Heel Stone

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title: "Heel Stone" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["stonehenge"] description: "Block of sarsen stone in England" topic_path: "general/stonehenge" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heel_Stone" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Block of sarsen stone in England ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Stonehenge_Heel_Stone_-panoramio(2).jpg" caption="Southwest face of Heel Stone in May 2016"] ::

The Heel Stone is a single large block of sarsen stone standing within the Avenue outside the entrance of the Stonehenge earthwork in Wiltshire, England. In section it is sub-rectangular, with a minimum thickness of 2.4 m, rising to a tapered top about 4.7 m high. Excavation has shown that a further 1.2 m is buried in the ground. It is 77.4 m from the centre of Stonehenge circle. It leans towards the southwest nearly 27 degrees from the vertical. The stone has an overall girth of 7.6 m and weighs about 35 tons. It is surrounded by the Heelstone Ditch.

References

• Atkinson, R J C, Stonehenge (Penguin Books, 1956)
• Cleal, Walker, & Montague, Stonehenge in its Landscape (London, English Heritage 1995)
• Cunliffe, B, & Renfrew, C, Science and Stonehenge (The British Academy 92, Oxford University Press 1997)
• Hawley, Lt-Col W, Report on the Excavations at Stonehenge during the season of 1923 (The Antiquaries Journal 5, Oxford University Press, 1925)

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::