Layout and Location - The Stones and the Stars: Building Scotland's Newest Megalith - page 154

site confirmed that we had made the classic mistake, subtracting
the magnetic variation from the compass bearings instead of add-
ing it. As a result, each of our rough alignments was 14° too far
around in azimuth - nightmare visions of cutting cards to find out
who would tell the Parks Department and who would tell Profes-
sor Thom! That at least had been avoided, but it would be bad
enough to have to tell Clair at this late stage that we wanted to
move the circle after all. John produced the 'badges of servitude'
from his belt; but as we worked around the horizon, we realized
with growing elation that now the alignments were better. All of
them, it seemed, were in the clear, and most were on the natural
skyline. We had been a great deal luckier than we deserved; and
perhaps 'Mr. Walker' was after all trying to tell us something, and
do us a much-needed favor.
“The spirits then did make complain,
Singing, singing, megaliths and morlocks,
And Walker's ghost sent down the rain - fol-di-dee;
It must have given him quite a turn
When we said that the sun shone out of his urn.
Oh, ri-fol, ri-fol, give the bums an eyeful..”
The time had come, however, to commit ourselves as to the
basic design of the megalith. Obstructions on the skyline were
no longer a problem. If one or two buildings were in the way we
could ignore them, because obviously now we were going to mark
alignments right around the clock. The Sighthill megalith would
illustrate the full solar and lunar cycles. But how, exactly?
If we took our cue from midsummer sunrise at Stonehenge, the
principal view point should be at the center with the markers on
the periphery. The size and layout of Stonehenge III means that the
view points for the lunar events had to be out by the bank, but that
complication could be avoided on the relatively small scale to which
Sighthill would be built. On the other hand, we had to consider the
function of the circle as a monument in a modern park. If there was
a central view point, perhaps with a plaque, then people would be
pushing one another to look in the different directions, queuing up
with their explanatory leaflets. An actual event such as midsummer
sunrise, or still more a rare one like a lunar standstill, might find
people actually fighting for the one and only privileged position!