The Danebury Ring Landscape Calendar While looking to the N.E. it’s worth checking the midsummer sunrise line. The one  that gets so much attention at Stonehenge. What lies on the horizon in that direction?  The answer is the village of Hannington (359555), with its churchyard in a raised  enclosure and pond in an oval banked ring, the whole place surrounded by a low bank.  Looking back down the line towards Danebury one finds, within a couple of miles, a  tumulus, a long barrow (507528) and then another tumulus. Looking a bit further  round to the N.E. is the line for the most northerly moonrise which occurs every 18.6  years. This line crosses the horizon on Watership Down where, not so surprisingly  now, we find a pair of tumuli on the crest of the hill. Back down this line to Danebury  is a large tumulus (463528) and a “dewpond” at Angledown.  The Moon Comes Close  Just for variety we can check the S.E. horizon where the winter sunrises and the low  moonrises occur. Here stands Farley mount an enormous ancient barrow (404290),  now a folly, which marks the position where the moon on its lowest passage across the  sky when it seems closest to the Earth, rises.  This mound marks the place on the  horizon where the moon rises at its most southerly swing, which is interestingly some  way past the sun’s extreme position. The moon also does its sweep across the skyline  each month instead of the stately annual march from the North at midsummer to the  South at midwinter made by the sun. In 1987 I was able to observe the lunar risings  over both Farley Mount and Watership Down.  The folly on Farley Mount was erected as a monument to a horse called “Beware  Chalk Pits” and consists of a small building erected in the 18th century by the horse’s  owner who had survived a fall into a chalkpit on the horse which, the following year,  won a race at Stockbridge racecourse within sight of the mound and hillfort at  Danebury. The midwinter sunrise line leads to another tumulus (425296) on the horizon in Crab  Wood by the Roman road in the Farley Mount Country Park. Further north the line for  the Imbolc/Samhain sunrise produces another surprise. It goes out past the Beacon, a  hilltop close to Danebury, over Stockbridge Down with its tumuli and earthworks, over  Winchester and Telegraph Hill, over Warnford and King John’s House and finally up to  the long barrow (672201) on Salt Hill south of East Meon. This is the longest line of  all and because Salt Hill is 230 metres high it is just intervisible with Danebury. It  would seem that the system extended over a very wide area and must have involved  intertribal cooperation. The equinoctial sunrise line to the East does not have a very  clear indicator on it, although there are some suggestive points at the trig point at  Bugmore Hill near Godsfield Copse and the tumulus north of  Medstead (653377).  Towards the West and the setting points Turning now to the western side of the “Landscape Calendar” we can look first at the  most southerly moonset. This point is marked by a beautiful and, once again large,  mound (290330) called the Turret on Whiteshoot Hill near Broughton, now tragically  being steadily reduced by ploughing. The midwinter sunset line is also marked by a  large mound (258330) being sacrificed to the crops of wheat which have replaced the  ubiquitous sheep which used to crop the short grass of all the uplands of Hampshire.  This is just to the north of the intriguingly named “Khyber Pass” at the N.W. end of  Broughton Down. The Imbolc/Samhain line seems to run to the “Settlement” (260349)  in Ashleys Copse. This is a mysterious and, to me, slightly sinister enclosure, the banks  of which are made with rounded pebbles which seem out of place in country of chalk  and flint. It’s set in a wood which, on the afternoon I visited it, was humid and clammy  with an atmosphere of secrecy and isolation. On the equinox line to the East there is a  tumulus on the Northern slope of Suddern Hill (266378). This is no longer accessible  because it is behind the fences erected by the Ministry of Defence when they enclosed  and sealed off Porton Down. In fact even trying to see the mound with binoculars led  to me being chased off  by some heavies in a car that made an immediate appearance  when I stopped. © Jon Appleton 2010 under construction Jon Appleton This site brings together a kaleidoscope of ideas derived from 60 years of enquiry: it shares insights into fields as disparate as:- Archaeology, Landscape alignments, Megaliths, Henges, Prehistoric measurement, Astronomy, Mythology, Calendars of the past and Seasonal celebration. Click here to contact Jon