76. The ground plan of Prehistoric Stanton Drew, six miles south of Bristol.

Stanton Drew's stone circles and a Cove are aligned along a line pointing to the northeast. The angle this line makes is 53.13 degrees clockwise from north, the same angle as the sharp end of a carpenter's triangle.

The thing about this angle - Azimuth 53.13 - is its proximity to the summer and winter solstices. Furthermore, its use dates the stone structures to around 2,500 BC and the Beaker People.

We find The Great Circle to consist of two circles with diameters of 138 and 133, with centres 4 Megalithic yards apart. The axis of this egg points precisely south.

We already know that Stonehenge is based on a tiny 18:24:30 Megalithic-inch triangle. We now find that Stanton Drew's Great Circle is based on triangles with the same proportions, i.e., sides of 30:40:50 Megalithic yards. The profile is completed with blend radii of 99 My. 

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77. Sunrise from the South-southwest Circle on the 19th of June 2016.  

It was the evening of the 18th of June 2016, and the forecast promised a cloudless sky over the Bristol area, in an otherwise overcast Britain. This clearing presented a photographic opportunity too good to miss. So I packed a lunch, brewed a flask of tea, and with cameras packed away in the car's boot, I set off to spend the night at Stanton Drew.

The village of Stanton Drew has only one public house - the excellent and highly recommended Druid’s Inn. This inn has a spacious car park, from which I planned to conduct operations and where I could get some overnight shuteye. The car park is on two levels, and the upper level leads to a prominence where prehistoric folk chose to build a stone Cove.

Apart from its 53.13 alignment with the stone circles, another reason for the Cove is that it faces south to receive the southernmost rising moon and the star Gamma Crucis, which disappeared below the southern horizon around 4,800 years ago.

Starting from the South-southwest Circle, as shown in the image, join me for a short walk so I can show you what Stanton Drew was about. This picture was taken from a little to one side of the circle, where the mid-June sun rose without interruption from offending hedges.

The altitude is three-quarters of a degree, meaning we look slightly uphill at the sun. We also know that the sun does not rise vertically but slopes, and for every degree of increase in altitude, the sun shifts south by a similar amount.

Let's make our way down to Stony Close, where the other two circles lie.

78. Sunrise looking northeast along Alignment A on the 19th of June 2016.  

Having quickly walked downhill from the South Circle to the Great Circle, we were amazed to see the sunrise for the second time that morning. We also note that the sun is too far north for alignment A when seen from the Great Circle. Furthermore, the sun was even further north when the circles and Cove were built. Neolithic folk needed to find a way of shifting the sun south by at least three degrees. And that meant increasing the altitude of the horizon to around four degrees without having to build a mountain!

79. 

80.  From sleepy brook to deep ravine.

It's said that the stones of Stanton Drew walk down to the river Chew at night to take a drink. How quaint! So I went to look at this river, and I can say that any stone that went for a drink never came back! With steep slopes on either side, the river resembles a miniature version of America's Grand Canyon.

I estimate this ravine to be about four metres deep and seven metres wide at the top. 

81.  Not Stanton Drew, but a brook near where I live. Midday 26/03/2022.

If I had any doubt that the entire orb of the sun "walks" Stanton's River Chew to line up with its stone circles and cove at the summer solstice, this photograph settles it.   

82. A view along Alignment A from the centre of the Northeastern Circle. 

Alignment A passes through the centre of the Great Circle and ends at the Cove, which is hidden behind the church. The centre of the Great Circle is conveniently marked by a group of visitors who are there to pay their respects.

This photo proves that the sun is too far south to be aligned on the winter solstice when seen from the North Circle. 

This was no problem to the Beaker People who crossed the River to view the winter solstice from position F. See image 79.

Furthermore, by climbing the rise to Position J, a view over K, and its 13 degree altitude, causes the sun to be replaced by the northernmost rising moon.

Conclusion? Alignment A: placed the Sun at one end and the Moon at the other!

83.  A view looking down on Stony Close from the South Circle. 

This picture shows how the henge of the Great Circle appeared four-thousand-five-hundred-years-ago, unfortunately, with most of its stones missing.  But this is not how the Great Circle started.  It started as a massive 300-foot diameter bonfire that replicated the sun.

Also seen in this picture is the more complete North Circle, conveniently framed by the causeway through the Great Circle's bank and ditch.   John Wood called the North Circle a "Lunar Temple" because he thought a line between it and the South Circle points at the southernmost setting moon. If anything,  this line pointed at a low traversing star, such as the slowly disappearing Gamma Crucis. This star and others of the Southern Cross disappeared below the southern horizon around 5,000 years ago due to the precession of the earth's axis.  Imagine how the inhabitants of Stanton Drew felt having to watch those stars slowly disappear! 

84.  This is what the fire looked like from the South Circle.

85.  A view south from Hautvilles Quoit.  

This alignment from the Quoit -- a solitary standing stone, passes through the centres of the Great and South circles to keep watch on the slowly disappearing stars of the Southern Cross. The line is acknowledged as not quite straight, as you might expect from tracing the position of a star constantly on the move.  The Great Circle is not circular but a three-megalithic-yard oval.

86.  No doubt encouraged by archaeologists who cast doubt on the Tyning Stones having anything to do with Stanton Drew's stone circles and Close -- even though the Tyning Stones marked the equinox and the position of a fresh-water spring.  This derogatory attitude no doubt encouraged a farmer to pluck them out of the ground and carry them off to build a bridge over the Chew upstream of the Close.  This photo shows how the Tyning stones ended up. One has been broken into handy sizes as support for the other to sit on.

The original position of the Tyning's is still marked on OS maps, which proves them to have been aligned with the Equinox when viewed from the centre of the North Circle.  This alignment is extensive, ending some seven miles away at the high plateau on which Bristol Airport is built. 

87. Stanton Drew's Cove.

Archaeologists believe that the Cove may once have been the portal of a long barrow whose mound disappeared long ago. They also say that a long barrow would make the Cove 1,000 years older than the circles of stone. I don't believe that the Cove was once part of a long barrow, but either way, I would still date it to around 3500 BC.

The side slabs of the Cove are not parallel but splay out towards the south.

To find out precisely what the Cove points at, it was necessary to measure the amount of splay and decide, as closely as possible, what each slab aims at.

To this end, a contraption of wood was made along the lines of a parallelogram. This device helped to show that the side slabs have a splay of about nine degrees. Determining what each slab points at was another problem. Especially as you can see from the above, the view south (or southeast) is often blocked in summer by bushes that spoil the view. Fortunately, I already have some photos on file, which were taken in wintertime.

 88.  And this is the result.  Previously thought to face too far south to be aligned on anything important, Stanton's Cove was meant to bring the moon and at least one of the fast-disappearing stars of the Southern Cross together.  Most likely date 3 500 BC