Neolithic Norman

This Norman church ("remodelled" in the 14th Century) is within a Neolithic henge.

Our daughter visited the place a few weeks ago, and we have been keen to go and have a look ourselves ever since. Finally, we managed it.

The church and henge are located at Knowlton, a tiny (at most) hamlet between Cranborne and Wimbourne in Dorset.

A web page about the remains describes the site thus

"
Knowlton is part of the ancient complex of Knowlton Rings, which consists of 4 earthworks: the North Circle, Church Circle, Southern Circle, and the 'Old Churchyard'. In addition to these sites, to the east of the Church Circle is the Great Barrow, the largest round barrow in Dorset. Within a one mile radius of these earthworks there are also a large number of barrows and ring-ditches.
"

This view shows the church in more detail, and some of the Norman features are evident,

while here is a wider view of the henge circle.


From within the ruins, you can more clearly see a Norman arch here, and another one in this second photograph.

We drove home in a relaxed way through the New Forest, which looked absolutely magnificent in its varied ways, and then spent a little while visiting the grounds of Mottisfont Abbey, near Winchester.

Here are my views of

The house from the front;

The house from the rear;

The stable block;

A wonderful walled garden; and here; and here; and here!!!

In the garden were giant thistles whose flowers seemed to be very attractive to bees.

To our surprise (and to my great pleasure), the pubic was invited to walk through a meadow that was pasture to a flock of beezles (aka sheep). These animals were rather fine examples of the Shropshire breed.

They even seemed not especially concerned when an elderly gent approached them to take a portrait.

As we began to leave the grounds, we found this magnificent plane tree, said to be the largest in Britain (the oldest may be one that is in one of the gardens of my Oxford college).

A very fine day out!