172 Notes on an undescribed Stone Circle at Coate, near Swindon. 



plan I found to be some 9ft. 6in. long; Nos. 3 and 5 are over 6ft. j 

 and No. 1 is about 5ft. in lengtb. 



Stone No. 1^ which lies beside the wall of the cow-shed on the 

 western side of the road, seems to be still unbroken, though prostrate 

 and almost buried, as are also the nest three stones — 2, 3, and 4 — 

 which lie in the grass to the east of the roadway. The distance 

 (lift.) between 3 and 4, I take to have been the original distance 

 between the stones all round when the circle was complete — In 

 which ease the number of stones would have been about thirty. 

 The circle, however, seems to have been irregular in shape, and 

 varies in its diameter from north to south, and from east to west. 

 As will be seen from the plan, the cow-yards and rick-yards occupy 

 a considerable part of the site of the western side of the circle, and 

 here only one stone is visible — No. 9, in the rick-yard — and that 

 has been mutilated. Doubtless the others, being here more in the 

 way, have been broken up and removed. There is a patch of old 

 pavement of large sarsen stones and several big fragments are lying 

 about loose. The two stones 7 and 8, in front of the house, are the 

 smallest of all, and between these and 6 there is a wide gap which, 

 after hours of probing with an iron bar, I have hitherto failed to fill 

 up. I have, however, proved that other stones once existed besides 

 those now visible, by digging into the depression between Nos. 4 

 and 5, and finding in it a piece of burnt sarsen and a quantity of 

 white ashes — probably of straw — clearly pointing to the fact that 

 a stone standing here has been broken up. 



The distances between the stones are : — from 1 to 2, 75ft. ; from 

 2 to 3, 58ft. ; from 3 to 4, lift. ; from 4 to 5, 6Sft, ; from 5 to 6, 

 30ft. ; from 7 to 8, 17ft. ; from 8 to 9, 67ft.; and from 9 to 1, 70ft. 



In the large grass field to the south-west of the farm-house, which 



+ 



^<M.Je. Tect. 



Three Stones near Day House Farm, 

 borders on the reservoir, at a distance of 18 chains from the circle 



