11 replies to this topic

[Pete G]

Work has begun on The Cove at Avebury.
I will be updating my site with photographs regularly while the work is underway.
http://www.users.myi...ur/frameset.htm
PeteG

[Jimit]

Has any explanation been put forward as to why the Cove stones started their gradual leanings? Several of the other (unrestored) stones seem to be quite stable in spite of having, now demolished, cottages built against them.
Burl suggests that 94% of the entire site has not been excavated and that the positions of the missing and buried stones were found by relatively unsophisticated means. Have more modern scientific non-invasive techniques come up with any surprises which could warrant investigation? On line surveys could make fascinating reading.

[Nigel]

I wonder if traffic vibration plays a part?
Has the rate of toppling of megaliths increased in the past 70 years, and is there a correlation between likelihood of toppling and proximity of roads?
There's a nice easy Ph.D in that if you fancy it!

[Arran and Emma]

The Cove is very old. Rest of Avebury not so - probably had time to get it right with the proper foundations and such.

Not sure about the traffic vibrations. Don't know many stone circles near busy roads apart from the Nine Stones of Winterbourne Abbas which appear to be standing ok.

[Nigel]

I was thinking of just those instances where the structure was already leaning. A case of the final straw. I always tiptoe near the cove...

It happens that way with houses - ancient unstable ones seem to suddenly get worse if a road is built. Eathquakes are a problem as well, even the little ones we get in this country. They do no apparent widespread damage at the time, but then in the following year we get a big increase in the number of people reporting subsidence damage. And then there's changes in the water table, that can have a big effect.

So how old is the cove, relative to the rest?

[Arran and Emma]

The Cove was supposed to have been put up around 3000 BC; a few centuries after the West Kennet Long Barrow had been sealed but well before any other stones were raised or ditches dug in what was to become Avebury.

In finding that I also can across that they were not put into ordinary holes but into long sarsen paved troughs.

Also I have found that the  Francis Frith Collection has a photograph of the cove in 1899 which clearly shows them tilting as they are today (plus the now removed barns!).

[Nigel]

Well I never knowed that...
So really, whatever it was, it was probably unrelated to other structures of that name that occur in Avenues?
And I wonder if it's related to Avebury, a starting point, or incidental?
And what on earth is a long sarsen lined trough I wonder?
Your address has changed to "Wessex - Just South East of Jimit" - does this mean his house is some sort of Mecca? Should I change mine from Stourport to "Far North of Jimit"?

[Arran and Emma]

I believe that the sarsen-lined troughs stopped the huge Cove stones crushing the chalk below and helped the structure to have more stability than a simple hole would.

What we need to see is if this is a continuation of a previous belief or whether it is, as in Knowlton, the reclamation of an already significant site? This could be proved in various alignments that match between the stone circle and in the cove. I haven’t anything to hand to prove/disprove such a theory, but no doubt someone has.

As for the change in our address, we’d been careless with our wanton loss of the phrase ‘Wessex’ from the previous incarnation of it. A conversation with the Mecca housed individual focused on the boundaries of the now lost county/country and so as a reference point we thought we’d use his place as it is in the capital.

[Jimit]

It's interesting to note that by the time they came to build Stonehenge they dispensed with the idea of lining the bottom of the pit with cobbles and just used the mauls and anything else to hand to pack the hole and stabilise the stones.

This location thing, I am not worthy.
Signing off, SSE of Pete G and W of Eden  

[Nigel]

I found this about the Cove:

“research showed the 20-tonne stones are leaning far more than when first examined in the 1720s”

However, what I haven’t found is anyone giving evidence of whether they were originally upright, and have since leaned or whether they were originally leaning, and have since worsened. And yet, the proposal is to put them upright.
I can see that The Cove at Stanton Drew looks very strange, and as if it could never have been fully upright:
http://myweb.tiscali...nton_drew_2.htm

So my DNA is feeling a bit uneasy, and in need of reassurance. Are we putting it straighter than we should? Do we know it ought to be straight, or are we guessing?

Alternatively, should we restore it and stabilize it at the 1720’s angle? After all, we didn’t put Pisa upright!

[Pete G]

Work is just about finished at the Cove. Latest pics are on my site (link above) which has
some animated gifs of the stone moving into the upright postition.
The large stone was not moved at it was found to extend over 9ft (3Mtrs) into the ground making it the largest stone at Avebury at over 110 tons!
The scaffolding will be taken down sometime during May and the stones will accessable for the first time in 6 years.
PeteG

[Pete G]

At long last the fence has been removed from around the Cove.
How apt that it should be today (15th May) as there is a Lunar Eclipse tonight.
William Stukeley first named this feature The Lunar Temple in the 1700's.
As usual photos are here
http://www.users.myi...ur/frameset.htm
PeteG