Operation Megalithic Lift - The Stones and the Stars: Building Scotland's Newest Megalith - page 225

F IG . 7.28 ( a ) Author on the motorway bridge over the M8, where the former
Forth and Clyde Canal spur was; derelict railway sidings behind. Note the
old 1960s jacket and the No. 1 badge from The Prisoner , which was being
repeated at the time. ( b ) On the bridge, scene of a tragic incident in 2002
(Chap. 10 ) . Notice the flared jeans, de rigeur in the late 1970s but quite
impractical for quarries and muddy hillsides (Photos by John Gilmour)
life. “It's turned into not a bad bomber.” Sadly, though, the effect
was temporary. A year or so later, she developed engine trouble
and put down on the beach on the island of Arran, where she was
flooded by the tide before recovery could be mounted and was
deemed uneconomic to repair.
Over the span of the project, we came to believe that the
Sighthill stones were the first astronomically aligned stone circle
to be erected in the British Isles for at least 3,000 years. At first I
made the claim to see if it would be challenged, but for more than
30 years now it hasn't been. Quite recently, I've learned that in the
early nineteenth century Lord Clermont built one at Ravensdale,
County Louth, in Ireland - on land then belonging to members of
my mother's family, remarkably enough. It's an ellipse with the
long axis pointing north-south, four stones roughly aligned with
the cardinal points and four perhaps for the solstices, though as it's
in woodland, on a slope, and the stones are symmetrically placed,
I doubt if it's astronomically accurate.
Late in the nineteenth century the Astronomer Royal, Sir
Norman Lockyer, was convinced of the astronomical alignments
of ancient sites, and gave advice on the building of stone circles