Withypool Stone Circle

Withypool Stone Circle
	The location of the circle in 2005; the stones are so small that discerning the site is difficult
	Shown within Somerset
Location	Withypool
Coordinates	51°05′47″N 3°39′37″W / 51.0963°N 3.6604°W
Type	Stone circle
History
Periods	Neolithic / Bronze Age
Scheduled monument
Official name	Stone circle on Withypool Hill 670m ESE of Portford Bridge
Designated	30 November 1925
Reference no.	1021261

Withypool Stone Circle, also known as Withypool Hill Stone Circle, is a stone circle located on the Exmoor moorland, near the village of Withypool in the southwestern English county of Somerset. The ring is part of a tradition of stone circle construction that spread throughout much of Britain, Ireland, and Brittany during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, over a period between 3300 and 900 BCE. The purpose of such monuments is unknown, although archaeologists speculate that the stones represented supernatural entities for the circle's builders.

Many monuments were built in Exmoor during the Bronze Age, but only two stone circles survive in this area: the other is Porlock Stone Circle. The Withypool ring is located on the south-western slope of Withypool Hill, on an area of heathland. It is about 36.4 metres (119 feet 5 inches) in diameter. Around thirty small gritstones remain, although there may originally have been around 100; there are conspicuous gaps on the northern and western sides of the monument. The site was rediscovered in 1898 and surveyed by the archaeologist Harold St George Gray in 1905.