Glen Innes was chosen and creates a meeting place for the Celtic Communities. An array of stones is set, representing Australia as a stone circle, superimposed with five stones representing the Southern Cross. It was in Australia's 1988 Bicentenary Year that the Celtic Council of Australia developed the idea of erecting a national monument to honour all Celtic peoples who helped pioneer Australia. Glen Innes responded with a 46-page submission for Australian Standing Stones, inspired by the Ring of Brodgar in Scotland's Orkneys. John Tregurtha, a pharmacist, chairman of the committee delegated to build the array, and Lex Ritchie, then the town's tourist officer and an expert bushman, spent three months scouring the bush within 50km of Glen Innes for the stones. They had to stand 3.7 metres from ground level, which meant each to be 5.5 metres in total length. They found only three stones which could be used in their natural state - others had to be split from larger rock bodies. A former Snowy Mountains Scheme worker and local alderman George Rozynski, who at 17 migrated with his family from Poland, came up with the solution. He remembered his rock drilling work on the Snowy and heard of a new expanding compound which could split rocks without using explosives.With another alderman, Bill Tyson, he spent hours in the bush drilling massive granite rocks. "The compound was a powder which was mixed to the consistency of a slurry and poured into the drill holes," Mr Rozynski recalled. "When we returned the next morning the rock was cracked..."
It took more than six months of further effort, spearheaded by Bob Dwyer, who went on to become Glen Innes's Mayor, and businessman Ted Nowlan, using a 12 tonne forklift and other heavy equipment to load and transport the stones on a timber loader to the Centennial Parklands site. The weight of the stones averaged 17 tonnes.
Most stone circles in existence throughout the world, were built 3500-5000 years ago, and used as calendars. This concept has been followed here with alignments to mid-winter and mid-summer dawn, and sunset. There is also a replica of the Gorsedd Stone for the Welsh, Cornish and Breton Communities, an Ogham Stone and a Manx Emblem.
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