Devil’s Quoits

A late Neolithic henge and stone circle (2900-2600 BC), nearly destroyed in the 20th century, carefully restored 2002-2008.

Around 2900-2600 BC, communities living in the Thames Valley began constructing a monument. They dug a circular ditch and piled the excavated material into an external bank—the classic henge design that separates sacred space from the surrounding landscape. Within this enclosure, they erected 36 stones in a concentric oval arrangement, the largest stones positioned near the entrances. For generations, the site saw use. Fires burned around the perimeter during ceremonies. Animal bones were deposited in ritual acts. Human remains were placed within the sacred enclosure. The site continued in use from the Neolithic through the post-Roman period. Then the long forgetting began. Medieval farmers, pragmatic about the stones their ancestors had venerated, took them for building material. The village of Stanton grew nearby—its name meaning 'farmstead by the stones'—but the monument itself dwindled. By 1940, only one stone remained in situ when wartime necessity demanded an airfield. The henge was leveled, runways laid across the ancient enclosure. After the war, gravel extraction continued the erasure. The monument might have disappeared entirely had archaeologists not documented what remained. Their excavations revealed the complete plan, proving the site's significance. The restoration project that followed chose visibility over absence, rebuilding what could be rebuilt to return the monument to the landscape.