Tim has asked "who was Clarissa Frances Miles"? An elusive character, that's who... I'm actually delving further into her life at this very moment for something (so watch this space, but not right now). Clarissa had connections with several of the families in big houses (1/9) https://twitter.com/TimothyDaw/status/1362665694656102400

in and around the Salisbury Plain/Stonehenge area. Tim has discovered her penchant for dowsing, but she was also interested in thought-transference, especially at a distance - several of her experiments were published by the Society for Psychical Research (the SPR, seances (2/9)

and spiritualism is another thread connecting these families). As a photographer, Clarissa had won numerous prizes for her work in the 1880s and 1890s. I would say that she was best-known for the photos she took at Stonehenge in 1901, but there's a problem here - although (3/9)

some of the photos she took that year during the restoration & excavation work around Stone 56 have been republished many many times over the years, hardly anyone ever bothers to credit her. Why? She is clearly credited by name in the two published reports on the 1901 work (4/9)

(yes, two - the one by William Gowland published in 'Archaeologia' in 1902, and the one by Detmar Blow published in the RIBA's journal the same year. The latter was, curiously, never cited in an archaeological publication until 2015. Again, why?), and her name is attached (5/9)

to archive copies, so there really is no excuse. She seems to have been ever-present before and during the 1901 work. Here are a few of my favourites. This one shows the architect Detmar Blow, with a lady sat between the trilithons beyond him, her back to camera. Blow was (6/9)

the man in charge of the work at Stonehenge in 1901, by the way, not Gowland.

Here's Blow again, this time with a slightly uncomfortable-looking Lady Florence Antrobus, wife of the then-owner of Stonehenge SIr Edmund Antrobus (4th Baronet). The big leaning stone is the (7/9)

one straightened in 1901. The bluestone under it was left as it was. Finally, it wasn't all sarsens in 1901 - here's a shepherd, sheep and barrow, and the copyright declaration form that all Clarissa's photos in the National Archives are attached to. As I said, more to (8/9)

come on Clarissa. In the meantime, if anyone knows anything about her, including the whearabouts of any of her photos, do get in touch... (9/9).