Knowlton Church and Earthworks

This Norman church, which was built in the 12th century, is situated at the centre of a Neolithic ritual henge earthwork. The pairing of the henge and the church symbolises the transition from pagan to Christian worship, and is an unusual combination of a church within a Neolithic Henge.

The church is built of stone and flint, and the line of the roof remains clearly visible on its eastern face.

An excursion to the Knowlton Church and Earthworks also provides the opportunity to visit other nearby barrows and burial mounds.

Not many parish churches stand in ruins, and fewer still occupy sites associated with prehistoric rituals.

Four thousand years separate the main late Neolithic earthwork at Knowlton and the Norman church that stands at its centre. The earthwork itself is just one part of a landscape which is one of the great Neolithic and Bronze Age ceremonial complexes in southern England.