Derbyshire (England) -- Antiquities; Derbyshire (England) -- History
It will have been noticed that the diameters of the circles have
evidently been planned according to a geometrical scale, of which
the unit seems to have been equivalent to ten feet of our measure. A
reference, for example, to the plan of Arbor Low will again demonstrate
this point. The average diameter of the circle of the stones is one
hundred and fifty feet, the width of the fosse is twenty feet, and
that of the vallum on the ground level is thirty feet, and its height
above the _excavated_ fosse is ten feet; the total diameter of the
monument is two hundred and fifty feet, and Gib Hill, its pointer,
stands one thousand feet away south-west by west. But the stones at
Arbor Low, and, indeed, those of all the other examples, do not form
a true circle; there is always an elliptical variation. At Arbor Low
this variation is about ten feet; at the Wet-Withens it is only three
or four feet. At the former there are in the centre three fallen
stones, which in all probability formed a dolmen, of which the capstone
measures fourteen feet in length; it may be assumed, therefore, that
its supporters occupied a space of about ten feet. At the Wet-Withens
we read that there was originally a single large stone in the centre,
which we may assume was not more than three or four feet in diameter.
If, therefore, the central cromlech was first erected, and the radius
of the circle of stones measured from its outside walls instead of from
the true centre, we have the probable explanation of the elliptical
variation in every case. The variation, in turn, should give us some
idea of the central cromlech when, as in so many instances, it has been
destroyed.
This suggestion is supported by another distinctive feature in the plan
of stone circles, of which, also, no explanation has been offered.
Nearly every circle has two entrances, or an entrance and exit, cut
through the mound, and when a fosse is present it is broken at the
causeways; but these entrances, although on opposite sides of the
circle, and usually towards the north and south, are never directly
opposite each other. If, therefore, the central cromlech was the
dominant purpose, the roadway would pass alongside it, and not have
to deviate around it, as it certainly would if it truly bisected the
circle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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