STONEHENGE is from Marlborough - the West Woods, to be more specific. A new scientific breakthrough has, for the first time, pinpointed almost exactly where Stonehenge’s giant stone uprights and lintels came from.

Up until now, all that archaeologists knew was that the stones, a type of rock known as sarsen, had been brought in around 2500BC from the Marlborough Downs.

The research, by the University of Brighton, was made possible after a piece of one of the stones taken away as a souvenir 60 years ago was recovered. But the news has come as no surprise to the Marlborough History Society.

"Personally I have to say I am not at all surprised by the findings," said society member Nick Baxter. "It has for a long time been known the stones were from Fyfield Down or thereabouts. West Woods is very much "thereabouts" so hardly a surprise. The sarsen stone cutting industry of the second half of the 19th and the early 20th century was concentrated on Fyfield Down, West Woods, and the connecting dry valley."

Future research could involve Wiltshire Museum’s archeology field group which has already undertaken a four year survey of areas of the woods known for sarsen stone workings. “We have been in discussion with the University of Brighton for some time over this,” said museum director David Dawson. “It will be very interesting to see if we can build on this research to discover more about how those sarsen pits were worked by the people who built Stonehenge.”

David Nash, a professor of physical geography at the University of Brighton, who led the research, said the hairs on the back of his neck stood up when he considered the notion of ancient builders working on the spot.

“This was a big, concerted, deliberate act,” he said. “It must have been a real undertaking. That brought home to me the scale and focus that was required.”

Nash said they were surprised that stones from West Woods, which in the time of Stonehenge was probably treeless open high ground, turned out to be an exact match.

Typically weighing 20 tonnes and standing up to 7 metres tall, sarsens make up all 15 stones of Stonehenge’s central horseshoe, the uprights and lintels of the outer circle and outlying stones.