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Ancient monument

Knowlton Church

Near Wimborne, Dorset

A ruined Norman church built inside a pagan henge.

At Knowlton, the Normans built a church right in the middle of a Neolithic henge, a ring of bank and ditch thousands of years older. It looks like a deliberate attempt to claim a pagan holy place for Christianity.

Read the full story, see it on the map, get directions and find what else is nearby in the free Hidden Britain Atlas map.

When
Henge c. 2500 BC, church 12th century
Where
50.8920, -1.9660
Group
Circles & monuments

Visiting

English Heritage, free and open at any reasonable time.

Cover of The Ledger of Lost Britain by Cale Mills
Read the full story in the book

The Ledger of Lost Britain

The Romans arrived in AD 43. For most people that is where the history of Britain begins. But by the time the legions landed, people had already been living on these islands for thousands of years. They had hunted, farmed, mined flint, dragged stones across the country, raised a hill by hand, and buried their dead in great tombs. They left no written words. What they left was the ground itself. Every place in this book can be visited, or has been dug up, or is in a museum.

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