AN ARCHEOLOGIST has recreated the country’s most famous prehistoric landmark in a Merseyside park.

University of Liverpool student John Hill built his version of Stonehenge at Ness Botanical Gardens, in Neston, to settle one of the longest-running debates about the famed monument.

Using nothing but finger counting and lengths of rope, Mr Hill and two helpers managed to build the henge with the same astronomical alignments found at the real Stonehenge.

Until now, it was thought Stonehenge must have been built by people with knowledge of Pythagorus and complex astrology.

But Mr Hill said: “We have carefully orientated the henge so it incorporates a number of important astronomical alignments.

“We have also aligned the henge towards the direction of a special ‘notch’ on the horizon between the two Welsh mountains of Moel Famau and Moel Arthur.

“But I did that by observing the midday sun, not through years of studying the stars.

“The important thing we discovered by doing this is Stonehenge could have been built using simple techniques, without using any complicated mathematics or astronomy.”

Ness henge is a precisely scaled representation of an important phase in Stonehenge’s development.

When the Neolithic period turned into the early Bronze Age, about 2650-2500 BC, Stonehenge went through radical changes.

It went from having bluestones from South Wales to the huge Sarsen stones seen today.

Mr Hill said: “At the Ness Gardens henge, the Neolithic earthwork is still visible, but the bluestones have been removed so the first ‘outlying’ Sarsen stones could be positioned.

“These include the Heel Stone, the Slaughter Stone, the Altar Stone and the four Station Stones.”