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Stonehenge endures as one of Britain's greatest mysteries but all that is likely to change when construction foreman Brendon Fisk releases his new book at the end of the year.
Stonehenge symbolises mystery, power and endurance. Its original purpose is unclear to us but some have speculated it was a temple made for the worship of ancient earth deities. It has also been called an astronomical observatory for marking significant events on the prehistoric calendar.
Others claim it was a sacred site for pagan sacrifice but regardless of what it was supposed to be used for, a controversial new book claims it is the British construction industry's first white elephant or woolly mammoth, depending on when you think it was built. Fisk believes it is nothing more than a huge stone testament to man's incompetence.
Fisk has taken a new approach to studying this ancient structure beginning with an obvious question: "If it was so damn important, why the hell didn't they finish it properly?"
An ex-construction foreman on numerous projects, including the Channel tunnel, he believes Stonehenge is one of the most poorly constructed structures he has ever seen and if his men produced work that bad, it would be torn down and may even end up being lambasted on a show like TV2's Trade Wars.
Fisk claims that when projects are looked at many thousands of years after they are built, they take on a mystical life of their own. Once mystery is associated with a structure such as Stonehenge, it invites stupid people to ask stupid questions, such as: "How could such ancient peoples build such a huge thing?" These stupid questions are often followed by outlandish and equally stupid claims, such as: "Even in modern times people couldn't build a structure as amazing as this."
Fisk believes the only amazing thing is the fact that they got permission and then bothered to actually build it in the first place.
"In 45 years in the construction industry, I have never seen anything as bad as this. Quite frankly I am ashamed that this monstrosity is located less than 12km from some studio apartments I am building in Salisbury."
Fisk believes this ridiculous assortment of stones offering no shelter or practical use may have been the laughing stock of the building industry back then. And just because some of it is still standing today, it doesn't justify the project being built in the first place.
He believes that, like Auckland's recent stadium debacle, the idea of building Stonehenge would have been the object of much heated debate many thousands of years ago.
"Do we build an eight-rock thing in the middle of nowhere? Or should we build a 12-rock structure that is a multipurpose venue down by the waterfront, or next to the quarry where the rocks are coming from anyway?"
Quite clearly they went with the wrong option. The cheaper option of building a smaller stone structure in the middle of nowhere got the green light and this decision was the beginning of the end for Stonehenge. It would sow the seeds for the collapse of the entire British henge industry.
As a construction foreman familiar with working with stone, Fisk can tell that those building Stonehenge began to cut corners as they went.
"The earlier stones have nice straight edges, the later ones don't, so they clearly ran out of money on this project and I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't severely affected by union action, as there are clearly long periods of time where nothing happened on the project."
Fisk suggests there is no reason a job back then would have gone any smoother than the average construction project today. In fact he believes it is more likely to have been a disaster from start to finish.
Fisk is always careful to remind people that just because something is standing there in front of you, it doesn't mean it was built in five minutes. In the case of Stonehenge he is adamant it was quite the contrary. Construction of this white elephant ran well over budget and time until, after more union action, everybody walked off site, leaving the incomplete monstrosity you see today.
On a whistle-stop publicity tour of New Zealand, Fisk compared ancient Stonehenge with the huge hole left in the ground in Queenstown as a result of property developer Dave Henderson running out of the necessary cash to complete his white elephant.
"If that 'mysterious' hole is still there in 2000 years, people will come from miles around to marvel at it, amazed, confused perhaps, but blissfully unaware that it is nothing more than the result of some property developer thinking a little too big, pulling the pin and walking away.
"Stonehenge is no different and if it was a good idea in the first place, somebody would have finished it by now!"
