The stone circles of Dartmoor

South West England has many ancient stone circles, standing stones, and stone rows. On the open moorland of Dartmoor many have survived relatively undisturbed. That they form systems of alignments - known as ley lines - is not widely known. Walkers may occasionally chance across an alignment but it is on the maps of the region that the lines become apparent.

I am often asked what the stone circles were, on a bad day I might answer that they were nests for flying saucers, but I really believe that this is the wrong form of question. They had no modern function, They were amongst the earliest stone structures that man built communally, and they were everything. The circles were perhaps meeting places, markets, and possibly had some religious function. They may have been used for burials -- we still use headstones -- and they could be the origin of legends of people being 'turned to stone'. They were where people gathered to do anything. They formed calendars, were places of astronomical research and education they were everything that very early people did together. We do not have a word for it; their architects and builders did not leave any instructions which we can read or understand . . . . yet.

I believe the lines were propagated from one group of people to their neighbours. If a community constructed, say, a five mile long sight line on the midsummer sunrise, then people near the end of the line would extend that line rather than build their own. Eventually, a net of lines grew, covering much of this country, and may have extended across much of Europe. The lines, initially celestial, became pathways and markers -- essentially a stone-age navigation system. Many bridges and river crossings still occur on the lines. When the Romans came to Britain, they paved the pre-existing tracks - along these straight lines - hence the origin of 'Roman' roads.

Ley lines consist of alignments of ancient monuments, standing stones, and prominent landmarks. To recognize some features one must understand how they have been altered over time. The Christians built churches on the sites of many stone circles and turned some standing stones into wayside crosses. Two examples are shown below. Anyone can look along the alignments, walk along them, and check them, although much of the searching is done on maps. It is only in the last fifteen years that people have realised these ancient features were set up in deliberate patterns in the landscape, and have tried to work out the patterns and why they were made. The principal lines are the north south lines which are so accurate they must have been set up using the stars, and the lines of the midsummer and midwinter sunrise and sunset. There are many other lines, some of which, are not yet understood.

I am currently investigating the hypothesis that there were once stone circles at the centres of most of our cities. The alignments, celestial north south, and midsummer sunrise and sunset, pass exactly through the centres of many cities. The Scorhill north line passes through Swansea, Glasgow, and Inverness to the south it passes through Santander, Bourgos, and Madrid. This suggests that the circles became the nuclei of settlements which developed into today's cities, and the circles now seen in the rural areas are the exception not the rule Research to try and find the sunrise and sunset lines associated with circles at the centre of these cities is under way.

So what has all of this to do with Harps, apart from the ley line passing through the harpmaking workshop? Only that the same person is doing the research, and just as some of the secrets of the ancient stones have been exposed, so many areas of Harp design once thought to be 'black art' are now understood and can be manipulated to produce each individual players 'dream instrument'.

Further survey work and research is in progress which will include descriptions of the lines here in Devon and more pictures. In the meantime here are the two pictures of christianised standing stones mentioned before, whose earlier origin is revealed by the ley lines that they still mark.

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