Newspaper photograph from May 1999.

A remarkable recent discovery, this is a small wooden circle that has been uncovered by shifting sands on a beach near Hunstanton in Norfolk. This somewhat misleadingly named 'Stonehenge of the Sea' was first reported in the national newspapers early in 1999, although it is claimed that locals have known of its existence for some ten years or more.

It consists of an oval ring of between forty-eight and fifty-five oak posts, each one cut in half and then placed next to its neighbour to a depth of over a metre with the cut side facing inwards to form a continuous 7.5 metre diameter wall around a large oak trunk buried upside down in the centre. This central oak structure is believed to have been some kind of altar, but why it has its roots pointing skyward is not clear. Some have suggested that it was for the ritual laying out of corpses, perhaps to be washed away by the sea, while others have speculated that the whole site would have originally been built on swampy ground someway inland. What is known however is that subsequent environmental changes lead to the circle being covered in peat and sand and hence being preserved in remarkable condition, it is now the erosion of the peat that has brought the whole structure to prominence once more. These peat beds have been dated to the Bronze Age, and this along with the nearby discovery of an bronze axe head of the same period, and distinctive tool marks in the wood, date the site to between about 2000 - 1200BC*.

When visiting the site in June 1999, work had already begun in removing the posts to allow their preservation, as since being exposed to the elements and the rising and falling tide, the wood has now become so brittle that is starting to disintegrate. It is estimated that this task should be finished by July 1999, although it is not yet known where or when the preserved circle and altar will finally be re-erected. 

*Update July 2003
The central oak trunk which weighs about 2.5 tones and the fifty-five split timbers have been dated by dendrochronology (the counting of tree rings) to 2049BC which indicates the year they were felled. The circle was built on a backswamp - dry land with a high water table in the marginal area between the sea and fertile soil inland with the continuous wall of planks placed edge to edge with a narrow entrance formed by a 'Y' shaped timber allowing access to, or viewing of, the central trunk from the southwest.
Since 1999 all the timbers have been undergoing preservation at Flag Fen in Cambridgeshire while awaiting a decision on their future.

Update 2006
The timbers are now at the Mary Rose preservation centre in Portsmouth and it is planned that they will move to a newly constructed museum in King's Lynn sometime in 2007.

Update 2008
The King's Lynn museum opened on 1st April 2008 featuring a new display of half of the timbers..

Update April 2010
The preserved central stump has now finally been reunited with the timbers of the circle at King's Lynn museum. Museum website here.