Bishops Cannings Down, Wiltshire

Detail: This is another simple, elegant multi-ringed circle (similar to the one at Baunton on June 2nd). Three rings of different widths surround a small central circle. The formation is in Barley and measures about 180ft in diameter. It was first reported on June 3rd. As far as we are aware there is no permission to enter this circle.

Location: Bishops Cannings Down lies between Devizes and Cherhill in Wiltshire. In fact the Lansdowne monument at Cherhill can be seen in the distance in one of the pictures below. There is a little information about this part of the landscape here. This whole landscape is littered with tumuli and other earthworks, the affinity the circles have with ancient sites is long and undeniable.

Design & Symbolism: Ringed circles have been a part and parcel of crop circle design fro many years. Each season we tend to get a few circles that take us back to the early days of circles appearing in the 1970s and 1980s. As discussed on the Baunton circle page, the circle is symbolic of the Divine, unity and wholeness. To me, ringed-circles always look like a huge fingerprint (with ripples) in the landscape. There is a nice proportioning in the formation –  see Geometry Gallery below for details.

Visiting the Circles? If you are thinking of visiting any crop circles this summer, please read our Visiting the Crop Circles section. It’s full of useful information and etiquette for visiting the countryside and the crop circles. Please remember that you should not enter any fields without the express permission of the farmer.

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Please Help to keep us Flying in 2018: If you have enjoyed looking at our pictures and information please consider making a small donation to keep us flying. There are so few of us left regularly recording the circles it’s really important that we continue. And while some now use drones to record the circles, it is important that there are still images taken from aircraft where the best quality camera equipment can be used and images that include the broad vista of the landscape can be taken. This kind of photography is expensive and it gets harder with each passing year to raise the funds we need to continue our work, but if everyone who regularly looked at this website made a small donation we would meet the funds we need. You can make a donation here.

NOTE: Some of the images below are beautiful landscape scenes. Click on each image to enlarge them and see the whole picture.

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Geometry Gallery

There is a nice three-circle proportion in this design. I have left the pencil line in under the paint so you can see it. The diameter of the second flattened ring around the centre multiplied by three gives the diameter of the outer perimeter of the entire formation. Three rings and proportioned by three. Simple, edifying and elegant. Three, in this context, might be said to represent the three-fold nature of the divine.