The part of Salisbury Plain around Stonehenge was an important area for early aviation, with a number of nearby airfields from which military pilots could take off, train, and practise their craft. A century ago, one such individual made a discovery that would transform our understanding of this historic landscape. Gilbert Insall (1894-1972) was an experienced aviator, having earned both a Victoria Cross and a Military Cross during the First World War. A photograph of him taken during that conflict shows a serious young man looking calmly at the camera – a hint of the determination and coolness that had earned Insall his distinguished decorations. He had won his VC, aged just 21, after flying through heavy enemy fire, getting hit, making an emergency landing, repairing his aircraft under fire, and flying back to safety. Insall’s MC, meanwhile, was awarded for gallantry following his escape from a prisoner-of-war camp in 1917, after which the pilot swiftly returned to flying duties.
Insall remained in aviation after the end of the war, becoming a captain in the newly formed Royal Air Force, and in 1919 he was promoted to Squadron Leader. It was under this rank that Insall was flying a Sopwith Snipe biplane around the Stonehenge area on 12 December 1925. At his altitude of c.2,000ft, Insall could clearly see the famous stone monument, but that was not all he saw. In a ploughed field near Durrington Walls, about two miles away, he spotted a circle of white chalk marks. Woodhenge had been discovered. Insall was intrigued by what he had seen, and after making enquiries he learned that, although an archaeological site was known to exist on that spot, it was only a ‘mutilated disc barrow’ that locals called the ‘Dough Cover’ (because its gently domed appearance reminded them of a proving tool used in baking). Nothing was known about any remains surviving inside the ‘barrow ring’.
Undeterred, Insall flew over the chalky soil marks a second time to photograph them, and later returned to capture more images in the light of the setting sun – noticing, as he did so, a ‘distinct depression’ that would later prove to be the remains of an inner henge ditch. As someone who was interested in both archaeology and aviation, Insall knew about the possibility of cropmarks, and so he continued his investigations the following summer. This time, he hit the jackpot. As Insall flew over the markings on 30 June 1926, he could see not just a single circle, but ‘five or six or perhaps even seven’ concentric cropmarks in the wheat field, with each oval ring formed from a series of individual dots.
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