254 



THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 



Fig. 6. Spread ofsarsen packing boulders in F.81. 



stone in the centre of the socket). A line of anti- 

 friction stake holes ran along the eastern edge of 

 the pit, indicating that the stone had been set into 

 the socket from the south-west. The fill was 

 particularly compact towards the centre where the 

 stone had been bedded, and contained deposits of 

 freshly flaked flint and animal bone. Around 80 

 small sarsen packing boulders were present, 

 concentrated mainly to the south (Figure 6) . The 

 configuration of the packing boulders and the 

 pattern of compression suggest that the stone had 

 been set on one corner (if originally of squared form 

 like 'Adam', standing above ground as a lozenge). 



All three stones were destroyed in the early 1 8th 

 century. F.52 and 53 were fairly typical post-medieval 

 destruction pits (though considerably larger than 

 those excavated to the east). They were roughly oval 

 in shape, up to 6.0m across and 0.8m deep, 

 somewhat irregular and expediently dug. Their lower 

 fills contained spreads of charcoal-rich soil, burnt 

 straw and fragmented and burnt sarsen. Such was 

 the intensity of burning within F.52 that some of the 

 sarsen had been reddened and reduced to sand. 



Several thousand pieces of worked flint were 

 recovered from both of these features along with 

 small quantities of bone. From the re-deposited chalk 

 and soil fill of F.52 came, somewhat unexpectedly, 

 numerous fragments of iron, including a small Anglo- 

 Saxon spearhead, pieces of shield fitting and a part 

 of a knife blade. These are almost certainly from a 

 disturbed pagan Saxon inhumation burial or a 

 weapon deposit, probably of 7th-century date 

 (Andrew Reynolds pers comm.). 



F.71 was the largest of the destruction pits so 

 far encountered, and morphologically unusual. This 

 was a multi-lobate pit, 6.5 x 6.0+m across, with 

 very steep to vertical sides and a flat base set on 

 several levels. The portion of the pit excavated 

 comprised two deep shafts on the north-east and 



Fig. 7. The 'furnace' (F.71) originally quarried into the 

 chalk beneath the recumbent back-stone of the Cove. 



south-west, c.3.0m across and over 2.0m deep, 

 separated by a narrow causeway (Figure 7). On the 

 north side a 1.0m deep extension cut through the 

 original stone socket. The shafts appear to have been 

 dug to create sufficient working space to enable a 

 horizontal 'gallery' to be excavated through the 

 chalk beneath the stone, leaving the recumbent 

 sarsen supported at the corners by pillars of undug 

 chalk. Once a sufficient void had been created the 

 shafts were then deliberately backfilled with chalk 

 rubble up to the level of the floor of the north 

 extension, creating a level surface across the whole 

 of the pit. A thick layer of charcoal-rich soil with 

 sarsen fragments lay over this, the product of fire- 

 setting (from which most of the sarsen fragments 

 had been raked out). The pit had then been 

 backfilled to the surface with chalk rubble and soil. 

 Finds from the backfill of the destruction pit 

 included several sherds of worn samian and 

 Romano-British pottery. 



This unusual pit represents the technological 

 response to dealing with a large recumbent stone. 

 Too bulky to lever up and fire-set in the conventional 

 manner, it was necessary to sink shafts around the 

 stone, then tunnel underneath, creating a void in 

 which the fire could be set - in effect constructing 

 a furnace. The scale of the process shows it was 

 both well-organised and well-planned, involving a 

 considerable expenditure of labour. With the stone 

 left supported on spurs of un-dug chalk, it must 

 also have represented a considerable risk to those 

 taking part in the operation. 



The Beacock Holes 



Two stone holes were unexpectedly revealed on the 

 north-eastern side of the area, one (F.54) just to 

 the north-west of F.71, and the second (F.83) 15m 



