Wilsford Henge


Wilsford Henge is the site of a Neolithic henge located west of the village of Wilsford, Wiltshire in the United Kingdom. The site was discovered from cropmarks in aerial photographs. The monument is situated within the Vale of Pewsey a short distance to the south of the large henge known as Marden Henge.

Description

Wilsford Henge is a broad irregular circular ditch visible only as a cropmark on aerial photographs. It is situated on a gently sloping spur of land to the south of the River Avon. The internal diameter of the enclosure is around 43 metres and the external diameter is around 62 metres. There is an entrance, 12 metres wide, which faces northeast in the direction of the river. Around 1 kilometre in a north by northwest direction lies Marden Henge on the opposite bank of the River Avon. An interior circle of possible post-hole pits has been confirmed by geophysical survey.

Archaeology

The site is included in a three-year investigation of the Pewsey Vale, beginning in 2015, by the Department of Archaeology at the University of Reading. Among the discoveries in the 2015 excavations was an early Bronze Age crouched burial of an adolescent child which included sherds of beaker pottery and a collection of necklace beads.
Nearby, within the same field, archaeologists have discovered the remnants of a large Roman farm settlement, and excavations have revealed the outline of a very large farm building or barn.