Stonehenge

America has been 'unhenged' by henges for years boasting, at the last count, over half a dozen car, concrete, foam and even fridge Stonehenges from Washington to Virginia.

In the southern hemisphere, however, mock megalith building has proved less then popular with only a solitary take on the ancient Wiltshire monument having been reconstructed at Aotearoa in New Zealand…

But all of that is about to change… as Australia joins the fauxhenge race with its very own Stonehenge.

Nicknamed 'The Henge', it's the brainchild of Aussie entrepreneur Ross Smith who's bankrolling the $1.4 million project to recreate the Neolithic monument on his own property in Western Australia:

The 'to scale' henge in Maryhill

"I've got the money, I've got the time and I've got the land," says Ross "so the thought suddenly occurred to me: why not recreate Stonehenge in the Southern Hemisphere."

The Oz Stonehenge will not only be to scale, with 101 stones arranged in a 30 metre circle, but unlike the other fauxhenges of the World be hacked from 2,500 tonnes of granite as well. 

In fact for the past five months a small team of quarry workers has been busy drilling, blasting and cutting the 8 metre tall and 6 tonne slabs out of a quarry in Esperance in Western Australia:

"We're building our entire structure out of west Australian desert granite," says Ross, "and we're blasting it all out of a large granite outcrop about 1,000 km away from where we are.

"As far as I know no one has attempted to build it as a solid rock structure so I think I'm the first… apart from the boys back in the Neolithic period."

With the quarry a mere 1,000 km from the proposed 'Henge' site… tackling the question, that has confounded archaeologists through the ages, of "How do you go about transporting the thing and building it" has been a simple… all you need is a convoy of multiple wheeled trailers and a 100 tonne off-road crane.

Granite stone being cut at Esperance

"We'll literally build 'The Henge' from the inside out," says Ross "and because we're in the southern hemisphere it will be configured around the southern hemisphere's winter and summer solstice.

"I'd say realistically the whole thing will be complete around November and, I assume, open to the public by December 21st in time for our summer solstice."

Australia's Stonehenge will also, it seems, not only be the best replica of Stonehenge in the world but will actually prove to be even better then the ancient original it's copying…

"It will be perfectly aligned with our summer solstice and, unlike the one in England, we always do clear, clear beautiful skies every summer solstice…

"It's also not going to be as Stonehenge is now, a ruin, but as it was when it was built 3,000 to 1,500 BC and who's to say in another 5,000 years it may not even be there but this Stonehenge that I'm building will be there for at least 20,000 years plus."

Well, it's always good to know where to go in the event that Wiltshire becomes henge-less…