Candlelight to launch henge restoration campaign

5:26pm Thursday 20th September 2007

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LANDSCAPE around a 5,000-year-old ancient monument site in North Yorkshire that has seen years of quarrying is to become the target of a restoration campaign.

More than 500 candles will be used to create a massive labyrinth on Saturday, September 22, at the central earthwork henge at Thornborough, between Bedale and Ripon, as part of the campaign to return a nearby cursus, or processional way, to what is believed to have been its original appearance.

The campaign is being led by local heritage group TimeWatch, which has described the area around the three henges as a sacred landscape for ancient people.

To begin the campaign and to recognise the site's ritual purpose, TimeWatch has invited religious and spiritual groups to join a ceremony beginning at 7pm on Saturday.

The ceremony, involving pagans, Christians and people from other faiths, will last for two hours and will include storytelling and a partial walk of the cursus. About 100 people are expected to attend.

TimeWatch was among the groups that opposed plans for further sand and gravel extraction by Tarmac Northern in the area near the henges. Planning permission was finally granted earlier this year at nearby Ladybridge Farm, half a mile from the nearest henge.

The Thornborough cursus, almost a mile long and about 60 yards wide, is thought to have been built 500 years before the henges, believed to be Britain's largest prehistoric religious gathering place. It was cleared to create a ceremonial causeway considered by some as a "spirit path" to return the soul to the heavens.

TimeWatch chairman George Chaplin said the cursus had been compared with the shaft in the king's chamber in the Great Pyramid at Giza, Egypt. This was also aligned to Orion and was seen as a route for the passage of the soul of the Pharaoh.

Mr Chaplin said the ceremony on Saturday was a prelude to an attempt to win funding for a feasibility study aimed at restoring to their original levels parts of the site affected by earlier quarrying. It was hoped to flatten a mound of landfill, fill quarry ditches, create an ancient meadow with flowers and plants, make a circular walk and achieve better grazing land for farmers.

Mr Chaplin said: "Thornborough cursus is potentially the oldest major monument in the world aligned to the constellation Orion and is the largest monument at Thornborough. We think we can best protect Thornborough by helping to promote it as a site of international importance. Restoring the cursus will greatly help with this and have local and regional environmental and economic benefits."

A spokesman for Tarmac Northern urged visitors not to damage the earthworks or to leave litter. He said the company supported a secure future for the henges and was working with local and national interests to devise a conservation plan for the monument.