Stannon Down excavations in the 1960s revealed eight unenclosed round house sites suggesting a settlement of over twenty, approximately 6 metres to 8 metres in diameter covering an area of approximately 150 metres x 100 metres with fields and rectangular enclosures tentatively identified as corrals or used for stock showing that the area could have been close to mixed oak woodlands and oaks would have grown in the area. Houses were constructed of posts, supporting thatched roofs, partitioned with wood with paved or compressed earth floors, incorporating drainage and furniture. Pottery, flint tools were discovered along with a whetstone that suggested the possibility of metal blades. The settlement was estimated to have a population of around one hundred people and dated to the Middle Bronze Age, a later date than suggested for the circle itself.
When standing in the supposed centre of Stannon Circle, a point between twenty-two and twenty-eight degrees north from east is marked by Rough Tor,
Matthew Gregory Lewis found a relation of these monuments to the neighbouring hills which suggested that they were designed with special consideration of the position of the sunrise at certain times of year. Andy M. Jones reviews studies of the area and called Stannon a ceremonial complex.
Stannon is named from the nearby farm and is sited between two streams on the slopes of Dinnever Hill, two and a half miles southeast of Camelford. Overlooked on one side by the china clay works that now blights the landscape. The circle's remoteness should be a fertile atmosphere in which the lonely stone may languish, visited only by the wild animals and solitary walkers or Claymen of the moor to be encountered and contemplated. The Gothvos Stone was placed by Suzanne Pearce and Margret Michell and photographed by Dave Thomas in late August 2017.
