of these stones. He also suggested that if farmers wished to remove the stones from their fields, they would break them up into smaller fragments rather than going to the effort of moving them whole. Cultural heritage In the late 2000s, the Swindon Gateway Partnership put forward proposals to build 1,800 homes and a university campus near Coate Water. Local residents raised concerns that this development would harm the archaeology of the area and damage any opportunity to use it to encourage tourism. The Swindon Advertiser quoted Jean Saunders of the Jefferies Land Conservation Trust as saying that with sites like the Day House Farm Stone Circle, two round barrows, and a Bronze Age settlement in the area, Coate could "create almost a mini-Avebury" but that that possibility would be quashed if development went ahead. Campaigners opposed to the residential development asked the government to designate the impacted locale as a conservation area to protect its heritage. The anti-development campaign failed and after the authorities gave their backing to the construction project, the Swindon Civic Voice group organised a two-day event in April 2014 to celebrate Coate's heritage and encourage people to view the Day House Farm Stone Circle and other historic sites before the landscape was significantly altered. References Footnotes Bibliography Further reading Transactions of the Newbury District Field Club 8, 1940, pp. 218–25 External links Coate Stone Circle at The Modern Antiquarian Coate Stone Circle at The Megalithic Portal History of Wiltshire Stone Age sites in England Archaeological sites in Wiltshire