Saturday 7 May 2016

Position of Station Stone 94

Station Stone 94 is a missing stone so we only have its stonehole to establish its position. This stonehole was excavated by Thom and Atkinson in 1978 and its position recorded. The plan is in Cleal et al:

This gives an OS map reference of SU1223342235 which indicates the 1m square the 1m hole is within. GPS coordinates of 51.179220 -1.8263758 . Map link 


 The parchmark of the stonehole is visible in Sharpe's aerial photograph, and can be made out in the more recent one by Adam Stanford:




Recently the UNESCO’s Astronomy and World Heritage Initiative, set out a "Summary of significant astronomical alignments in the Stonehenge WHP, with reference to the sites and components that might carry the OUV of the WHP in relation to astronomy." 

One of them is: "Stonehenge Station-Stone rectangle and the relevant sightlines and horizons: Most southerly moonrise/ most northerly moonset and Midsummer sunrise/ midwinter sunset".

The four station stone positions are in a rectangle that on its longest edge just grazes the sarsen circle and seems to be aligned to astronomical features as above. 

Station stone 94 has recently been marked with a handsome polished sarsen stone in a stainless steel ring. 

From the public path the sight line to the fallen Station stone 91 should be very close to the sarsen circle. On a visit this week trying to align the marker left a large gap. My hat indicates a closer position which seemed to match the plan and photos.



Click any picture to enlarge. 

It would be nice if someone with more time and the right equipment could check if the marker position is correct or not.

See also: http://www.sarsen.org/2015/12/the-position-of-stone-hole-97.html

7 comments:

  1. Hi Tim,

    It wouldn't be the first time they positioned a marker incorrectly.
    I seem to recall the bronze Solstice Arrow had to be repositioned after installation. (fwiw, it still looks funny to me ...)

    They went to all the trouble to make those beautiful markers - it seems to me that they'd take the extra minute and re-calibrate the GPS reader! (Or perhaps simply cast an eye from SS-91 across S-1 and -2? )

    Neil

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  2. Tim , Your hat looks about right .The conversion was mostly wrong in the northing (about 7m )
    The grid ref converts to 50 .907965 , -1.400683 .They had 50.908028 -1.400675

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    1. Geo - I was just editing it as in cutting and pasting I had managed to get my eastings and northings the wrong way round - I think I have it right now.

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  3. This gross error reminds me of the engineer's plan when they wanted to put a marker for Stone-97's hole inboard of the Heelstone!
    So yet again the independent researchers are more accurate than middle-management ticket counters.
    I guess you have to care about these things, but seriously - how difficult would it be to do it correctly?

    Neil

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  4. About 18 months the english rock art site ERA and some of ADS had taken correct grid refs but kept them in in the OSGB datum and not changed to WGS84 when converted to Co-ordinates .Resulting in a fair bit of confusion .

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  5. Do you know if this ever got corrected?

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