See main Weddings at Stanton Drew page for Access notes.
Tuesday 16 September
While there John and I had the Great Circle down as marginally smaller than Long Meg and her Daughters but when I looked in Burl later, it's actually a bit bigger. As my copy of Burl lives in my rucksack I really ought to remember to look at the damn thing on site a bit more often!!!
As we walked round the Great Circle looking at the fallen stones, it became simultaneously easier to imagine the circle when the stones were standing and more frustrating that the vast majority are fallen.
This is an amazing place, that would be truly mind-boggling in a Hurlers, or Machrie Moor way if only the stones were standing!!. Kind of almost in an Avebury way if you look just at Avebury itself, the West Kennett Avenue & Longstone Cove. (Leave out Silbury & everything else though, because that's where Avebury leaves everything else trailing!!)
John's still slowly converting me to the opinion that more circles should be 'restored' – not in the Cullerie sense, 'just' re-erected as well as possible. Never would've said that a few months ago! (I'll probably change my mind again anyway next time I see a 'badly' or 'overdone' one!!!)
In fact, you only have to look at the damaged but BEAUTIFUL NE circle to see what I'm on about. If the Great Circle was anywhere near as complete as this, we'd all be mind-blown bunnies I reckon.
Big stones, most of them standing. Nice proportions
Maybe it was the defiant insubordination of the smaller circle in close proximity to a much bigger 'monument', or maybe it was something about the proportions. Or maybe it was something else. But somehow, the NE circle in relation to the Great Circle put me in mind of Cnoc Fillibhear Bheag in relation to Callanish.
Well, I know what I mean, even if nobody else does!
(The Avenues are sh**ged and seem very strangely aligned, but they're still a nice little bonus!)
Also see South West Circle , The Cove and Hautville's Quoit.