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the de Stantons or Stantunes. They appear to have been very 
considerable owners of land. Robert de Stanton accounted for 
two Knights’ fees in the time of Henry II. 
In one history, which I have come across, it is stated that 
Stanton Drew means “the stone town of the Druids,” referring 
to the stone circles there ; but I think this must be looked upon 
as too literal an interpretation of the words. 
That “Stan,” in Stanton, is a word meaning stone is certain, 
but the word meaning stone is not always applied to a place where 
some particular stone monuments exist. But in a great many cases 
I think it is used. to refer to some stone, or paved road, if it be 
considered that the word is one which the Romans, the makers 
of such roads, would have adopted. 
I am not starting this proposition as an explanation of this 
particular name alone, but I think that an examination of the 
various piaces in England, called by some such similar name, 
supports the idea that the situation of such place was near one of 
the Roman roads. 
The word “ Drew,” as I have said, is one added to Stanton by 
way of distinguishing it, and is Frankish. as, in the form of 
Drogo, it belonged to an illegitimate son of Charlemagne. It was 
brought to England by Dru de Baladon, a follower of the 
Conqueror, and it is very likely the same word as Dreux, a 
town in Normandy. It is curious that the Druids of Gaul used 
to meet for the purposes of deciding litigation, and for other 
national matters under their primate, or chief, at a place 
which is supposed to be the present site of this town of Dreux. 
Although it has generally been agreed that the remains at 
Stanton Drew are the oldest of the three great groups of 
Megalithic antiquities in the West of England, because the stones 
bear no trace of having been worked, yet the accounts we have 
of them are more recent than those of the others, The first writer 
appears to be John Aubrey, in 1664; then Dr. Musgrave, 1719 ; 
Keysler, 1720; Dr. Stukeley, 1723; Collinson, 1791; Seyer, 
