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

Alignment A points southeast/northeast at an angle of about 53 degrees clockwise from north, closely matching a carpenter's triangle[TF1] .

The thing about this angle is its proximity to the summer and winter solstices. Furthermore, because Alignment A gently rises after crossing the river, early people found it easy to adjust the winter solstice sunset so that it aligned with the cove.[TF2] 

Furthermore, its use dates the stone structures to around 2,500 BC and the Beaker People.

Careful use of Pythagorean geometry and CAD shows that the Great Circle comprises two circles with diameters of 138 and 133, centred 4 Megalithic yards apart. The axis of this egg points precisely south, midway between the most southerly lunistices.

We know that Stonehenge is based on a tiny 18:24:30 (3:4:5) 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 119 My. 

Superb geometry dating back at least 4,500 years!

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

It was on the evening of the 18th of June 2016 that the weather forecast for the following day 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 alignment with two of the stone circles, which came later, a further reason for the Cove is that it faces south to receive the lunistices of the southernmost rising moon and the star Gamma Crucis, which disappeared below the southern horizon around 4,800 years ago.

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We will start at the South-southwest Circle, as shown in the image. Come 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 SSW Circle, where the mid-June sun rose without interruption from offending hedges.

Having captured a picture of the summer solstice, let's take a leisurely walk down Stony Close – down being the operative word - to where the other circles are.

The amazing thing about our walk is that, having witnessed the rising sun from the SSW circle, we then witness the sunrise for the second time that morning from the centre of the Great Circle.

It all has to do with altitude, you see.

Imagine building a screen to block out the sun. It does not matter what it is made of; it could be a brick wall or the side of a mountain. The important thing is that it requires the viewer to look up over it at about 13 degrees. This condition, or something similar, causes the moon to take the place of the sun, albeit only every 19 years, usually when it is dark and cloudless.

This is the very reason Stone Age man decided to build the monuments at Stanton Drew.

The story begins with someone standing where the Cove is now, looking northeast across the River Chew and beyond to a distant peak, and realising they had the ideal conditions for a grand plan.

Next, they set out a carpenter's triangle roughly where the Cove would eventually be built. The triangle's hypotenuse passed through what would become the church's graveyard. It then traced the South-Western end of the 2-kilometre-long Alignment A.

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

Clearly not sufficiently accurate, because the Sun is too far north when viewed from the Great Circle. Furthermore, the sun was even further north when the circles and Cove were built. 

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, this photograph settles it.   

82. I see no alignment suggested by Professor Thom.

 A view 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.

Next, we climb to Position J, where we have a high-altitude view over Position K near the village of Belluton. Similar to a view over a false horizon, this 13-degree uphill climb at the extremity of Alignment A places the Moon rather than the Sun.

Conclusion? Alignment A has 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 Great Circle’s henge looked four-thousand-five-hundred years ago, with most of its stones missing. However, this is not how the Great Circle began. It began as a massive 300-foot-diameter bonfire that replicated the sun.

Also visible 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 believed a line between it and the South Circle points to the southernmost setting moon.

It also pointed to low-traversing stars, such as the slowly disappearing Gamma Crucis of the Southern Cross, which 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, watching 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, keeping watch on the slowly disappearing stars of the Southern Cross. The line is acknowledged to be not quite straight, as you might expect when tracing the position of a star constantly on the move. 

86.  No doubt encouraged by archaeologists who cast doubt on the Tyning Stones' connection to 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 to support the other.

The original position of the Tyning's is still marked on OS maps, which show that they were aligned with the Equinox when viewed from the centre of the North Circle. This alignment extends for some seven miles, ending 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