Sacred Number

Around 1995 I built a replica of the 56 Aubrey Holes that surround Stonehenge within its outer ditch. Their function remained a total mystery until Fred Hoyle, the great astro-physicist, was asked to review the monument. He realised that the holes could function as a Sun Moon simulator that, once running, could also predict the solar and lunar eclipse phenomena that occur when the Moon's nodes coincide with the position of sun and moon.

My brother had improved Hoyle's rules for how the simulator should run and it seemed fascinating to have such a clear symbol of the sky working on the Earth. The version to the right uses stones set into the lawn but originally plastic plumbing pipes were driven into the ground and markers for sun, moon and nodes were inserted (see picture at end).

The whole idea became an article that could even accompany some parts to reproduce the clock. I have made an image pdf of this article here (1.5Mb). The markers were a bit intrusive to the working of the garden whilst the stones form a natural feature. The earth that was in the centre has been replaced with a weeping birch.

To lay out a regular 56 element circle is difficult because dividing a circle by seven is very difficult. I got around the problem through a gimmick, seven knots in slightly elastic rope but in a following post I will describe a recent solution to the problem using sacred geometry of post and rope alone.

Below is the view of the markers operating out of holes in the lawn. yellow is the sun, blue the moon, one node pole is used (since the other node is always opposite) and stones are used as outliers, white quartz to the south for no particular reason.