In about 1700, one pound of good-quality tea cost a skilled craftsman approximately three weeks’ wages. Fuelled by heavy taxes, the price of tea remained high throughout the first half of the eighteenth century. It was only in 1745, thanks to a reduction in duty from 4s to 1s, that tea drinking started to become more widespread. Even more significant was the Commutation Act of 1784, introduced by the Prime Minister, William Pitt, which reduced the tax on tea from an astounding 119 per cent to ‘just’ 12,5 per cent. Nothing highlights the increase in Britain’s tea drinking more clearly than the rise in tea imports from the English East India Company – from £14 000 of tea in 1700 to £969 000 in 1760, and £1 777 000 by 1790 (a far steeper growth than the rise in the rate of inflation). Some historians claim that it was because the English East India Company imported such vast quantities into England that we became a nation of tea, rather than coffee, drinkers. Certainly, while demand for tea augmented imports, rising imports also created more demand.

Many coffee houses realised the commercial benefits of selling loose-leaf tea to their customers. This meant that men and especially women (who did not frequent the coffee houses) could enjoy the drink at home. Wealthy women subsequently initiated the refined custom of visiting each other for tea. These were elegant affairs involving dainty tea wares and furniture, such as teapots and cups, tea kettles, tea jars and tea tables. While servants laid out the table with the tea paraphernalia, the hostess brewed the tea herself and served it to her quests in her private sitting room, often known as a closet or boudoir.

It took a long time for tea to reach Europe, but thanks to the maritime explorations of the Age of Discovery a new global trade gradually emerged, involving the exchange of goods, such as silk, gold, silver, pepper, porcelain and tea. The Dutch and Portuguese started importing tea into Europe from about 1610 and in 1657 the first shipment of tea arrived on English shores. In the late 1660s the British started importing tea themselves through the English East India Company, on ships that took twelve to sixteen months to reach England. At first, tiny amounts were ordered: 143lb in 1669, rising to 5 000lbs in 1678. This was the beginning of Britain’s long and unbroken history of tea drinking.

Where does tea come from? No one knows for certain. What we do know is that it is made from Camellia sinensis, an evergreen shrub or small tree with yellow-white flowers. Experts believe that the plant first appeared in the jungles of Eastern Himalaya, an area so rich in flora that scientists now describe it as a ‘biodiversity hotspot’. Today, Camellia sinensis is cultivated in tropical or sub-tropical regions across the world, including China, India, Japan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Kenya, Pakistan, Rwanda, Argentina and Australia. Since the early part of this century, it has also been grown in Cornwall. Blessed with a soil and microclimate similar to that of Darjeeling, Tregothnan Estate is the first commercial tea grower in the UK. Its teas are so fine that it supplies the luxury London store, Fortnum & Mason.

It is no understatement to say that tea has had a huge impact on the British and their history. Since it arrived on British soil in the seventeenth century, its presence has been felt everywhere, from the country houses of the rich to the ‘one up, one down’ cottages of poor. Although at first a luxury drink, affordable only by the wealthiest, by the twentieth century tea was one of the cheapest refreshments available. Over the last two hundred years, tea has become one of life’s simple pleasures: from morning until evening, it revives the weary, relieves the thirsty and reassures those in need of solace.

The old Saxon word ley (also spelt lea, lee or leigh) was defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “Land temporarily under grass” and particularly refers to an enclosed field or pasture.

Stonehenge is at the heart of a sacred and a ritual landscape, surrounded by the graves of the elite of prehistory. If the stone circle can be seen as the hub of a wheel, there are solar and lunar alignments which go through the centre like the spokes of a wheel. The kind of alignments found at Stonehenge are the kind that would have been the result of prolonged observation rather than mathematical precision, as has sometimes been suggested.

It is believed Stonehenge had to have a religious and spiritual significance. We know little of the beliefs of the Stonehenge peoples; archaeologists have suggested for all we know they could have been born dead. We have their burial mounds, their grave goods and their stone circles. As farmers, the yearly cycle would have been vital to their survival and we think that the earth was seen as a living entity represented by a Goddess figure. A carving on one of the great trilithons, said to be the mother goddess, has been found. Carved four thousand years ago, before the sarsen stone was erected, this could be an indication of the religious purpose of the circle. Other carvings, of axe heads and the Mycenian type dagger, have also been found; these possibly date to the final stage which was completed by 1550 BC.

Stonehenge is not a Druid Temple, despite the popular myth. However, the Druids may have had the answer to the purpose of the stone circle. They were the Shamen of the people, the historians, the wise men, the genealogists, and their tradition was an oral one. The Druids were a caste rather than a priesthood, and initiates spent twenty years in forest sanctuaries and caverns learning the ancient lore, which is thought to have been in verse.

Many Bluestones disappeared when early tourists stopped at the blacksmith’s shop at Amesbury to hire a hammer and chipped away their own souvenirs. Treasure hunters searching beneath the sarsen stones also contributed to the destruction. What do we really know about Stonehenge? We know where the stones came from, the people responsible for the building, possibly the methods used and, thanks to the radio carbon dating of the deer antlers found in the pits, the approximate dates. Where, who, when and how – these questions we can attempt to answer. What, however, is more difficult.