The Rollright Stones, Oxfordshire/Warwickshire border

(click photos to enlarge).

Yesterday I visited The Rollright Stones in North Oxfordshire near to the village of Long Compton.


The stones are actually split over three separate sites:

The stone circle is popularly known as The King's Men and is thought to date back to late Neolithic or early Bronze Age. It is 33 metres in diameter and consists of about 70 stones.


It is said that you cannot accurately count the stones that make up The King's Men, as the total will be different each time. We tried this on a previous visit and indeed we had trouble deciding on a total - but part of the problem is deciding what constitutes a single stone where perhaps a stone has cracked or been broken, or else where what appears to be two stones might just be the same stone beneath the surface.



The Whipsering Knights (above) appear to be a small grouping of standing stones huddled together as if holding a private conversation; it is believed that this formation is the remains of a collapsed burial chamber. There are four uprights and a large recumbent stone which was probably the capstone. These are situated to the east of The King's Men and just a short walk away.


Finally, just over the road from The King's Men and over the county border too and into Warwickshire, is a lone standing stone called The King's Stone (above). It is a very peculiar shape, although this is partly because in the days before it had a fence erected around it vistors would chisel off chunks of it to keep as souvenirs!


In the past The Rollright Stones were one of the few ancient monuments that I have visited where you have to pay a (small) entry fee. I have absolutely no problem with this. The fee, of course, went to the upkeep of the site. There used to be a hut at the entrance where an affable old gentleman would take your entrance fee and would tell you about the stones should you have any questions. He would even lend you a pair of divining rods if your interests and beliefs lay in that direction.


But unfortunately we live in sorry times. The old man and the hut have gone. The old man has sadly died and the hut was burnt down by vandals. Vandals have attacked the stones on various occasions, covering them in yellow paint on one occasion, and burning them on others. Obviously, these acts of mindless destruction mean expensive and painstaking clean-up work. What I find most alarming is that these are not random acts of vandalism but that they must have been pre-meditated. Someone has specifically made the journey with the express intention of attacking the stones.


On this visit there was no-one collecting entry fees. I didn't even see a box for donations.I am hoping that the Rollright Trust and/or the Friends of The Rollright Stones have not thrown in the towel and given up. I thought they had been doing an excellent job. What other group of stones has its own website? I like that you can download an audio tour and play it on you iPod as you walk around the stones.

To sum up, this is a lovely site which needs your support.

Date visted: 17 January 2009

See also:

• The Rollright Stones Official Site
  
• The Rollright Stones: The King's Men on The Modern Anitquarian
  
• The Rollright Stones: The Whispering Knights on The Modern Anitquarian
  
• The Rollright Stones: The King's Stone on The Modern Anitquarian
  
• The Rollright Stones on Wikipedia
  
• "Summer Solstice at the Rollright Stones" on YouTube - Arthur "I am the god of hellfire" Brown investigates!

Gors Fawr Stone Circle, Mynachlogddu, Pembrokeshire

(Click photos to enlarge)

To the South West of Mynachlogddu in the foothills of the Preseli mountains lies the fantastic little stone circle of Gors Fawr. Looking at the spectacular scenery in the photo above you'd be forgiven for not noticing the stone circle (despite the sign saying its there) because most of the 16 stones making up the 22 metre diameter circle are under two feet in height and so the circle might not be immediately apparent.


If you are planning a visit to Gors Fawr it is worth bearing in mind that the land around the stone circle is quite marshy, so depending on time of year, you might want to wear the appropriate footwear (eg, Wellington boots). We visited on 27 December 2008 which was a glorious but very cold day. The ground was quite hard and frosty which made the terrain much easier to negotiate than perhaps it is at other times of the year.


To the north east of the circle lie two additional stones (pictured below) aligned to the Solstice, and one of these is known as the Dreaming Stone and allegedly has magnetic properties. I personally didn't experience any magnetic effects and my camera behaved itself (unlike the time I tried taking photos of the Rollright Stones in Oxfordshire and found that a good number were almost completely whited out).


Animal lovers will be interested to note that this is a good place to see some of the wild ponies that roam the Preseli mountains. I snuck up behind a tree and managed to get a lovely shot of this fellow in the photo below.


All in all I'd say that Gors Fawr was well worth a visit and is probably my favourite ancient site out of those we visited in Pembrokeshire over the last week.


Date visited: 27 December 2008

See also: Gors Fawr on The Modern Antiquarian

Meini Gwyr, Glandy Cross, Pembrokeshire

(Click photos to enlarge)

Glandy Cross is a small relatively-modern village straddling the crossroads with the main through road being part way between the towns of Clunderwen and Crymych. The local garage/convenience store ensures that it quite a busy little place. But Glandy Cross has a much older history with numerous standing stones and barrows in the immediate vicinity. The most accessible of these is what remains of the stone circle known as Meini Gwyr sitting in a plot of land behind one of the bungalows opposite the garage. Sadly, there are only two of the original stones remaining in the circle, but the raised ring of the bank on which the stones of the circle once stood can be clearly seen on the ground.


The text on the information sign pictured above (supplied by the Dyfed Archaelogical Trust Ltd) reads as follows:

Meini Gwyr, also known as Buarth Arthur, is an embanked stone circle probably dating to the transition between the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age periods (c.2000BC). The site is likely to have been used for religious rituals.

According to a late 17thC account by Edward Lhuyd, there were then fifteen stones in the cirlce ranging in height from three to six feet, but a further seven or eight were thought to have been 'carried off'. Apparently, there was also an entrance lined by smaller slabs.

The site was partially excavated in 1938 by Professor W.F. Grimes. Unfortunately most of the records were destroyed in a bombing raid on Southampton in 1940. The plan is based partly on ground and air photographs of the excavation. Grimes established that the circle, some 60 feet in diameter, originally consisted of 17 stones which, like the two surviving ones, were set at an angle into the inner slope of the bank about 3 feet hight and 120 feet in the external diameter, with no trace of a ditch. The excavations confirmed that the entrance through the earthwork was formerly flanked by upright stones, set in a trench. The bank was set with stone curb extending for some 30 feet on either side of the entrance, in front of which was a clay-filled pit containing a large quantity of charcoal. There were no features or finds recorded from the interior, though this was only partly examined. Some fragments of early Bronze Age pottery came from a hearth set in a deep depression on the southeast bank.

Meini Gwyr stands at the centre of 'West Wales' most important complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age ritual and funerary monuments, lying on a ridge-way linking the wester end of the Preselis to the eastern Cleddau river and Milford Haven. This was a route by which the bluestones for Stonehenge may have been transported. Included in the complex are several Bronze Age burial mounds and cairns or various forms, and a 'henge' monument (akin to early elements at Stonehenge). Also, there is the site of 'Yr Allor' ('The Altar') comprising two, formerly three standing stones some 200 yards west of Meini Gwyr and apparently known by the 17thC. These stones may be the remains of a chambered tomb.

Carn Meini, a source of the bluestones lies only 3 miles to the north. The site's name - 'Meini' ('large stone') and 'Gwyr' ('crooked') may refer to the varying size, shape or angle of the stones set in the circle. These were not 'bluestones' but another form of volcanic rock. Many such boulders are found locally and were originally depostited by glacial action. The alternative name 'Buarth Arthur' ('Arthur's Yard') is an example of a common legendary association of this figure with prehistoric stone monuments and is not regarded as significant.



Date visited: 27 December 2008

See also: Meini Gwyr on The Modern Antiquarian