![]() The location of the circle in 2014; the stones are so small that discerning the site is difficult
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Location | Porlock |
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Coordinates | 51°11′22″N 3°39′14″W / 51.189549°N 3.653994°W |
Type | Stone circle |
History | |
Periods | Neolithic / Bronze Age |
Porlock Stone Circle is a stone circle located near to the village of Porlock in the south-western English county of Somerset. It is found within Exmoor. The Porlock 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 3,300 and 900 BCE. The purpose of such monuments is unknown, although archaeologists speculate that they were likely religious sites, with the stones perhaps having supernatural associations for those who built the circles. It has been scheduled as an ancient monument.
Although Exmoor witnessed the construction of a large number of monuments during the Bronze Age, only two stone circles survive in this area, the other being Withypool Stone Circle. A single artefact found inside the circle possibly indicates that the site was visited during the Romano-British period. The site was rediscovered in the 1920s and since then a variety of stones have been added to it; its current appearance is a composite of prehistoric and modern elements. In 1928 the site was surveyed and excavated by the archaeologist Harold St George Gray. A second excavation took place under the leadership of Mark Gillings in 2013.
The circle is located two and three-quarter miles south-west of the village of Porlock. It is also one mile south of the A39 road and is immediately to the west of the lane headed south to Exford. The circle is at an altitude of almost 1,360 feet above sea level. The circle is located six and a half miles north of the Withypool Stone Circle.