In Episode 425 Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger visit an ancient and mysterious henge in Lincoln, Massachusetts, that dates all the way back to the year 2010. What started as something small has grown into one of the most fun roadside oddities in New England.
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CREDITS:
Produced and hosted by: Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger
Edited by: Ray Auger
Theme Music by: John Judd
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
*A note on the text: Please forgive punctuation, spelling, and grammar mistakes. Like us, the transcripts ain’t perfect.
[DRIVING IN CAR]
JEFF: Okay, bang a right up here onto Old Sudbury Road.
[BLINKAH]
RAY: Got it.
JEFF: And you can pull over up here on the right next to the fence by the farm.
RAY: Okay… this is kind of amazing.
JEFF: It is. An ancient mystery we can solve, Ray.
[CAR STOPS]
[DOORS OPEN/CLOSE]
RAY: We’re in Lincoln, Massachusetts, just about 15 miles northwest of Boston as the crow flies. And we’re parked next to a farm. There’s a clearing with dozens of objects arranged in a pattern.
JEFF: Ray, I’ve been to Stonehenge in England. A 5,000-year-old ancient calendar, sacred site, and burial site.
RAY: That’s right! You have!
JEFF: And we’ve been to America’s Stonehenge in Salem, New Hampshire. Another ancient calendar and sacred site, though not as big as the one in England.
RAY: Right. Also called Mystery Hill.
JEFF: But this one may be the most mysterious henge of them all.
RAY: I don’t doubt it. There are dozens of old children’s rocking horses arranged in a pattern in this clearing.
JEFF: Ray, we’ve come to Lincoln, Massachusetts, to explore the ancient mysteries of Ponyhenge.
[INTRO]
JEFF: I’m Jeff Belanger.
RAY: And I’m Ray Auger. Welcome to Episode 425 of the New England Legends podcast! We’re on a mission to chronicle every strange story in the region from ghosts to monsters, roadside oddities, UFOs, eccentrics, and all the other wicked strangeness that make this place great. Did you know most of our story leads come from you? This one did. Thanks to Char Baker for emailing us. If you’ve got a story you think we should check out, you can email us anytime through our website.
JEFF: Also, please visit our website where you can get your copy of the 2026 Haunted New England calendar by yours truly and photographer Frank Grace. We only have a few left! You can also get a copy of the latest issues of my Shadow Zine the Christmas Ghost Stories edition! Plus see dates for my Fright Before Christmas story tour and dates to see Ray’s band the Pub Kings. We’ll unravel the mysteries of Ponyhenge right after this word from our sponsor.
SPONSOR
RAY: Okay, Jeff. We’ve seen some weird things over the years.
JEFF: We have.
RAY: But this is amazing!
JEFF: It is!
RAY: There’s several circles of dozens of old children’s rocking horses. I see some traditional wooden ones, I see plenty that are mounted on springs to a metal frame. Remember as a kid getting your fingers pinched in those stupid springs?
JEFF: I do! That must be why they don’t make them that way anymore.
RAY: As we said earlier, we’re parked just off the side of the road near a farm. There’s a fenced-in field on the same side as Ponyhenge. And across the street is the barn and the farm house. It’s a cute area.
JEFF: To find out how this mysterious henge got here, let’s head back to the year 2010…
RAY: (INTERRUPTING) 2010 B.C.?
JEFF: Nope… 2010 A.D. let’s head there and see what happened…
[TRANSITION]
RAY: It’s late October of 2010. Barack Obama is president of the United States, Deval Patrick is the governor of Massachusetts, and “Just the Way You Are” by Bruno Mars is the number one song on the radio.
[AAAAOOOOO WOLF HOWL]
[THUNDER CLAP]
[FALL WIND THROUGH THE LEAVES]
JEFF: Here in Lincoln, Massachusetts, folks are in the Halloween spirit! The Pingeon family, who owns this land and lives right next door to where we’re standing here on Old Sudbury Road, has put up an impressive Halloween display.
RAY: Yeah… look at that! They have a cool headless horseman riding an old rocking horse in the field.
JEFF: It looks great. This is a well-traveled road, so I’m sure those passing through enjoy the spooky effort.
RAY: I love how big Halloween is getting. I feel like every year people go bigger and bigger with their displays.
JEFF: It’s amazing to see.
JEFF: It’s now early November. Halloween is finished for another year, the region is moving on to Thanksgiving and of course the Christmas displays will come out soon too.
RAY: It happens so fast every year.
JEFF: The Pingeon family take down their headless horseman, but they didn’t know what to do with the old wooden horse, so they leave it alone in the field.
RAY: A few weeks go by, and that’s when the Pingeons notice the strangest thing…
JEFF: Huh… would you look at that.
RAY: Yeah. A second rocking horse has joined the first in the small empty field. Nobody saw who left it here, but now there are two.
JEFF: That’s kind of funny. Someone must drive by here regularly, saw the horse, figured they had an old one at home, and decided to place it here so the first one wouldn’t be so lonely.
RAY: There’s something about seeing an old toy with no child around to play with it. It always makes me a little sad.
JEFF: I get that. We can’t help but personify our toys a little bit. But then we get older and move on to electronics, then cars, then somewhere along the way we stop playing with toys.
[SUMMER SOUNDS BIRDS]
JEFF: It’s summer now, and two kids have setup a lemonade stand in the clearing with the two rocking horses.
[CAR DRIVES BY]
JEFF: A few cars stop and support the kids. But then you know how these things go. The kids get bored and move on with their lives. But the rocking horses remain.
RAY: Another week goes by and…
JEFF: And there’s another rocking horse that’s joined the other two.
RAY: This feels like a thing now.
JEFF: It’s the start of a thing. Now there’s three lined up by the side of the…
RAY: Make that four!
[CAR DRIVING OFF]
JEFF: That’s amazing!
RAY: More weeks pass, and more old rocking horses continue to show up. Six becomes 10, then 10 becomes 12, and on and on.
JEFF: Every few weeks, the family moves all of the rocking horses so they can cut the grass, then they move them back in a new formation.
JEFF: It’s a few years later, and now there are 30 of these rocking horses. The Pingeons love the fact that they don’t know who drops off the new ones or why. This little clearing has now become a kind of spontaneous art project for the town of Lincoln.
RAY: Around the holidays, sometimes Christmas lights are placed on the horses. During warmer months, real cows and sheep graze in the field next to the clearing and look on with mild curiosity as cars stop to take pictures, or as strangers move them into new positions.
JEFF: Because no one really sees when new horses are dropped off, and when you drive by, sometimes they’ll be in a new pattern, folks started calling the site Ponyhenge.
RAY: That’s a perfect name! Ponyhenge.
JEFF: It is perfect. Sometimes the Pingeon family moves them around, but other times some visitor may take it upon themselves to make a new pattern. There’s no rules to it.
RAY: During one Kentucky Derby season, someone lined up the horses as if they were racing, and then placed a poster of Triple Crown winner American Pharoah on a stick at the head of the group.
JEFF: Ponyhenge is whimsical. It’s collective art. It’s a place for unwanted toys to gather with each other and still spread some joy. And that brings us back to today.
[TRANSITION]
RAY: Okay, I don’t think I’ll count them all, but there’s way more than 30 of these horses here.
JEFF: I think it’s safe to say the number is over 60 now. And did you know that if you took out a world map you can draw a straight line between Ponyhenge in Lincoln, Massachusetts, and Stonehenge in Salisbury, England?
RAY: And did YOU know that you can draw a straight line between any two points on the map?
JEFF: I did. You can also draw a straight line from my toilet to Stonehenge in England. Two map points don’t make a correlation.
RAY: No they don’t.
JEFF: Still, we can’t help but look for patterns. The first time I came here was last year with photographer Frank Grace. We came here around 10:30 in the morning on a weekday. We were sure we’d be the only ones here. We were here about 20 minutes and no less than four other cars stopped to get out and take pictures.
RAY: That’s kind of awesome. Just a weird roadside oddity that asks nothing of you other than to look on and smile.
JEFF: That’s kind of the point of a roadside oddity. Someone put something up, and then the rest of the community took over. Some of these horses are battered by years of use, and now the weather. Others look like they’re in relatively good shape. All of them have a backstory we’ll never know.
RAY: I kind of wish I still had mine from childhood. I would have brought it along and left it here.
JEFF: Maybe that’s the point. We loved our toys, we know we’re too old or maybe too big to play with them anymore, so we’d love to see them move on to some form of toy retirement, or a toy Valhalla. But I can’t help but wonder… if Ponyhenge should survive for hundreds or even thousands of years, what will future archeologists make of this strange configuration of plastic and wooden ponies?
[OUTTRO]
RAY: Future archeologists would probably think this was some sacred site to the pinched fingers of children. (BEAT) You’ve just arrived to After the Legend where we take a deeper dive into this week’s story and sometimes veer off course.
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To see some pictures of Ponyhenge by the great Frank Grace, click on the link in our episode description, or go to our website and click on episode 425.
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We’d like to thank our sponsors, thank you to our patreon patrons, and our theme music is by John Judd.
Until next time remember… stay legendary!