The restoration of the Neolithic Devil's Quoits

The Devil's Quoits is a henge and stone circle located south of the village of Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire, England. Believed to be from the Neolithic Period between 4000 and 5000 years old, it is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. The site is home to a stone circle with a maximum diameter of 79 metres, which originally featured 36 stones, most of which were removed by the end of the Medieval period.

The henge ditch enclosed a circular area up to 120 metres across, with opposed entrances facing almost due east and west. While the henge itself is a Late Neolithic monument, the stone circle and a central stone setting may have been put up later, during the Early Bronze Age. The northern half of the henge appears to have had a second enclosing ditch circuit. Excavations in the 1970s and 1980s located a complete plan of the site, with finds including hearths and animal and human bones.

The monument was significantly damaged by the construction of an airfield in 1940 and subsequent gravel extraction. However, the Devil's Quoits were restored between 2002 and 2008. During this time, the surrounding earthworks were rebuilt to their approximate condition at the beginning of Roman times. New replacement stones were placed in original holes for a total of 28 stones, and the original quoits A, B, and C were re-erected.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons