Books by Robin Heath

from Bluestone Press, The Old Post Office, GLANRHYD, Cardigan, Pembs. SA43 3PA.

Bluestone Press was founded in 1993. All our titles are locally printed by Gomer Press, perhaps the best known publisher/printer in Wales. Our titles are traditionally designed books, printed onto high quality paper and sewn covers, and bound into soft back format. They last, and some. In addition to books by Robin Heath, Bluestone Press has also published specialist astronomy and astrology textbooks, audio books, soli-lunar calendars and leaflets on musical instrument restoration and megalithic site tour guides, in addition to postcards and gift cards.

Once payment has been made it is often possible to dispatch books within 24 hours. We like to know that they have been received safely, and we need to know if books have arrived damaged during transit.

There are substantial discounts for multiple book orders, for larger quantities and trade, please note that our distributors are all happy people.

www.robinheath.info.                                                             email : mail@skyhenge.plus.com

Bluestone Press Titles

  •  A Key to Stonehenge (1993), rev. 2nd edition 2005, Out of print.
  • Sun, Moon & Stonehenge (1998) Out of print.
  • The Measure of Albion (2004) (with John Michell) Out of print.
  • Powerpoints (2007)*
  • Alexander Thom : Cracking the Stone Age Code* (2008)
  • Bluestone Magic : A Guide to the Prehistoric monuments of West Wales* (2010) Full colour.
  • Proto-Stonehenge in Wales*(2014)
  • Temple in the Hills: Discovering the Origins of Stonehenge (2016) Full colour.

Hodder Headline

  • Stone Circles : A Beginner’s Guide (1999)

Wooden Books

  • Sun, Moon and Earth (1999 etc), various editions and available in 10 languages
  • Stonehenge (2000 etc), various editions and available in 4 languages

Adventures Unlimited Press (AUP)

  • The Lost Science of Measuring the World (with John Michell)(2006) A facsimile US edition of The Measure of Albion.

Mythos Press

  • The Secret Land (with Paul Broadhurst)

All Bluestone Press titles (marked above in bold and asterix) are available by post, as a soft cover edition.

ORDERING BOOKS

To order a book from this list, we will need the following information, by email or snail-mail :

  1. Your name, address, phone number and email address.
  2. A shipping address, if different from the address above in item 1.
  3. The title(s)of the book(s) you want to buy.
  4. Whether you want the book signed, and do let us know the name of any recipient to be mentioned for a book to be gifted.

email : mail@skyhenge.plus.com

  1. A nice person at Bluestone Press will then email or phone with a quote for the book(s), inclusive of postage and packing costs.
  2. You then have two options: either
    • to pay via PayPal through mail@skyhenge.plus.com or
    • issue a cheque payable to Bluestone Press for the full amount (including post and packing charges), posted to,
    • Bluestone Press, The Old Post Office, GLANRHYD, Cardigan, Pembs. SA43 3PA.

Once payment has been made it is often possible to dispatch books within 24 hours. We like to know that they have been received safely, and we need to know if books have arrived damaged during transit.

There are substantial discounts for multiple book orders, for larger quantities and trade, please note that our distributors are all happy people.

www.robinheath.info.                                                             email : mail@skyhenge.plus.com

Those Old Preseli Blues

An excerpt from Temple of the Hills – The Discovery of the Original Stonehenge

 by Robin Heath, Bluestone Press, 2016

Long lodged in folklore and myth there runs an ancient Welsh tradition telling of an original bluestone circle in the Preseli region of west Wales. The matter was referred to in The White Goddess, a seminal work by the Irish academic historian and poet Robert Graves (Faber, 1948),

It has been suggested that the smaller (bluestones) stones, which are known to have been transported all the way from the Prescelly Mountains in Pembrokeshire, were originally disposed in another order there and rearranged by the people who erected the larger ones. This is likely, and it is remarkable that these imported stones were not dressed until they were re-erected at Stonehenge itself.’

However, this tradition goes back much further than recent times, in essence the tradition is about a bluestone circle being uprooted from Preseli and taken in antiquity to Stonehenge,  then reassembled as part of the monument that has stood on Salisbury Plain for at least five millenia, mute, magnificent and yet, above all, mysterious. And despite centuries of attention from all manner of specialisms, the purpose of Stonehenge still remains unclear. This monument’s many secrets and its extant bluestone circle still tantalize and taunt those who attempt to understand the history and purpose of this unique monument.

Unexpectedly, one might think, professional archaeologists are presently taking this tradition seriously, as if it were a prehistoric fact, and are combing the Preseli Hills in an attempt to discover the original location of this alleged bluestone circle. Why would they do that?

Why Preseli?

The archaeologists are the latest activity that feeds the bluestone tradition, adding to it more stepping stones across the wide river that separates Stonehenge fact from Stonehenge fiction. As for many other traditions, their recent activity is neither new nor is it unexpected. This mythic territory and this sacred landscape have both been visited before.  But there are several good reasons why the Preseli hills have become the hot spot for this bluestone circle treasure hunt, the most important being that this landscape’s connection with Stonehenge has been greatly reinforced during the past century.

In June 1903, a geology professor called William Judd scrutinised the implications of the tradition in an article for The Wiltshire Magazine His scientific account of that year listed the difficulties that could be expected in attempting to transport bluestones from ‘a distant locality’ to Stonehenge. He also noted that the bluestones had been shaped and polished at Stonehenge after having been transported, forming the so-called ‘bluestone layer’ of chippings around the monument. Judd made the following astute comment,

The old tradition concerning Stonehenge is that it consisted of a circle of ‘bluestones’ which had acquired a certain sanctity in a distant locality, and had been transported from the original home of the tribe. If so, the stones, brought from so far away, would have been reduced to something like half their bulk…

Is it conceivable that these skillful builders would have transported such blocks of stone in their rough state over mountains, hills and rivers (and possibly over seas) in order to shape them at the point of erection?

Professor Judd did not link the source of the bluestone circle as being in the Preseli region. In 1903, that source was not known for sure, and nobody then could be certain where the ‘distant locality’ of that original bluestone circle might have been. This remains essentially true today, although within two decades of Judd’s work, much stronger evidence was produced to support why the bluestone circle at Stonehenge might have once been located in the Preseli Hills, even where it might most likely be found.

In 1923, a bright light was shone on what had previously been a rather nebulous tradition. Another renowned geologist Dr Hubert Thomas wrote the first scientific paper that supported a connection between the Preselis and Stonehenge. Thomas undertook a petrological analysis of the bluestones found at Stonehenge, enabling a crucial breakthrough to be made. The evidence suggested that these bluestones had almost all originated from a small collection of outcrops along the main ridge of the Preseli Hills, most notably the outcrops around Carn Menyn, a mile or so from Foel Drygarn, at the eastern end of the main Preseli ridge.

hhthomas

If there had ever been a bluestone circle installed in the Preselis, as the tradition suggested, Thomas provided good evidence to back up that possibility, and indirectly identified its location. His work forged a geological link between the Preselis and Stonehenge and although Thomas’s work had not directly mentioned the location of any bluestone circle, his paper undoubtedly was suggesting that were there ever such a monument, it would likely have been located near to Carn Menyn.  In other words, Thomas had confirmed scientifically that an original lost bluestone circle could certainly be a possibility, and indirectly had suggested where it might best be found.

Thomas’s work represented a major breakthrough in understanding the origins and purpose of Stonehenge. It carved through many of the Dark Age and medieval elaborations of the original tradition, but it left untouched another story, linked to the 6th century Merlin, who told that the bluestones arrived at Stonehenge from the Wicklow hills in Ireland, by giants, and had been shipped over the sea on rafts, by giants who assembled them into Stonehenge. This variant of the original tradition was made very popular by the twelfth century chronicler, Geoffrey of Monmouth. His popular fourteenth century romance was later embellished, this famous artwork showing a giant placing a lintel onto a waiting megalith in order to complete the sarsen circle at Stonehenge.

merlinstonehenge

Unfortunately, the geology is all to pieces here, for these are sarsen stones being depicted in this cartoon illustration from the period, not bluestones from Ireland or from anywhere else. The bluestones at Stonehenge are all much smaller than the incredulous mortals shown here watching the giant’s superhuman (and mechanically impossible) feat. However Geoffrey of Monmouth’s story does at least involve a sea journey during the transport of the stones.

Allegedly born in Carmarthen, an old Roman sea-fort less than 15 miles from the Preseli Hills,  Merlin was brought up in that part of Wales two centuries after it had become an Irish colony, within a large part of southern and western Wales that spoke Irish. Whoever created this story, perhaps it was the late fifth-sixth century wizard, Merlin, who may have thought west Wales was Ireland!

This all becomes rather irrelevant however, simply because this tall story is not referring to the bluestones, but instead to the much larger sarsen stones, else Merlin’s giants would have come over as wimps and his story unlikely to impress anyone, for the average bluestone is a tenth of the size and weight of the mighty sarsen stones found at Stonehenge. Then as now, most people visit Stonehenge to see the sarsen circle and the trilithon horseshoe, the central part of the monument. It has been the logo for Stonehenge for a very long time.

There is also the not insignificant factor that no one can be certain whether Merlin actually existed or was simply a legendary folk hero. The Merlin story thus fails to convince as a credible explanation of the source of the bluestones at Stonehenge. However the narrative does link Stonehenge to a source of megalithic stones to the north-west of the monument and suggests they were transported by ‘giants’ rather than glaciers, and that the journey involved a sea passage. Geoffrey’s yarn is part of Stonehenge’s history, but it’s foggy message is confusing and gets us very little nearer the source of the tradition of a bluestone circle being moved to Stonehenge.

The Preseli Zodiac

During the 1970s an apparently new Preseli tradition concerning an ancient circle in the Preselis was placed into popular consciousness. This was a claim made by a group calling itself by the acronym IGR (Institute for Geomantic Research) for the existence of an ancient Preseli landscape zodiac. Just as was the case for the bluestone circle tradition, the idea of a prehistoric British landscape zodiac was anything but new, the concept permeating through the works of Taliesin and other great Bards. Welsh history does not go back much further than Taliesin.

Much more recently, in 1809, Welsh author Edward Davies published Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, which contained a powerful statement concerning the significance and purpose of landscape temples,

As the Britons distinguished the Zodiac, and the Temples or Sanctuaries of their Gods, by the same name of Caer Sidi, and as their great Bard Taliesin blends the heavenly and the terrestrial Sidi in one description, we may presume that they regarded the latter, as a type or representation of the former.’

The two component words that make up Caer Sidi, have a duplex meaning in Welsh, they refer to both the celestial zodiac and to temples consecrated to the ancient British gods. These two words are worthy of a better understanding. In Spurrell’s Welsh-English Dictionary of 1850, Caer is listed as meaning a wall, fortress, castle, fort, citadel, city. The milky way is cited as being Caer Gwydion, often known as Arianrhod.

The root sid- is clearly connected with spinning, weaving, rotation or wheels, and the list of words using this prefix is long. Sidell – fly-wheel; winder; whirl; whorl; rim of a wheel. Sidelliad – revolution; rotation. Sidellu – to whirl; to revolve; to rotate. Siddelydd – winder. Sidydd – zodiac.  Sidyll – whirl; twirl; whorl; rim.

From this Welsh term to describe the celestial zodiac comes an important realisation. Any ancient British monumental circular structure is implicitly going to be a representation or reflection of the sky above, a celestial clock-face, a year-circle and a temple, a manifestation of As Above, so Below, as expressed in one of the tenets of the Emerald Tablet of Hermes, which may date from the seventh century, of similar age to the period of Taliesin.

That which is above is from that which is below, and that which is below is from that which is above, working the miracles of one*.’

While it may be impossible to prove the veracity of that hoary tradition concerning the existence of a circle of bluestones once erected in the Preselis having been taken to Stonehenge,  we can be a lot more confident that this circle, rim or wheel, had it ever existed, would have been understood by its builders to have represented a temple, and would have  mirrored the zodiac or celestial sphere in some way.

To settle the matter would require that two things can be identified. Firstly, the site of the original (bluestone) circle must be located, a tall order, to put it mildly. Why? Because it would require that archaeologists find a stone circle somewhere in the Preselis where there are probably no longer any stones in situ, else it would have been identified a long time ago. By now it would be presumed to be solely defined by hidden but disturbed earth and in-fill debris where once there had been stones with socket holes. It would be like finding an empty packet of needles in a well-rotted haystack!

If and when located, their second task would be to understand the way that the zodiacal rim or circumference of this structure, the year-circle, was divided up. This cannot be undertaken by conventional archaeologists for they are not trained in, and do not have the required skills in recognising astronomical, geometrical or metrological patterns at prehistoric sites. And then there is the small matter that, for over a century, they have been trained to minimise the significance of prehistoric archaeoastronomy as a matter of course. To mention the father of modern archaeoastronomy, Alexander Thom, is to professionally fall on one’s megalithic rod (btw, that’s two and a half megalithic yards or 6.8 feet). So this second task, to understand the sky-circles, will have to be undertaken by someone who understands both megalithic science, zodiacs and year-circles. Guess who?

The 1970s quest for a Preseli zodiac can now be understood to be more obviously aligned with the present archaeological hunt for the original bluestone circle in Preseli. It is a shiny modern extension to the traditional ‘bluestone myth’, courtesy of Hubert Thomas’s petrological report from 1923, that originally impelled Lewis Edwards and later researchers of earth mysteries to visit the ‘Prescelly landscape’, in search of a landscape zodiac. And this same report almost certainly provided the initial impetus for the current archaeological froth of activity in Preseli.

From this short prologue  a gambling man could reasonably predict that the Preseli bluestone myth may have a few more twists and turns left in the telling by the end of the twenty-first century.

bluestonesites

Despite the Preseli zodiac remaining understood having become essentially a dismissed modern myth, it has been possible to demonstrate in only a few paragraphs that this modern myth has roots nourished by much older beliefs, and contains mythical elements that may go way back into the prehistoric period. In effect the myth of the Preseli Zodiac and the tradition of the bluestone circle collide and may be one and the same thing.

So here is the nub of the matter. Ancient traditions are rarely lacking in some core truth, however gaudy, evanescent and flimsy the wrapping paper may appear to suggest otherwise. Open up the package and this particular box is found to contain a tenacious legend about a sky-circle or zodiac or stone circle once built in the Preseli hills. Once the box has been opened up, the quest should then be to locate this hoary monument and try to work out who built it and why, and in so doing reveal its original purpose. It was identifying this task that originally impelled me to write Temple in the Hills, a project led me to the discover the original Stonehenge.

*************************

If you want to purchase a copy of Temple of the Hills by Robin Heath, please send an email to mail@skyhenge.plus.com, with your name and shipping address, and whether or not you will want the book signed.

This will be acknowledged and the options of payment methods made available.  Currently, these are £10 inclusive of P&P, in the UK, £12 in EU and £15 in US.

Other countries will require an appropriate shipping charge). The book contains over 80 original colour illustrations, including many of the Preseli landscape and its monuments.

 

 

The Origins of Stonehenge

swtposternov6th2016

Small World Theatre, Cardigan presents

The Origins of Stonehenge: A fully illustrated presentation by Robin Heath

BOOKING-smallworld,org.uk      Sunday Nov 6th at 3pm until.. we’re done.        £5.00 per person

What’s all the fuss about?

Prehistoric archaeologists are currently focussing their attention on the Preseli region of West Wales. Why are they here, and what are they looking for?

The answer has to do with Stonehenge, 140 miles away in Wiltshire. Some of this mighty monument was constructed using bluestones that originated here in the Preselis. A fiery debate rages on about how they got there, whether they were taken by human toil or arrived on Salisbury Plain through glacial action.

So archaeologists are now looking for evidence of an original bluestone circle here in the Preseli hills, looking for surviving stones which, if they geologically match those at Stonehenge, will help to prove that human intent moved them there.

Robin claims to have recently discovered the original design for Stonehenge here in the Preselis, and has surveyed it using a theodolite. He will show this design has more to do with the Caer Sidi of Welsh legend, and the motions of sun, moon and stars, than it has with how a few bluestones ever found their way to Salisbury Plain. Today he fully explains why this discovery is an important milestone in the long overdue demolition of the current view concerning the capabilities of our Neolithic ancestors.

In his illustrated and not too technical presentation Robin will also reveal that Stonehenge was a derivative taken from an original design conceived here in Wales, so how good is that?! Even better is that this event coincides with the launch of Robin’s fully illustrated (colour) book on the story behind the discovery, Temple in the Hills, signed by the author, for just £9.99. And it’s getting near to Christmas!

Biography. A graduate of UCNW, Bangor, Robin Heath was previously a research and development engineer with Ferranti, then a college head of technology department, late of Coleg Ceredigion. Since 1990, local author and presenter Robin Heath has been finding the prehistoric science embedded within the surviving megalithic monuments in Britain, Ireland and France. In 1993 Robin founded Megalithic Tours and has written ten books revealing evidence of high culture to be found in the astronomy, geometry and metrology of ancient artifacts. This material has been presented to students at the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts, John Ruskin College, Brasenose College, Oxford, the British School of Dowsing, The Gatekeeper Trust, RILKO (Research into Lost Knowledge Organisation), and the Royal Institute of Mathematics.

 

Discovering the Original Stonehenge in the Preselis

robin-at-dolmen-llech-y-drybeddPresentation Event at Castell Henllys on 19th October 2016, starting at 7:30pm

Prehistoric archaeologists are currently focussing their attention on the Preseli region of West Wales. Why are they here, and what are they looking for?

The answer has to do with Stonehenge, 140 miles away in Wiltshire. Some of this mighty monument was constructed using bluestones that originated here in the Preselis. A fiery debate is raging about how they got there, whether they were taken by human toil or arrived on Salisbury Plain through glacial action.

So archaeologists are now looking for evidence of an original bluestone circle here in the Preseli hills, looking for surviving stones which, if they geologically match those at Stonehenge, will prove that human intent moved them there.

Robin claims to have recently discovered the original design for Stonehenge here in the Preselis, and has surveyed it using a theodolite. He will show this design has more to do with the Caer Sidi of Welsh legend, and the motions of sun, moon and stars, than it has with how a few bluestones ever found their way to Salisbury Plain.

In his illustrated and not too technical presentation he will also reveal that Stonehenge was a derivative taken from an original design conceived here in Wales, so how good is that?!

A graduate of UCNW, Bangor, Robin Heath was previously a research and development engineer with Ferranti, then a college head of technology department, late of Coleg Ceredigion. Since 1990, local author and presenter Robin Heath has been finding the prehistoric science embedded within the surviving megalithic monuments in Britain, Ireland and France. In 1993 Robin founded Megalithic Tours and has written ten books revealing evidence of high culture to be found in the astronomy, geometry and metrology of ancient artifacts. This material has been presented to students at the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts, John Ruskin College, Brasenose College, Oxford, the British School of Dowsing, The Gatekeeper Trust, RILKO (Research into Lost Knowledge Organisation), and the Royal Institute of Mathematics.

 A launch copy of Robin’s latest book, The Temple in the Hills, will be available at £10.

For more information and to make a booking contact Castell Henllys on 01239 891319

PRESS: Please contact Robin Heath by email (mail AT skyhenge.plus.com) for interviews or further information,

Prehistoric Surveying of the Landscape: The Evidence

HenllysTalk-1

An Illustrated Presentation given at Castle Henllys centre
on the 18th November 2015 at 7:30pm
by Robin Heath

What  were  megalithic  monuments  for?  

Despite  centuries  of  inquiry  by  archaeologists  and prehistorians  the  key  question  remains  unanswered.  Why  were  so   many  massive  stone  structures  erected  across  the  ancient  and  sacred  landscapes  of  the   world,  including  the  Preseli  region?

One  answer  to  this  innocent  question  lies  in  the  fact  that some  stone  circles   employ  the  same  geometrical  techniques as  do  surveyors  and  navigators.  This  fully illustrated talk shows how geometrical atterns became imprinted on the  local  and wider  landscape  of  Britain,  revealing  a  remarkable  purpose for the  megaliths,  a  purpose  based  on  the  importance  of location  ­‐‑  the  right  place.

Just  how  did  they  determine  the  right  place?  

Come along and find out, and have your present model of history recalibrated, as  we  also  discover  that  the  later  Celtic  and  Roman  Church  reapplied  the  ‘ʹpagan’ʹ  techniques  of  the  megalith  builders  to  suit  the  requirements  of  the  new   Christian  era,  ultimately  using  them  to  locate  Gothic  cathedrals.

BOOKING IN ADVANCE ADVISABLE 01239 891319

Castell Mawr, Eglwyswrw, PembrokeshireHenllysTalk-3

HenllysTalk-2 For over thirty years, Robin Heath has looked for evidence of the science underpinning the culture of the megalithic monument builders. Over this period Robin has written ten books on ancient astronomy and geometry, and most recently has been engaged in research looking for evidence of larger geometrical patterns across the landscape, based on the location and placement of networks of ancient monuments. Previously having worked with John Michell and local antiquarian, the late John Sharkey, Robin has presented some of this material on TV documentaries, to megalithic tour groups, and also to students at the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts, John Ruskin College, Brasenose College, Oxford, the British School of Dowsing and the Faculty of Astrological Studies. He lives in the Preseli National Park, in Pembrokeshire.

The Annual Robert Cowley Memorial Lecture – 24th April 2015

THE EVIDENCE FOR PREHISTORIC SURVEYING
The Annual Robert Cowley Memorial Lecture

Robin Heath Friday 24th April 2015

[The RILKO AGM will be held from 6.45 to 7.15 (Doors open 6.30pm)]
The public is warmly welcomed to the lecture at 7.30pm

Entrance: £8.00    (R.I.L.K.O. Members £6.00)

This illustrated lecture will present robust evidence that the world was surveyed and measured in prehistoric times. The technological residues from this activity will be shown to be recognisable in modern  times, and are found permeating presently employed measures, astronomical, geometrical and geodetic techniques and within prehistoric monuments, where this evidence remains almost completely unrecognised within archaeology. Find out why!

Robin Heath has a science degree and was a research and development engineer before becoming the head of technology at Coleg Ceredigion. The author of eleven books, he lectures widely on the subject of megalithic science and the evidence for ancient wisdom and has worked on projects with the media, John Michell and Paul Broadhurst, and his brother and fellow author Richard Heath.

The Research Into Lost Knowledge Organisation Public Lectures are held at
50 Gloucester Place, London W1U 8EA.

Nearest Underground Station: Baker Street
Buses: 2, 13, 30, 74, 82, 113, 139, 189, 274 pass outside.

Background and Context to Solstice Event at Small World Theatre, Cardigan

A (very) Brief History of some modern attempts to understand Stonehenge

Stonehenge evolved over fifteen centuries. The early phases of the monument began around 3150 BC and consisted of a 380 foot (115m) diameter circular bank, which created a ditch outside the circle. Inside the circular arena was an alignment to the solstitial sunrise, through a break in the bank to the Heel stone. A century later, 56 large holes were dug around the perimeter of an accurate 283 foot (86m) circle, now known as the Aubrey circle after the antiquarian John Aubrey, who discovered the remains of these holes. Current ideas are that these holes may once have held wooden posts or even bluestones.

About a century further on, a bluestone semi-circle was built in the centre, which had lintels carried aloft long 8ft slender uprights. This was truly a proto-Stonehenge, for in the middle of building this first architectural structure, a much more ambitious project was about the be initiated, that of hauling seventy five huge sarsen sandstones, some weighing in at forty tons, from the Marlborough Downs, twenty miles north of Stonehenge, near Avebury stone circle.  This became the 100 ft diameter sarsen circle and the trilithon horseshoe. Prior to the arrival of these monsters, perhaps around 2800 BC, four standing stones were placed around the perimeter of the Aubrey circle to define a ‘near perfect’ rectangle whose side lengths were in the ratio 5:12.

The sarsen structures at Stonehenge, the circle and the five bigger trilithons that rise up inside the circle, are the logo that everyone ‘sees’ when the word ‘Stonehenge’ is mentioned. However, this is a grandiose later structure, and the earlier phases are just if not more important. There are still the remains of most of the bluestones on site. Some were very polished, some still have the tenon or mortice joints that must have once enabled them to form a trilithon structure in the earlier bluestone ‘henge’. These recycled bluestones were later placed in a bluestone circle within the sarsen circle and in the horseshoe arrangement within the trilithons.

Stonehenge in Modern (post-Roman) Times

The link between Stonehenge and West Wales goes back much further than one might think,  Carmarthen-born legend Merlin is said to have claimed that the Stones arrived from Ireland, in a fanciful tale invoking giants, yet in his lifetime, West Wales was administered by the Irish and even the language spoken here was Irish. West Wales was, in effect, Ireland! But there’s another problem with Merlin’s tale – the stones to which he refers are the giant sarsen stones, which weigh up to 40 tons, not the bluestones which weigh in at a tenth of this.

In 1603 a local Pembrokeshire nobleman, George Owen, who, according to a brass plaque in Nevern church was ‘The Patriarch of English(!) Geologists’, made a connection between the stones and the design of Pentre Ifan and Stonehenge. And in 1655, Architect General to the King, Inigo Jones made the first well popularised (and very inaccurate plan) of the inner part of Stonehenge, for King James I.

Major archaeological surveys of the monument have been undertaken during the last two centuries. Sir William Flinders Petrie, the ‘father of modern archaeology’, accurately surveyed the inner part of Stonehenge in the 1870s, before he was twenty years old. In the early part of the twentieth century, Col Hawley spent years excavating the site, adding greatly to our knowledge of what Stonehenge had once been. In the 1950s professor Richard Atkinson, from UCSW, Cardiff, devoted many years to another major survey, and one outcome was his bestselling book called simply, Stonehenge, published in 1956 by Hamish Hamilton. In 1973, Atkinson asked ‘the father of modern archaeoastronomy’ professor Alexander Thom, to undertake ‘the most accurate survey ever undertaken of the monument at ground level’. It was done that year.

The Matter of the Bluestones

In the Preseli mountains of coastal West Wales, there are several volcanic outcrops that during the past ninety years have been identified as the source of the bluestone megaliths at Stonehenge. In 1923, Geologist Dr H H Thomas published an academic paper suggesting that many of the Stonehenge bluestones had come the Preselis. This discovered has fuelled along standing debate, acrimonious at times, as to whether these stones arrived at Stonehenge through deliberate human intent, or by the action of glacial flow.

Recent work by professor Mike Parker Pearson (UCL), and geologists from Aberystwyth University, has employed improved petrological analyis to begin the process of identifying the source of each of the bluestones that now remain at Stonehenge.

Supposing it can ever be proved that human endeavour was responsible for moving these 4 ton monsters all the way from Preseli to Salisbury Plain, then beyond marvelling at the engineering and cooperative skills shown by our distant ancestors, a much bigger question needs to be answered. That question is why they should have moved these stones over 150 miles? What purpose was being served by moving them?

An independent researcher and author of three books on Stonehenge, Robin Heath, has been working for over twenty-five years to find an answer to this question. He now claims to have found an answer, and that answer is to be found in the landscape of West Wales, near Newport, Pembrokeshire. In the summer of 2013 he discovered a previously unknown megalithic complex, a Proto Stonehenge, forging a second link between the Preseli region of Wales and Stonehenge, independent of the matter of the bluestones and how they got to Stonehenge.

This discovery, surveyed with modern theodolites, GPS and satellite imagery, reveals that Stonehenge was the end result of a long project undertaken over many centuries, whose goal was to develop a Neolithic technology capable of accurately measuring and recording time and space. Breathtakingly accurate, what has been discovered is a work of creative genius, completely lost until now and missing from our historical record. Once understood, it allows us to raise the capabilities of Neolithic culture to a new level, revealing a practical prehistoric science through which they integrated the rhythms and cycles of the sky we still experience on earth.

It is appropriate that the announcement of this discovery should be in the region of Wales where this took place, at the Small World Theatre in Cardigan, and also that it should take place during the midsummer solstice period, on Sunday June 22nd. A quite small exhibition with rather large models will also be available, and Robin’s new book, Proto-Stonehenge in Wales, will be launched in Wales to begin telling an exciting new story about how Stonehenge came to be, and how our ancestors forged the first beginnings of astronomy and surveying in West Wales.

Part of an interview and pre-event publicity document,
undertaken by Bill Hamblett, of the Small World Theatre.

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Robin Heath is an independent researcher and an internationally published author of seven books on the subject of megalithic science, including four with Stonehenge in their title.  His book Stonehenge (Wooden Books, 2000) has remained a best-seller at the monument. He manages to get out quite a lot, usually with a theodolite. Other details are available at www.skyandlandscape.com or www.robinheath.info.

BOOKS: Robin Heath is the author of A Key to Stonehenge (1993), Sun, Moon & Stonehenge (1998), Sun, Moon & Earth (1999), A Beginner’s Guide to Stone Circles, Hodder-Headline (1999), Stonehenge (2000), The Measure of Albion (with John Michell, 2004) [reprinted as: The Lost Science of Measuring the Earth (2006)], Powerpoints (2007), and Bluestone Magic (2010). He has lectured widely, in Britain, Ireland and France, and for over twenty five years has undertaken tours, presentations, workshops and media interviews on the ancient sciences and the megalithic culture.