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Withypool Stone Circle
Late neolithic stone circle in Somerset, England / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Withypool Stone Circle, also known as Withypool Hill Stone Circle, is a stone circle located on the Exmoor moorland, near the village of Withypool in the southwestern English county of Somerset. The ring is part of a tradition of stone circle construction that spread throughout much of Britain, Ireland, and Brittany during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, over a period between 3300 and 900 BCE. The purpose of such monuments is unknown, although archaeologists speculate that the stones represented supernatural entities for the circle's builders.
![]() The location of the circle in 2005; the stones are so small that discerning the site is difficult | |
Location | Withypool |
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Coordinates | 51.0963°N 3.6604°W / 51.0963; -3.6604 |
Type | Stone circle |
History | |
Periods | Neolithic / Bronze Age |
Official name | Stone circle on Withypool Hill 670m ESE of Portford Bridge |
Designated | 30 November 1925 |
Reference no. | 1021261 |
Many monuments were built in Exmoor during the Bronze Age, but only two stone circles survive in this area: the other is Porlock Stone Circle. The Withypool ring is located on the south-western slope of Withypool Hill, on an area of heathland. It is about 36.4 metres (119 feet 5 inches) in diameter. Around thirty small gritstones remain, although there may originally have been around 100; there are conspicuous gaps on the northern and western sides of the monument. The site was rediscovered in 1898 and surveyed by the archaeologist Harold St George Gray in 1905.