“On the moor, about a mile to the south of the singular pile of granite slabs, which rest upon and overlap each other, and is vulgarly called the Cheesewring, there are three large circles of granite stones placed in a nearly straight line in a north-north-east, and south-south-west direction, of which the middle one is the largest, being 135 feet in diameter, the north 110 feet, and the south 105 feet.
“The north Circle is 98 feet, and the south 82 feet from the central one. If a line be drawn uniting the centres of the extreme Circles, the centre of the middle ring is found to be 12 feet 6 inches to the west of it.
“These Circles have been greatly injured. The largest consists of 9 erect and 5 prostrate stones; the north Circle has 6 erect and 6 prostrate, and a fragment of a seventh; and the south has 3 erect and 8 prostrate. In Dr. Borlase’s time they were in a slightly better condition. A pen-and-ink sketch made by him, which is extant in one of Dr. Stukeley’s volumes of original drawings, represents the middle Circle as consisting of 7 erect and 10 prostrate stones; the north of 10 erect and 6 prostrate; and the south of 3 erect and 9 prostrate. The stone to the east of that marked C in the plan of the middle Circle is the highest, and is 5 feet 8 inches out of the ground, and appears to have been wantonly mutilated recently. Two of the prostrate stones of the north Circle are 6 feet 6 inches in length.
“About 17 feet south from the centre of the middle Circle there is a prostrate stone 4 feet long and 15 inches wide at one end. It may possibly have been of larger dimensions formerly, and been erected on the spot where it now lies, but as Dr. Borlase has omitted it in his sketch it is probably a displaced stone of the ring.
“If we allow, as before, an average interval of 12 feet between the stones, there will have been about 28 pillars in the north, 26 in the south, and 33 in the middle Circle.
“At a distance of 409 feet westwards from K in the middle Circle there are 2 stones, 7 feet apart, both inclined northwards. One is 4 feet 11 inches in height out of the ground, and overhangs its base 2 feet 7 inches; the other is 5 feet 4 inches high, and overhangs 18 inches.”
I now pass from a general description of the circles to the azimuths of the sight-lines already referred to, so far as they can be determined from the published Ordnance maps.
To investigate them as completely as possible without local observations in the first instance, I begged Colonel Johnston, R.E., C.B., the Director-General of the Ordnance Survey, to send me the 25-inch maps of the site giving the exact azimuth of the side lines. This he obligingly did, and I have to express my great indebtedness to him.
In [Fig. 41] I show the sight-lines from the south and north Circles as determined by the stones and barrows marked on the map. The sight-lines on Arcturus are from the centres of the three circles in succession. I shall point out later the significance of the fact that the November alignments are from the south, the solstitial ones from the north Circle.
