Stone circles are found all over the British Isles, singly (e.g. Avebury, Castlerigg, Swinside, The Rollrights) or in small groups (e.g. The Hurlers, Stanton Drew, the Tregeseal Circles or the circles at Lamorna). Often, one or more circles in a group may no longer be extant, but documentary evidence or other clues provide information as to the existence of the group.
When circles are grouped in this way, the individual circles are usually quite close to each other. However, there is one group of circles, in Devon, which are not necessarily intervisible but definitely can be considered as ‘grouped’. This group has been dubbed the ‘Sacred Crescent’ and sits to the northeast of the high ground of Dartmoor.
Seven circles are marked in red on the map above – Grey Wethers is a double circle, but in 2015, an eighth circle marked in blue was identified southwest of Sittaford Tor which extends the arc. Aubrey Burl reported the circles as ‘standing at intervals of a fairly consistent 2 kilometres’. As can be seen above, the level of consistency can be debated but the nature of the arc is undeniable.
Of course, the question to be asked is whether the placement of these circles is deliberate or random. The arc pattern contains 8 circles, of some 15 in the Dartmoor area – not counting cairn circles etc. This high proportion suggests ‘intelligent design’, but as many of the circles are not intervisible it’s difficult to imagine how the pattern could have been produced.
If any of our readers are intimately familiar with the area, it would be interesting to know if there are any candidate ‘clues’ as to other possible circles in the arc, either between the existing circles or extending either end of the pattern. Such clues could recumbent stones, appropriate clear level areas or even documentary evidence – a pattern of monuments, of which no trace exists, was once recorded close to the nearby Spinster’s Rock dolmen.
