Gay's Cave is a chalk cut grotto with stone fascade set into the defenses of Vespasians Camp near Amesbury, metres from the natural spring heads where 15,000 flint tools have been unearthed over the past few years. Also found were hundreds of cooked auroch bones denoting evidence of the first cooked meal in the landscape & one of the longest continuously settled areas in the British Isles. Funny then that that same area should be where Stonehenge was eventually built millennia later.
Stonehenge occupied 5,000yrs earlier than thought
The digs at this site, of which I have been a part of, have attracted the interest of Stonehenge archaeologists and scholars worldwide, proving once and for all why Stonehenge was placed where it was and providing supplementary evidence contemporary with the oldest known phase of Stonehenge - its mesolithic post holes, dating to around 7000BC.
It's not hard to assume that the very people who were worshipping or meeting at the mesolithic totems were in fact the very people who were living in and around the West Amesbury area, on rising ground above the River Avon with its natural springs, watching the wildlife come down to water. Not mentioned is that the fact the alignment of posts does in fact point towards that very landmark.
The grotto is disputed to have been an 18th century folly built for the Amesbury Abbey Estate (once owned by King Alfred, William the Conqueror, Henry III, and linked to the legendary King Arthur whose queen is said to have been laid to rest at the Abbey - however another references speaks of her being buried at a Holy House on Vespasians Camp)
Gay's Cave got its name famously as it was believed that John Gay might have penned some of "The Beggars Opera" and "Polly" there during his stay and patronage by the Duchess of Queensbury.
But like the rest of this strange area of the River Avon, have we simply misjudged this and assumed that it is a modern creation along with its "ornamental fish pond" now proven to be a geo-thermal spring venerated for over 5,000yrs?
(n.b We were curious that the stone used for building the grotto could in fact be sarsen stone from Stonehenges' missing stones. Amesbury Abbey once owned Stonehenge for a time.
There has been a mystery as to where exactly the missing stones hauled away from the 18th c onwards went to. It is commonly attributed to greedy local farmers and to build new houses, though not many places in the nearby villages appear to be built from sarsen or bluestone for that matter. English Heritage's Senior Landscape Surveyor, David Field, suggested that the stone used for the cave probably was sarsen, however this is later refuted by Mike Parker Pearson's 'team' who visited the site just once. Who is correct?)
There does exist references that say that the cave itself is prehistoric, though no evidence is cited. I see no earthly reason why anyone would go to the trouble of cutting into a chalk earthwork, high above the river, and then creating a grotto if something had not existed there before. If it was just built for visitors to the Abbey to take a rest in whilst ambling about the estate, why was it built on the other side of the river from the house and gardens where it was hard to access. You already have the Chinese Summer House amidst the grounds, a grotto which was amply suitable as a retreat for someone to write in relative peace.
Further to this, it now seems that a natural fording area existed on the Old Stonehenge Road from the river into the fort which followed the line below the fortifications, running past the cave mouth.
I came by another reference today which implied a roman heritage which also might go some way to identifying why the camp got the 'Vespasians' name tag. We know the area has well attested evidence in this period with a shrine once over on Countess Roundabout, another at the Cuckoo Stone near Woodhenge, a cemetery at Boscombe Down, not to mention evidence of 'tampering' at Stonehenge itself.
If the spring heads were indeed venerated through the Romano-British period, like Bath Roman Spa 40 miles away, could this suggest that there's something to the idea of a cave shrine existing in the Eastern side of the fort, overlooking the sacred river, and the site of the Abbey. Could this have been used by a shaman or priest - the keeper of the waters? There is a story that the cave was being inhabited for a period by a "hermit" but again I cannot find very much about this.
Again, this might have to remain supposition, but I have in fact used this in my Stone Lord saga as a ritual cave used by the Ladies of the Lake when they visit the Sacred Pool; it is here where Ardhu (Arthur) meets his kinsman Hwalchmai (Gwalchmai/Gawain), the Hawk of May, who later fights the Green Knight.
Local teens or something else?
"Speak friend and enter ..."
I'm also a little intrigued by the front apron of the entrance referred to as the "Diamond." Why a diamond and why go to the trouble of naming it so?
It not another name for a diamond not a lozenge? I am instantly reminded of the Bush Barrow Lozenge, symbol of power and kingship belonging to one of the richest BA burials within metres of the stones.
This was not the only lozenge to be found in the UK and the shape may well carry a deeper significance.
DOWNLOAD THE ONLY BOOK BASED ON VESPASIANS CAMP DIG, AS FEATURED ON BBC'S "FLYING ARCHAEOLOGIST"
Your author in a reconstructed neolithic roundhouse at Old Sarum, Salisbury
(This is a recreation of House 851 excavated at Durrington Walls by prof. Mike Parker Pearson as part of the Stonehenge Riverside Project.)
