Stanton Drew is a small village in North Somerset, England, situated in the Mendip Hills eight miles south of Bristol. The village is famous for its prehistoric stone circles.
Stone circles
The most famous feature is the Great Circle, a henge monument consisting most visibly of the second largest stone circle in Britain (after Avebury). The stone circle is 113m in diameter and probably consisted of 30 stones, of which 27 survive today. It was recorded by both John Aubrey and William Stukeley although only recently has its true nature been indicated.
Geophysical work by English Heritage in 1997 revealed a surrounding ditch and nine concentric rings of postholes within the stone circle. More than 400 pits, 1m across and at 2.5m intervals, stood in rings at the site. The ditch is 135m in diameter and about 7m wide. A 40m wide entrance was visible on the north east side. No surrounding bank has been identified although the site awaits excavation.
The geophysical work transformed the traditional view of Stanton Drew as being a surface monument and the Great Circle is now seen as being one of the largest and most impressive Neolithic monuments to have been built. Analogous with the circles of postholes at sites at Woodhenge, Durrington Walls and The Sanctuary, it is thought that the pits would have held posts which would have either been freestanding or lintelled as they could not have supported a roof at that size.
Nearby and to the north east is a smaller ring of 8 stones in the centre of which the geophysical work identified four further pits. A third ring of 12 stones, measuring 43m wide, stands to the south west. Further to the west is a cove of two standing stones with a recumbent slab between them. An avenue extends to the north east of the Great Circle towards the River Chew and a second avenue meets it from the north eastern stone circle. A (now recumbent) standing stone called Hautville's Quoit lies across the river to the north on an alignment with the centres of the Great Circle and the southern circle. Current theories suggest the site was dedicated to funerary ritual.
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