The Stones On Tour

Pembrokeshire, where the bluestones came from, to Stonehenge, where some of them ended up

- Peter Henshaw

There is more than one café in Newport, and that was good news, because the first one we tried could only do fancy coffees and avacado on toast. Unfazed, they cheerfully directed us to another round the corner for the best Full Welsh Breakfast in town... and it was. Newport is a small town, which happens to be by the sea, rather than a seaside resort – think wholefoods, a proper greengrocer and decent cafés rather than candy floss. For Roger, Hume and I, it was the start of the Stonehenge trail.

The bluestones, which form part of Salisbury Plain’s most famous rock collection, really did come all the way from the Preselli Hills in Pembrokeshire. They’re not the huge uprights we all associate with Stonehenge (yes, the Ladybird book was wrong!) but some of the smaller ones. Archaeologists speculate as to why the builders would have dragged them nearly 200 miles, when there was perfectly good rock far closer. Whatever the reason, Roger had come up with a ride from the Presellis to Stonehenge – it took us a day and a half, but stick to A roads and you could easily do it in a day.

There are various theories as to how the stones made the journey – either dragged on sledges or log rollers, maybe floated down convenient rivers or even sailed around the coast. However they did it, it was quite a feat, as each one weighed 2-3 tons.

We had an easier job, heading out of Newport after breakfast, riding single-track lanes for ten minutes to Pentre Ifan. This is the biggest megalithic monument in Wales, once a huge burial chamber of which just five big stones are left, the 16-ton capstone resting on three uprights. It looks precarious, as if a breath of wind would knock if off. But of course, it’s managed 5000 years so far. Another few miles down the road at Rhosyfelin quarry is a distinctive outcrop of volcanic rock. The Stonehenge bluestones came from this particular spot.