You're right that you shouldn't take everything you read at face value though, no matter who wrote it. It's only ever going to be that individual's interpretation of what they see.

The plan in Craig Weatherhill's excellent Belerion shows that the quartz stone and centre stone don't line up particularly with the slabs on the other side of the circle. The "centre" stone is considerably off-centre though.

Let's be fair to Burl though. Without him, much of the trail-blazing we - and Julian Cope - follow would never have happened. No-one (even Thom) has done more to visit and record the majority of stone circles on these islands. We're all following in his footsteps - and he did it all pre-internet. No Google earth, no websites with handy lists to visit for him. Some achievement!

Anyhow, being somewhat pedantic(!) he doesn't really state that Duloe is on Bodmin Moor. In the little book he says it's 4 miles S of Liskeard, Bodmin Moor isn't even mentioned. In the big book he covers it in the Bodmin Moor section, but this is really the only convenient grouping to put it in, unless it had it's own section. Duloe is in the same (then) district as the Bodmin Moor circles, and apart from those, there are no other circles near it.

I'm in no position to defend Barnatts or Herrings writing on Boscawen Un, but something to note within the passage I posted is the sentence beginning "When the circle itself was erected.."

If no further information were available about this site, the assertion that follows it would be impossible for either writer to prove or indeed for you to disprove and would be essentially meaningless.

However - The circle is reconstructed, which is why I was keen to know you which plan you were looking at. I wasn't quite prepared for the answer 'Google Earth". I personally don't know, but if Barnatt or Herring were writing on the basis of information gleaned from the 19th century excavations or plans/illustrations created on or before that date, they may well have a reasonable basis for that assertion.