From the Hidden History web site:
At Ilton (Yorks), there stands Druids Circle, an ancient and mysterious stone circle to rival Stonehenge itself. Or so must have thought one William Danby of Swinton Hall, who built the circle in the early 19th Century. Druid’s Circle is one of many entirely bogus, counterfeit Stonehenges that sprang up in England at this time due to a fashionable fascination with Druid culture. Local unemployed men were apparently paid a shilling a day to work on this megalithic folly. The site comprises an avenue of standing stones leading to a circle containing a rather fanciful monolith on a three-tiered base. Legend has it that Danby, who one surmises was not entirely compos mentis, offered food and an annuity to any person who could live in silence on the site for 7 years. One poor chap managed four and a half years before giving it up as a rather dumb idea.
Old Danby was a noble inheritor of a grand tradition. With due deference to that famous Eddie Izzard video, I wonder what inducements were offered to the work-force during the original Stonehenge building project?
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