Upper Deverills Parish Council and Upper Deverills Village Hall Committee
Save The Stones
If you care about the Kingston Deverill Sarsen Stones please come and listen and speak at an open meeting on: Thursday 8th June 2000 at 7.00 p.m. at Kingston Deverill Village Hall.
The two Sarsen stones in the paddock at Kingston House were almost certainly part of a Neolithic or possibly Bronze Age burial chamber, which was located somewhere on Court Hill, Kingston Deverill, and have therefore been in the parish for upwards of 3,500 years. They were moved sometime more than 100 years ago from their original site on the instruction of the then Rector to the grounds of the Rectory, now called Kingston House, which is in the ownership of the Ralph family. The original site was in the area where King Alfred gathered his armies immediately before his victorious battle over the Danes at Ethandun (probably in the Westbury, Bratton, Edington area).
A committee of residents of the above area called The Ethandun Memorial Committee have proposed erecting a monument to King Alfred’s victory on the hillside above Bratton in a public place. They have negotiated with Christopher Ralph and as a result one of the two Sarsen stones may be about to be loaned to form part of the monument at Bratton. There is a District Council planning application for the proposed monument due to be heard on Thursday 15th June.
One of the stones could leave its historic village, perhaps for ever. Representatives of the Ethandun Memorial Committee will attend a public meeting which is open to everyone at Kingston Deverill Village Hall on Thursday 8th June at 7.00 p.m. If you wish to lesrn more, if you wish to have a say, if you consider that the stones are part of the heritage of “The Valley” . . . . . PLEASE ATTEND