The back-story
I first became interested in ancient sites while living in Purbeck, thanks largely to Julian Cope’s infectious interest in all things circular and crafted from stone. He’s also largely responsible for my ongoing adoration of Krautrock and, equally life-enriching, for my perhaps-disproportionate loathing of Bono.
I liked Julian Cope on first hearing World Shut Your Mouth. I became obsessed on first hearing Skellington, aged 17, during a “barn gathering” in the semi-converted outhouse that we used to hang-out in as teenagers at my parents’ ex-farm house in Swanage, Dorset.
I hastily taped it from Neil who had taped it from Steve who taped it from Justin who taped it from I know not who. None of us owned it and many of the song titles had been guessed incorrectly somewhere along this chain of custodians (“Umpteenth Unnatural Blues”will always really be called “Bad Teeth Unnatural Blues” for me) and the sound was even lower-fi than it was meant to be, but a new love was born.
The presence of a stone circle on the back sleeve of his next album, Peggy Suicide, was interesting. The songs about ancient sites and extensive sleeve notes on the album after that, Jehovahkill, could not be ignored. If you liked Julian Cope at this time, perhaps the height of his post-Teardrops popularity, you were probably at least sympathetic to the idea of standing in the middle of a blustery field surrounded by nothing but menhirs, which I had only previously been made aware of in the Asterix stories and had never really paused to consider exactly what a menhir delivery man was.
There was apparently an actual Bronze Age stone circle at Rempstone, about one hour’s walk away from my home, hidden away in some woodland somewhere, but with no such thing as GPS, no ability to drive and little gumption, the idea of actually trying to find it never occurred to me.
Around 1991, the above-mentioned Steve was driving along Studland Road (in a Mini complemented beautifully by a picture of John Lennon in a fake beard from Help Sellotaped askew to the bonnet) when he saw the Archdrood himself at the side of the road. Steve popped his eyes back in his head, stopped the car, had a chat and was told that he’d just visited Rempstone stone circle while researching a sort-of history book that he was planning to write.
By now we were a full community of Cope-heads, so when Steve told us about this later, we pretended to be wholly unimpressed and never mentioned it again. And yet, over three decades later, here I am still envious of this chance encounter.
Despite, or maybe perhaps because of this, it took me 33 years to actually visit Rempstone stone circle. It was worth the wait.