Thornborough Henges an important Neolithic site close to Masham

I’ve always been fascinated by pre-history and I am lucky in Yorkshire that there are so many locations with standing stones, barrows and rock art to explore.

One of the places I had read about but never really visited as I felt without being in a helicopter there would be nothing to see was Thornborough Henges between Ripon and Masham. This unique Neolithic (new stone age) site, sitting on a plateau above the River Ure consists of three massive circular henges built about 4,500 years ago over an even earlier monument.

I shouldnt have delayed my visit as there was plenty to see.

If there were standing stones on the site like Stonehenge, it would be a huge visitor attraction with coach park and restaurant, but the site which is now completely owned by English Heritage really is a treasure to explore with just a few interpretive boards explaining the history.

Whilst during the bronze age, burial mounds were constructed nearby, it is the henges that are the star of the show.

The three circular henges are all surrounded by an earthen bank which would have been up to 4 metres high and each henge bank is broken by 2 entrances facing opposite each other. The henges seem to have been linked by long walk ways and it is believed they were used as gathering places for ceremonies or rituals for over 2000 years.

The henges at Thornborough are aligned along a north west to South west axis and stretch out over a mile. With each circular henge being approximately 250m in diameter.

The circles would have had a shallower outer bank and then an inner ditch which was much deeper and enclosed a small circular plateau. From archaeological studies, we know the inner banks were once covered in gypsum – a white shiny mineral mined nearby. This would have created quite a sight for stone age visitors and would have been visible from miles away.

Sadly over the years, the south and central henges have been damaged by ploughing and quarrying. But the northern most henge had trees planted over it in Victorian times and this has protected the banks.

The Northern henge finally came into the ownership of English Heritage last year and I was keen to see this henge finally. Whilst it is now owned by English Heritage there is a bit of a walk along a track and across a road up the site of a nature reserve to get to it.

Upon entering the wood, you can still see an inner ditch of 2.6m and 20m wide. When I visited with my wife, we walked around the outside of the inner ditch and back through the central plateau and the hairs on the back of your neck literally stood up at the realisation that we were standing where people had gathered thousands of years ago.

Some of the interpretive boards talked about how when the monuments were built in open dry grassland when temperatures would have been warmer, that the high banks once inside would have blocked out all the views of the surrounding landscape so all people would have seen is the sky.

It is believed that the entrances were aligned to view the movement of the stars such as Sirius the brightest start in Canis Major. The Southern entrances are also aligned with the Mid winter solstice and the site has many Pagan worshippers arrive to witness this each year and the festival of Beltane.

People have gathered at Thornbrough Henges for thousands of years and flints and stone tools have been collected from the period nearby. But the evidence shows that people didn’t live at the site but would visit for festivals or gatherings.

From the findings at the site it appears people travelled long distances to arrive at the site and probably disparate groups had come together as a sort of bonding exercise to create the ceremonial site and digging the henge's banks with antler bones. This coming together of people has been witnessed at Avebury and the Ness of Brodgar in Orkney too.

It is well worth a visit. Even though we will never completely know why people gathered and what ceremonies took place, but they were definitely places where people could have traded, exchanged knowledge, found new partners to counter risks of interbreeding and worshiped together. Think of a modern day Glastonbury!

English Heritage run a couple of guided tours from the site each month.

For more information on the site visit: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/about/search-news/thornborough-henges/