The Archaeology Files - Knowlton Circles

Date of visit: 1 March 2020

Location: 7 miles north of Wimborne Minster, Dorset

Time period: Neolithic, 4,000 BC to 2,500 BC
Type of site: A series of Neolithic henge monuments, the best-preserved of which contains the remains of a Norman church in its centre

Photos: Knowlton Circles site visit photo album 

Description and observations:

I love Knowlton Circles.  I first came here on an undergraduate fieldtrip with a coachload of other students back in 2003.  We'd been on-the-go all day, and this was our last stop before the journey home.  It was autumn, and the dusk was falling fast upon us, the sun was down, and the sky was silvery-grey.  I looked upon the site in an earthy, reflective mood, and I could almost hear it speaking back to me, the voice of some force from the deep past.  That dusk at Knowlton I experienced an atmosphere that I've never felt before - or since.  I suppose it was there that I first fell in love with the subject of archaeology.

Knowlton Circles from the air, courtesy of English Heritage

Knowlton Circles is a series of four Neolithic (4,000-2,500 BC) henge monuments, sitting in the landscape at the village of Knowlton, midway between Blandford Forum, Dorset, and Ringwood, Hampshire.  Three of them are barely visible now, but the fourth one is beautifully preserved.  Henges are a bit of a mystery to archaeologists - essentially, they are characterised by having a ring-shaped bank and ditch, within which is a relatively flat area (generally considered as more than 20m in diameter - smaller than this and they are termed hengiform monuments; larger and they are known as henge enclosures, such as the enormous example at Avebury.)  Their purpose, like so much in prehistory, is a matter of debate - we've seen in a previous blog how the henge at Maumbury, Dorchester, made a perfect amphitheatre, and this seems like a natural conclusion for other henges too.  We should always be wary of ascribing modern thought processes to the ancient past, so this isn't and shouldn't be the only interpretation, and archaeologists have also suggested ritual use and astronomical observation.  What is agreed upon is that henges weren't occupied, and that they weren't used as defensive structures - not least because (notwithstanding the atypical example of the famous Stonehenge) the ditches of henges just about always occur on the inside of the bank.  It's yet another mystery of prehistory that we can fascinate ourselves with.

Back to Knowlton, where most people's sole interest lies in the fourth henge, also called Church Henge, on account of the fact that in the 12th century, the Normans stuck a church in its centre.  Some commentators believe that the church's location symbolises the transition from Paganism to Christianity, and I suppose it does in a way, although I've no idea if that was the exact intention of the Norman builders, given that England had been largely Christianised since Roman times.  Having said that, something is clearly significant or spiritual about the site, which made it the right spot for Christian worship, and this is supported by the discovery, in 1958, of 16 Anglo-Saxon burials just to the east of the henge.  The church itself was extensively remodelled in the centuries following the Norman Conquest, and despite the fact that the village was utterly devastated and left virtually deserted by the Black Death in the 14th century, the church continued to hold a congregation until the roof collapsed in the 18th century.

Knowlton Church within its henge

There's an irony to the idea that a church which was built to stamp on the identity of an ancient religion, now lies in ruins alongside it, and I don't think this should be overlooked when trying to describe the atmosphere of the site.  My recent visit was on a bright, crisp March morning and I felt the site in perfect tranquillity, and would have been happy to linger.  But some say that ancient melancholy hangs in the air here, and the site is reported to be one of the county's most haunted, with legends of phantom horsemen, a ghostly face that appears in the tower's top window, and the kneeling figure of a weeping woman, or nun, trying to purge herself of some unknown sin.  I think for some, the unique atmosphere of Knowlton is rationalised through ghost stories, whereas my personal belief is that the history and ancientness of a place naturally means it will absorb the energy of human activity over the millennia.  I'm pretty sure this is what I've felt on my visits here, to this wonderful, spiritual place.

The ruins of Knowlton Norman church