Stanton Drew stone circles

The Stanton Drew stone circles stand in a quiet Somerset meadow just outside the village of Stanton Drew. The largest, the Great Circle, is 113 metres across and the second biggest stone circle in Britain. Built between 3000 and 2000 BCE, it is one of the largest Neolithic monuments ever raised. Two smaller circles lie nearby, and a group of three standing stones called The Cove sits in the garden of the local pub. A single recumbent stone, Hautville’s Quoit, stands further off beside a farm track. Scholars have studied the site since John Aubrey visited in 1664, and later excavations in the 18th century uncovered human bones and a bell-like object. Modern geophysical surveys found nine rings of postholes inside the Great Circle and more than four hundred pits arranged in neat circles. The Cove itself proved to be a thousand years older than the stone circles, once forming the entrance to a chambered tomb. Visitors walk among the fallen and standing stones of the Great Circle and the two smaller rings. The Cove’s tall uprights and massive slab can be seen through the Druid’s Arms garden gate. Hautville’s Quoit lies recumbent across the river, and an avenue of stones once led northeast to the River Chew. The whole landscape still carries the echoes of ancient ceremonies and the legend of a wedding party turned to stone by the Devil’s fiddle.