‘No provenance is better than wrong provenance’: Milford Haven and the Stonehenge sandstones

For over 70 years there has been confusion within the archaeological literature between the Stonehenge ‘Old Red Sandstone’ Altar Stone, the Stonehenge Ordovician-Silurian Lower Palaeozoic Sandstone debitage and the Old Red Sandstone (Devonian) Cosheston Group sandstones. However, all three are very different lithologies with separate geographical origins. The Altar Stone is most likely to be from eastern Wales and the Lower Palaeozoic Sandstone from west Wales north of the Mynydd Preseli; neither of these two Stonehenge-related sandstones is from Mill Bay, Milford Haven as has been suggested. Recent petrographical analysis no longer supports the theory that the Stonehenge bluestones were shipped seawards from there along the Severn Estuary.