Stanton Drew Stone Circles - The Monument

The Monument

The most famous feature is the Great Circle, the second largest stone circle in Britain (after Avebury). The stone circle is 113 m in diameter and probably consisted of 30 stones, of which 27 survive today. It was recorded by both John Aubrey and William Stukeley. 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. A large stone close to Hautville Quoit Farm, recumbent since at least the mid 17th century but assumed to have originally been upright. Described by Stukeley in 1723 as being 13 feet long, it is now about half that length, Grinsell suggesting that fragments have occasionally been broken off for mending the roads. Stukeley also referred to the presence of a second stone.

Further to the west is a cove of two standing stones with a recumbent slab between them, which can be found in the garden of the Druid's Arms public house. All are of different heights, the back stone being 4.4 metres, the south western 3.1 metres, and the north eastern 1.4 metres. The stones of the cove are mineralogically different from those in the nearby stone circles.