Flagstones is a late
Neolithic
The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...
interrupted ditch enclosure (similar to a
causewayed enclosure
A causewayed enclosure is a type of large prehistoric Earthworks (Archaeology), earthwork common to the early Neolithic in Europe. It is an enclosure (archaeology), enclosure marked out by ditches and banks, with a number of causeways crossing ...
) on the outskirts of
Dorchester, Dorset
Dorchester ( ) is the county town of Dorset, England. It is situated between Poole and Bridport on the A35 trunk route. A historic market town, Dorchester is on the banks of the River Frome, Dorset, River Frome to the south of the Dorset Dow ...
, England. It derives its name from having been discovered beneath the site of the demolished Flagstones House.
[Flagstones Enclosure](_blank)
at the Megalithic Portal, accessed 13 April 2015 Half of it was excavated in the 1980s when the Dorchester by-pass was built; the rest of it still exists under the grounds of
Max Gate
Max Gate is the former home of Thomas Hardy and is located on the outskirts of Dorchester, Dorset, England. It was designed and built by Thomas Hardy for his own use in 1885 and he lived there until his death in 1928. In 1940 it was bequeathed ...
,
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...
's house.
The Druid Stone
In March 1891 workmen were digging under the lawn at
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...
's house at
Max Gate
Max Gate is the former home of Thomas Hardy and is located on the outskirts of Dorchester, Dorset, England. It was designed and built by Thomas Hardy for his own use in 1885 and he lived there until his death in 1928. In 1940 it was bequeathed ...
when they discovered a large
sarsen stone
Sarsen stones are silicified sandstone blocks found extensively across southern England on the Salisbury Plain and the Marlborough Downs in Wiltshire; in Kent; and in smaller quantities in Berkshire, Essex, Oxfordshire, Dorset, and Hampshire.
G ...
underground.
It took seven men with levers to raise the stone which had been lying flat.
Around the stone was a quantity of ashes and half-charred bones.
Hardy called it "The Druid Stone" and had it erected at the edge of the lawn where it still stands;
he wrote about the stone in his poem "The Shadow on the Stone".
It was only when the enclosure was discovered in the 1980s that it was realised that the sarsen stone came from a larger monument.
Excavations
Around half of the enclosure was excavated in 1987.
The part of the enclosure in the grounds of Flagstones House was excavated by
Wessex Archaeology
Wessex Archaeology is a British company that provides archaeological and heritage services, as well as being an educational charity. Apart from advice and consultancy, it also does fieldwork and publishes research on the sites it surveys. The com ...
, and then the grounds were totally removed to make a deep cutting for the
Dorchester by-pass road.
The other half still exists under the grounds of Max Gate.
The enclosure comprised a circular ring of unevenly spaced pits constructed in the late 4th millennium BC.
The chalk walls of some of the pit/ditch segments featured engraved designs, probably cut with flint.
An adult cremation and two child inhumations were found at the bottom of ditch sections, each beneath a slab of sandstone or sarsen.
A young man had been buried in a later
Early Bronze Age
The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...
tumulus in the centre of the enclosure.
Carbon dating
Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon.
The method was ...
of the remains put the building of the enclosure at around 3486–2886 BC with the central burial dating to around a thousand years later.
The central mound seems to have subsequently acted as a focus for much flint-knapping.
, a henge enclosure measuring along its long axis, lies around 500 metres to the east, and another henge
Maumbury Rings
Maumbury Rings is a Neolithic henge in the south of Dorchester town in Dorset, England (). It is a large circular earthwork, 85 metres in diameter, with a single bank and an entrance to the north east. It was modified during the Roman period whe ...
, with a diameter of (, is about 1500 metres to the west.
In September 2024, the Flagstones enclosure was listed as a scheduled monument by the National Trust, and in April 2025, Time Team reported that new radiocarbon dates from the site are approximately three hundred years older than Stonehenge, raising questions about which monument came first.
References
{{reflist
Further reading
*Roland J. C. Smith, 1997, ''Excavations along the Route of the Dorchester Bypass, Dorset''
Wessex Archaeology
Wessex Archaeology is a British company that provides archaeological and heritage services, as well as being an educational charity. Apart from advice and consultancy, it also does fieldwork and publishes research on the sites it surveys. The com ...
Report
History of Dorchester, Dorset
Stone Age sites in England
Archaeological sites in Dorset