In 1929 a prehistoric
timber circle and
henge monument site was discovered north-west of Arminghall village by
Gilbert Insall who had been taking
aerial photographs of the area in search of new archaeological sites. Whilst flying at around he noticed
cropmarks of a circular enclosure made of two concentric rings with a horseshoe of eight pit-like markings within it. The entire site was around in diameter. The site was visited a week later by
O.G.S. Crawford, who pronounced it to be the Norwich
Woodhenge but it was not until 1935 that it was first excavated, by
Grahame Clark. His work established that two circular rings were ditches, the outer one deep and the inner one deep, with indications of a bank that once stood between them. The pits in the middle were
postholes for timbers that would have been almost 1 m in diameter. The site dates to the
Neolithic, with a radiocarbon date of 3650-2650 Cal BC (4440±150) from charcoal from a post-pit. The henge is orientated on the mid-winter sunset, which, when viewed from the henge, sets down the slope of nearby high ground, Chapel Hill. == References ==