Saturday 20 August 2011

Lost!

I visited two sites yesterday and had two very different experiences. Badbury Rings is under the National Trust and is easy to find due to the proliferation of brown signs on major and minor roads around the site. And it is very big! Thus it is marked on road maps too. Knowlton Henge and church was not on my road map, being much smaller than BR and surrounded by fields and a couple of farms accessable only by lanes. The internet was useful in finding the general location and I assumed, being under the supervision of English Heritage, that signs would also be situated at a useful junction(s). This is, after all, a major heritage landscape and the best surviving henge in the south west after Stonehenge and Avebury, plus it is the location of the biggest roundbarrow in Dorset. No such luck. After two stops to ask for directions I came across one, small, white sign nowhere near a useful junction from a main road. Much time and petrol was used to get to this point. If EH wish people to value their heritage at least they could help us to find the sites under their protection. The visit was ruined by the frustration of finding the place as a first time visitor.

Knowlton henge - entrance and church

Giant's Barrow - the biggest bowl barrow in Dorset

Badbury Rings - entrance through 3 ditches and banks
   

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