Amesbury

"What does that say?" I asked him.

"That? Nine miles to Amesbury.

Nine of the loneliest miles in all the country, I reckon.

Tis straight over Salisbury Plain and past the stones.

It was midnight.

And here I was, drowsing in the midst of Salisbury Plain, with never a thought yet of where I was to lie that night.

I hurried off at a good round pace in the direction, as I thought, of the chimes, guessing that they rang over Amesbury.

In this latter I was right, for on the morrow I stood by the church and heard over again the same halting, imperfect performance.

In fact, it's what I call a time traveller who made the leap from the early Bronze Age to the 21st century.

And he's called the Amesbury Archer.

It was in 2002 and builders and developers were working on a site where they were going to raise some new houses and also a school, a primary school.

And as is the custom, archaeologists went in and had a look at the patch of green field to see if there was anything there.

So this person had died and was buried while the great trilithons of Stonehenge were in the process of being raised.

Those great big, you know, the two uprights and then the lintel, big doorways, those great big stone doorways were being raised at the time that this individual was alive and died.

And so he was known, obviously, he was something to do with Amesbury, but he's called the Amesbury Archer.

because of certain things that were found in the grave with him.

Placing one foot in front of the other, our ancestors walked into history.

In the early Bronze Age, a much-travelled man died and was buried with full ceremony and adornment in Amesbury.

This man became a time traveller with so much to tell us when he came back to life in the 21st century.

Next time in my love letter to the British Isles.

Rich Kitson.

Direct your letter in the country to me at my house in Amesbury, near Salisbury, Wilts.

I used to be at Salisbury Tuesdays and Saturdays weekly.

R.K. Richard Knoles, 1540 to 1610.