On August 16 our speaker was Amy Woolacott whose talk was entitled "If only the Stones could Speak".

She took us on a tour of prehistoric monuments in various parts of Britain, some of which are quite local, such as the Rollright Stones.

Despite continuing archaeological research with the aid of modern scientific aids there is much to be learned about the significance of some of them and inevitably there are many pseudo-scientific beliefs which have grown up about them.

There are no written records as there are, for example, about the Pyramids, so legends and fantasies abound.

One interesting discovery concerns the magnetic energy measured at some sites because they lie on fault lines and the stones contain magnetite.

Ball lightning has been observed at such sites giving rise to more speculation of spiritual significance. What is certain is that great care was taken with the selection of sites and the scale of the works demonstrates how much effort was put into their construction which must have involved the whole community and a great deal of organisation.

This is a subject which is all the more fascinating because it is likely that we will never know the full story.

We meet at 10am every Thursday at The Boathouse, Evesham Rowing Club. Our speaker on August 23 will be Dr Nick Humphris on Chedworth Archaeology and on August 30 Howard Robinson's talk will be about Eleanor of Aquitaine. Full details can be found on our website, eveshamprobus.com