“We may have found a stone circle on the top of Loxley Edge. People had just walked past up until now and it only dawned on us while we were doing some clearing work. There’s a standing stone with a similar shape to those at Avebury and the circle looks as if it’s 20 metres wide, with a smaller circle about four metres in diameter.

“If it is a stone circle, it will be Bronze Age or earlier and it will be the only remaining site of its kind in the city.” Previous prehistoric sites were dug up and removed in less archaeologically enlightened times, it seems.

Local archaeologists believe the site could well be genuine but Alan warns that a previous landowner was a known antiquarian and may have liked the idea of an ancient folly on his estate.