6-626: 51°10′45″N 1°49′31″W / 51.179305°N 1.825302°W / 51.179305; -1.825302 The Heel Stone is a single large block of sarsen stone standing within the Avenue outside the entrance of the Stonehenge earthwork in Wiltshire , England. In section it is sub-rectangular, with a minimum thickness of 2.4 metres (7 ft 10 in), rising to a tapered top about 4.7 metres (15 ft) high. Excavation has shown that
12-517: A further 1.2 metres (3 ft 11 in) is buried in the ground. It is 77.4 metres (254 ft) from the centre of Stonehenge circle. It leans towards the southwest nearly 27 degrees from the vertical . The stone has an overall girth of 7.6 metres (25 ft) and weighs about 35 tons. It is surrounded by the Heelstone Ditch . Sarsen Sarsen stones are silicified sandstone blocks found extensively across southern England on
18-805: The Salisbury Plain and the Marlborough Downs in Wiltshire; in Kent ; and in smaller quantities in Berkshire , Essex , Oxfordshire , Dorset , and Hampshire . Sarsen stones are the post-glacial remains of a cap of Cenozoic silcrete that once covered much of southern England. This is thought to have formed during Neogene to Quaternary weathering by the silicification of Upper Paleocene Lambeth Group sediments, resulting from acid leaching. There are several potential sources for
24-666: The prehistoric vaults of the Chotanagpur plateau of Northern India. The third possibility is that "sarsen" comes from the hybrid Anglo-Saxon "sar-stan" or 'troublesome stone.' "Sar" has the meaning of 'grievous.' The builders of Stonehenge used these stones for the Heel Stone and sarsen circle uprights. Avebury and many other megalithic monuments in southern England are also built with sarsen stones. While sarsen stones are not an ideal building material, fire and in later times explosives were sometimes employed to break
30-468: The stone into pieces of a suitable size for use in construction. William Stukeley wrote that sarsen is "always moist and dewy in winter which proves damp and unwholesome, and rots the furniture". In the case of Avebury, the investors who backed a scheme to recycle the stone were bankrupted when the houses they built proved to be unsaleable and also prone to burning down. However, despite these problems, sarsen remained highly prized for its durability, being
36-541: The word "sarsen." The first is that word "sarsen" is a shortening of "Saracen stone" which arose in the Wiltshire dialect . In the Middle Ages, " Saracen " was a common name for Muslims , and came by extension to be used for anything regarded as non-Christian, whether Muslim or pagan in contrast to Christianity. The second is that "sarsen" is vernacular variation of the Indo-European "sasan," name given to
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