www.facebook.com/zuziliciousc...

Really good talk today by David Boyd Haycock - such a good speaker, so much to think about.

Hippisley Cox's 1909 Avebury guide was heavily criticised by the proprietor of the Devizes and Wilts Advertiser, who died in 1910. Cox died in 1923 and keeping the reversed Uffington Horse on a 'Green Road' the guide was republished unchanged in 1929 other than a new name and an additional preface.

Woodhenge was discovered in Dec 1925. Delighted to see my article about this in @CurrentArchaeo’s December issue - fittingly for the 100th anniversary of this state monument. 🏺https://the-past.com/feature/100-years-of-woodhenge-tracing-an-archaeological-icon-from-discovery-to-new-dating-evidence/

Haven't opened the pages of this 1909 guide to Avebury for a while. A note about the Devil's Den appears to have been torn from the corner of an accounts book with a printed reference to some hotels.

The censored Giant by William Wiehe Collins for The Green Roads of England, 1914. An erect penis would not offend the author, 51 yr old former Coldstream Guard and surgeon Robert Hippisley Cox - context lost when Cox was known as a hotelier and restauranteur that ran Romano's in the Strand.

If I mentioned this is in the Avebury half of the World Heritage Site I might be asked for the exact location by people wanting to see it - so I shall keep it to myself.

@peteglastonbury.bsky.social is this one of those you photographed laying flat at the edge of a field in the last century please? Someone posted the question on Ancient Stone Bothering, and as you know I don't do rocks.

Yesterday we welcomed a team from NHK (Japan's biggest broadcaster) interviewing @public-history.bsky.social about the amazing story of the Wiltshire Thatcher and the cover of Led Zeppelin IV (with Stairway to Heaven!). Broadcast in the New Year. More at www.wiltshiremuseum.org.uk/news-article...

Ben Jennings.

The questions were so interesting it was a pleasure being interviewed by Yasuhiro Kodama and Haruyoshi Nishimura for a Japanese television series about famous rock music album covers.

Led Zeppelin IV released on this day 1971. The Victorian photograph on the cover is of the Wiltshire Thatcher - the original is in the collection of Wiltshire Museum. @wiltshiremuseum.bsky.social

An open air talk to Christian Climate Action pilgrims at Silbury Hill in the footsteps of talks popularised in the 19th century: the collapse on 29 May 2000, Edward Drax's miners of 1776, Dean Merewether's 1849 tunnel, BBC failing to backfill in 1970 + climate info text from @jimleary.bsky.social

'Sofa',... end credits from Men Behaving Badly series 6 episode 6, broadcast 11 December 1997. Moments earlier, a large exotic snake had been tipped out of a sack in front of the sofa, but was removed. Wondering if the cast and crew were aware of the justifiable reputation for adders on that hill.

Released this day in 1967, I didn't buy it until nearer Christmas. My father was sick of it within the first few days but within a week started to sing along to the Mother's Lament.

A splendid 2 days exploring the mysterious and not so mysterious Chiltern chalk figures.

Please share.

The wonderful White Horse of Kilburn.

Have just written a draft note about the onset of Guy Underwood's interest in dowsing during wartime for a magazine. Can't though source any photograph of him other than one used in a previous article. Has anyone knowledge of any photographs of Underwood please?

This is further from the window in the living room. I am writing an article about hill figures and having lived in a house for 20 years with a full view of a chalk horse, I now miss that hillside companionship terribly.