'THAT TERRIBLE WOMAN': THE LIFE, WORK AND LEGACY OF MAUD CUNNINGTON 



53 





Fig. 4. Woodhenge and Stonehenge compared (after 

 Cunnington 1929) 



Hawley's recent excavations at the site, andW.M.F. 

 Petrie's statement that 'Stonehenge by its tenons 

 and mortices is an evident imitation of wooden 

 architecture' (Petrie 1882, cited in Cunnington 

 1929,20). 



Maud believed that at Woodhenge she had 

 found the prototype for Stonehenge, a belief O.G.S. 

 Crawford endorsed (Anon 1934, 533). Her 

 argument rested on the basis that the timber and 

 stone elements of the two monuments were laid 

 out on a very similar plan, the outer ring at 

 Woodhenge being approximately half the size of that 

 at of the Aubrey Holes at Stonehenge, for example. 

 But for the Woodhenge as prototype theory to work 

 both monuments had to be single phase 

 constructions and this argument depends on 

 ignoring the variety of dates suggested by the 

 prehistoric material at Stonehenge. Maud 

 Cunnington then compounded this error by her 

 misdating of Woodhenge, and therefore by exten- 

 sion Stonehenge. This error is excusable since it 

 was based on the misdating of Grooved Ware 

 pottery, which was not identified as Neolithic until 

 1936 (Warren er al 1936, 197). Maud originally 

 believed that the pottery she had recovered from 

 Woodhenge was late Bronze Age, because of the 

 absence of the impressed cord ornamentation 

 characteristic of early Bronze Age ceramics 

 (Cunnington 1929, 26). The recovery of Beaker 

 pottery in the ditch, and the mistaken identification 



of Grooved Ware under the bank as Collared Urn, 

 suggested an earlier date, but having decided that 

 funerary pottery styles were conservative, Maud 

 Cunnington would only concede a middle Bronze 

 Age date for the site at the earliest. 5 



Having dealt with the problem of the date of 

 Woodhenge, Maud then turned to Stonehenge. On 

 the basis that it must be later than its prototype 

 and with supposedly Iron Age pottery recovered 

 from the Y and Z holes, she suggested an Iron Age 

 date (Cunnington 1930a, 1 12). It was at this point 

 that her argument completely foundered. Although 

 she was not alone in suggesting Stonehenge was a 

 single phase monument (R.H. Cunnington 1935), 

 or indeed in debating the date of its construction, 

 her conclusions relied, as Engleheart pointed out, 

 on 'laboured special pleading' (1930, 143). Even 

 without hindsight, on the evidence that had been 

 recovered by the 1930s, her argument was flawed. 

 Because she wanted Woodhenge to be a model for 

 Stonehenge every possible shred of evidence was 

 used to prove this and anything which contradicted 

 her argument was ignored or distorted. 6 



There was, as mentioned above, instant 

 objection to this conclusion, although Engleheart 

 was the most outspoken in print. Kendrick and 

 Hawkes, who elsewhere were extremely 

 complimentary of Maud Cunnington's work, 

 pointed out; 



It is obviously difficult to account for the discovery 

 of Beaker pottery at Stonehenge if we are to believe 

 that it is a 'one period structure' erected some 

 considerable period after Woodhenge (1932, 94) 



Regardless of this disagreement, Maud 

 Cunnington continued to believe and publicise her 

 own theory. The excavations at the Sanctuary 

 (Cunnington 1931) were used to reinforce the view 

 that wooden monuments were generally succeeded 

 by stone ones. Although she recognised the multi- 

 phased nature of the Sanctuary, this did not lead 

 her to believe in a multi-phase Stonehenge. Even 

 the recognition of Grooved Ware as Neolithic and 

 therefore Woodhenge as a Neolithic monument, did 

 not result in any reassessment of her ideas. In the 

 1938 edition of the Introduction to the Archaeology 

 of Wiltshire she still maintained Woodhenge was 

 Bronze Age, although now she conceded early 

 Bronze Age (1938, 62-5), and that Stonehenge was 

 a single phase monument of Iron Age date (1938, 

 52). 



It should however be stressed that it is only with 

 hindsight that we can categorically state that Maud 



