The winter solstice. Standing with the ancestors

Just west of Little Abington, Cambridgeshire, a few yards from the river Granta, the land gently rises to a low promontary. The presence of Bronze age barrows (now ploughed out) indicate that this was a place inhabited 3,000 years ago and venerated as a place to inter their dead. Possibly the earliest feature of this site only appears as a crop mark when the conditions are right. A perfect circle or henge which could date from the late neolithic period.

This place for gathering, trading and ceremonial would certainly have seen activity around the most important date in the prehistoric calendar, the winter solstice. On a bright morning on December 21st, only Boom and I are there to mark the shortest day of 2025 and to take a moment to imagine the scene all those years ago, when the peoples of the Granta valley took time out to give thanks for the sun coming back for another year.

I'm not surprised to be alone (apart from my four legged friend). When I wrote about this place in 2022 in Tales from Iceni Territory and questioned fellow villagers, none were aware that a henge existed on their doorstep. Not entirely surprising of course because its ephemeral presence only shows when the dry weather exposes the ring ditch as a change oin colour of the rough grass across the unused field.

The archaeological community know about it. Oxford Archaeology East conducted a geopphysical survey of the site and dug a number of trenches in 1984 when the site was earmarked for potential development. Some neolithic struck flint, animal bone and abraded iron age pottery attested to it's origins.

Forty years on, the site has changed ownership, but fortunately has not yet been lost under concrete. The derelict remains of a former transport cafe just over the hedge serves as a reminder that modern buildings can very soon be nothing other than an ugly blot on the landscape and in the case of the old cafe car park seemingly cut across the site of bronze age barrows with contempt.

All this runs though my mind as Boom and I follow the midwinter sun and climb the shallow slope from the South East and stand within the henge. I look away to the south west and the line of the old roman road, the trees marking the river and the ancient crossing at Bourn Bridge. For now, I can stand where the ancestors stood. People have been free to do this for over three millennia. For how much longer is in the hands of fate.