Standing stone called Hautville's Quoit

Reasons for Designation

Standing stones are prehistoric ritual or ceremonial monuments with dates ranging from the Late Neolithic to the end of the Bronze Age for the few excavated examples. They comprise single or paired upright orthostatic slabs, ranging from under lm to over 6m high where still erect. They are often conspicuously sited and close to other contemporary monument classes. They can be accompanied by various features: many occur in or on the edge of round barrows, and where excavated, associated subsurface features have included stone cists, stone settings, and various pits and hollows filled in with earth containing human bone, cremations, charcoal, flints, pots and pot sherds. Similar deposits have been found in excavated sockets for standing stones, which range considerably in depth. Several standing stones also bear cup and ring marks. Standing stones may have functioned as markers for routeways, territories, graves, or meeting points, but their accompanying features show they also bore a ritual function and that they form one of several ritual monument classes of their period that often contain a deposit of cremation and domestic debris as an integral component. No national survey of standing stones has been undertaken, and estimates range from 50 to 250 extant examples, widely distributed throughout England but with concentrations in Cornwall, the North Yorkshire Moors, Cumbria, Derbyshire and the Cotswolds. Standing stones are important as nationally rare monuments, with a high longevity and demonstrating the diversity of ritual practices in the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age. Despite being recumbent, the standing stone known as Hautville's Quoit survives comparatively well and will retain archaeological and environmental evidence relating to its erection, function, longevity, collapse, ritual, social and possibly funerary significance, relationship with a nearby similar monument and its overall landscape context.

Details

The monument includes a recumbent standing stone, situated on a low rise just above the floodplain, in the valley of and overlooking the River Chew. The recumbent standing stone survives as an earthfast monolith partially buried into a bank and measuring at least 1m square by 0.3m high. The standing stone was recorded by Stukeley writing in 1723 as being one of a pair of stones, and it is known to have been recumbent since the mid-17th century. It is believed to be an outlier to the complex stone circle of Stanton Drew which is the subject of a separate scheduling.

Sources: PastScape 1097258

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

BA 44

Legacy System:

RSM - OCN

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