A Wirral Megalithic Mystery: Ancient Stone Circles & Sacred Sites - Paperback

by David P. Gregg (Author)

This is an ancient mystery story. The Wirral peninsula in the county of Cheshire, just north of ancient Chester, is well known for its Viking and Roman history but artifacts going back to the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, such as ritual stone axes and flint arrow heads are also known.Yet no other signs of these early occupants have been recognised...until now.Professor Gregg following clues found by students of old maps, has discovered that at three sites these people designed and constructed great circles and arrays of standing stones using geometrical rules familiar from later European medieval cathedrals.At Saxon Overchurch the ancient chapel stands on a raised platform of earlier date.The platform in turn is surrounded by a great circle, 8 stones of which still survived in the 19th century. That circle is over 1100 ft across and hosted an inscribed hexagon.The professor shows that the probability of chance creating this geometry is minute.Here is the mystery: the position and dimensions of the Saxon and later Norman and medieval church are simply related to the design of the platform and to the great stone circle.There appears to be continuity of design from the Neolithic to the medieval period.The professor explains why this is not so unexpected. Even more remarkable a little to the south at Arrowe Park there once stood two larger concentric circles involving a dozen stones.The inner circle which also hosted a hexagon, was over 2000 ft across.As at Overchurch the proportions of the circles show familiar patterns involving prime roots, phi and pi.Again the professor shows that a chance explanation is out of the question. The geometry is so striking that he investigates the possibility of a 19th century hoax by a Druid obsessed antiquarian landowner.He shows that a hoax is very unlikely. These results are so surprising the skeptical reader may require further evidence.To provide it the professor analyses a third Wirral site. Near the ancient village of Bidston he describes a regular, organised array of 42 stones over 1250 ft long by 800 ft wide.The array has interesting and familiar geometry and as at Overchurch and Arrowe Park that geometry leads to alignments involving 3 or more stones which point to rising and setting points of the Sun and Moon on the local horizon. Major events such as midsummer sunrise are marked by several alignments.Also notable are markers for the pagan cross quarter day festivals of Imbolc, Beltain, Lughnasadh and Samhain which were adopted by the Christian church.It is this continuity of calendrical events from pagan through to Christian times which explains the strange design links at Overchurch spanning the millennia.Professor Gregg reminds us that Pope Gregory the Great himself instructed St. Augustine to adopt the temples of the heathens and rededicate them to Christ and the saints. Overchurch may be a classic example of the results of that policy in Britain. The three ancient sites described in this short book, if the analyses here are confirmed by further field work and research, may be as important as Stonehenge and Avebury. The Arrowe Park circles, for example, far exceed Avebury and all other known stone circles in diameter.The sites are currently unprotected and have already suffered from housing and road developments.It is time to take action to save what may remain.