MegalithicBeyond the crowded and fenced-off Stonehenge, the British Isles are peppered with towering, prehistoric standing stone sites silently awaiting your visit. George Parr leads us on tour.

Across the breadth of the British Isles, there is no view more iconic than the towering trilithons of Stonehenge. Over 5000 years ago, the site was used as a burial ground even before the first stones went up, and usage of the site continued for centuries through the Bronze Age and into the Iron Age. Today, that legacy continues each summer solstice, when crowds descend on Salisbury Plain to watch the sun rise between the stones. Even without the many thousands of visitor each year, Stonehenge never fades from the public consciousness. Fresh research is unearthed, new books and documentaries are in constant production, and debates around access and preservation rage endlessly.

Stonehenge is hard to ignore, and it’s important that we don’t – as one of the most fascinating historical sites we have, we should continue to fight both for its protection and for our right to access it, but with the fascination comes furore, and with that comes exhaustion. What can so easily be forgotten is that though Stonehenge is a site of unparalleled beauty, it is only a single landmark in an intricate network of megalithic sites scattered all across the British Isles. Starting here in Wiltshire, what follows is a quick tour of Britain’s mesmerising stones sites.

The area surrounding Stonehenge is peppered with countless tumuli and barrows – sacred sites and burial grounds covered in earth that raises them above the surrounding ground, sometimes to the size of small hills – as well as important sites like the monument at Woodhenge and the Stonehenge Cursus. Many who visit miss not only these but one of the UK’s other famous megalithic sites. A 40-minute drive will take you to Avebury, a village which is home to three stone circles, one of which is the largest to be found anywhere in the world. Owing to the village being constructed in the centre of this circle, it remains the only stone circle with a pub in the middle. Leading away from the village are the remains of a mile-and-a-half line of paired stones, which once formed a sort of avenue linking Avebury to another ancient site, known as The Sanctuary. From here you can continue to West Kennet Long Barrow and Silbury Hill, the tallest prehistoric man-made mound in Europe.

Fairy Doppelganger

It is astonishing just how many sites can be found in such a condensed area, but Avebury is not wholly unique in this sense. There is a comparable (perhaps even greater) concentration of stone monuments to be found deeper into south-west England, particularly around Dartmoor, Bodmin Moor, and the Land’s End peninsula. Single-chamber tombs known as dolmens, or ‘quoits’, are particularly evident here, but one of the most particular sites to be found in this part of the country is the mysterious Mên-an-Tol, where two upright stones lie either side of an upstanding, doughnut-shaped stone ring. You won’t find anything like it anywhere else in the world. In local tales, the ring is a bestower of fertility, a healing stone, or even a portal to the Otherworld. In one local story, a piskie [regional variation of ‘pixie’] kidnaps a local child and replaces it with a fairy doppelgänger, known as a changeling. To get their child back, the parents pass the changeling through the hole of Mên-an-Tol, reversing the spell. Another legend says that if a woman wishes to become pregnant, she should pass through seven times backwards at full moon, while sickly children should be passed through, naked, nine times to cure illnesses and diseases.

The abundance of such sites in the South West occasionally means that those of Dorset, further along the coast, are severely overlooked. The Hell Stone dolmen is a particularly curious site, though easy to miss among the long, tick-infested grass. At some point in history, the hefty capstone fell, but in 1866 it was re-erected by antiquarians, who seemingly followed their intuition rather than any archaeological evidence. The result is an unusual sight, with the supporting stones turned inwards like the dials of a clock. It is said to be the home of the Dorset Ooser, a horned, humanoid creature famous for gracing the cover of the Reader’s Digest Folklore, Myths & Legends of Britain book.

You could be forgiven for thinking that there are no more standing stones to be found further south-east, given the scarcity of such sites in Sussex and Surrey, but Kent plays host to one of this round-up’s best-kept secrets, a scattered collection known as The Medway Megaliths. Chief among these is Kit’s Coty House, which is fenced off but remains an imposing sight, with a large capstone supported by three hulking pillars. Structures like this are often the remains of a barrow which has since receded back into the landscape, leaving the stones to stand on their own.

Setting north for the first time on our tour, we’d be remiss not to stop at Wayland’s Smithy, a towering, long barrow named after a master blacksmith of Germanic mythology, but the main draw is the Rollright Stones of Oxfordshire. Its three sites are all said to be the work of a local witch named Mother Shipton (not to be confused with the Mother Shipton of Knaresborough). As a king and his men rode across the country, the witch accosted them, turning them all to stone, where they still stand today: the towering King stone, the King’s Men stone circle, and the Whispering Knights, who had secretly lagged behind to plot the king’s downfall. The weathered Jurassic oolitic limestone of these monuments has eroded into surreal and serpentine shapes, giving them an eerie atmosphere. It remains a favoured spot of dowsers and hunters of ley lines.

Dancing On The Sabbath

East Anglia is devoid of megalithic monuments, other than the surprise reveal of a timber circle known as Seahenge on the coast of Norfolk, so we’ll head into the Midlands, where Stanton Moor, Derbyshire, is awash with ancient cairns, marking it out as an important Bronze Age burial site. The focal point for this landscape is the Nine Ladies Stone Circle, which immediately defies expectation by being formed of ten stones, one being a potential intruder that was found buried in the 70s. It’s said to be the remains of women turned to stone for the crime of dancing on the Sabbath.

Continuing west into Wales, where the bluestones of Stonehenge originated, there is a wealth of sites. The most iconic is Pentre Ifan, an exceptionally tall dolmen with uprights of up to 8ft (2.5m) and a capstone that slopes elegantly down to a point. Much further north is Bryn Celli Ddu, a burial chamber that can still be entered through its stone passage. The chamber is aligned so that the sun only reaches the back wall at the Summer Solstice. Elsewhere, one of the most visually striking sites in North Wales is Bryn Cader Faner, which sees a ring of pointed stones leaning outwards like an ancient crown.

Hopping back across the border and creeping into the North, the UK’s largest county, Yorkshire, is home to some of the most renowned menhirs. Near the coast is the Rudston Monolith, the tallest standing stone in Britain at more than 25ft (7.6m). It stands in a churchyard like a comically large gravestone, appearing almost as tall as the Norman church beside it. Further west, the Devil’s Arrows form a line of giant monoliths, which are said to have been fired by the devil while he attempted to destroy the town of Aldborough, which, evidently, he missed. Stone circles are less evident in Yorkshire, but the Twelve Apostles atop Rombald’s Moor boasts some of the most amazing views to be found anywhere in Britain. It is also a hotbed for reports of UFO sightings and strange light phenomena.

Giant Fangs

The most dramatically-situated stone circle in England must be Cumbria’s Castlerigg, which lies in a natural amphitheatre with a mountainous backdrop. Its popularity is well deserved, but don’t forget Long Meg and Her Daughters, just 40 minutes north-east. Long Meg herself is a 12ft menhir formed of a distinct red sandstone, and she is unique among standing stones for also sporting a cup-and-ring carving, a mysterious form of ancient rock art more frequently found on natural boulders. Beside Long Meg are her Daughters, a massive oval of huge boulders. Though much smaller, the Duddo Five Stones of Northumberland, a two-and-a-half-hour drive further north, are just as stunning, rising from the summit of a gentle hill like the stubby fingers of a giant hand.

Some of the most visually arresting sites are found when you leave England. The Isle of Arran is littered with stones, but Machrie Moor is a hub, boasting six stone circles, a mix of slender sandstone pillars and stubbier granite boulders. Back on the mainland, eastern Scotland has an amazing site in a weird locations. Thousands of years after the three towering megaliths of Lundin Links went up, someone thought it’d be a good idea to build a golf course around them, including a fairway which goes right through the middle of the stones. Visitors will often find themselves having to wait for golfers to play their way past the stones before approaching for a closer look.

Scotland has an impressive coverage of megalithic landmarks, but there are areas where the sites are particularly concentrated. Kilmartin Glen in the west is awash with cairns, carvings, and standing stones, while you can barely move in Aberdeenshire for stone circles. The area is known for its ‘recumbent’ stone circles, that share the odd feature of a single horizontal stone at the south or south-west of the circle, flanked by taller stones, like giant fangs.

Walked By The Shining One

For the most photogenic stones we need to head even further north, into the islands surrounding Scotland. The Isle of Lewis is particularly blessed in this regard, as it is home to the Calanais Stones, a cross-shaped arrangement with a circle at the centre. The stones are tall and slim, like giant shards of glass dropped from the sky. It’s said that each midsummer these stones are walked by the Shining One, an ancient entity interpreted as a manifestation of the sun. Another name for the stones is fir bhrèige, meaning ‘false men’, which references the local legend that the stones were once giants who refused to convert to Christianity.

Calanais might be one of the most fascinating stone circles anywhere in the world, but it is on Orkney that we find what is often referred to as the capital of ancient Britain. The spit of land known as the Ness of Brodgar has been at the centre of Stone Age research for years. Fittingly, the archaeological site is bookended by the circles of the Ring of Brodgar and the Stones of Stenness, both enclosed on either side by the Orkney mainland’s two biggest lochs. These circles share the ness with a Neolithic temple complex that predates them, and there is also evidence of a thick stone wall that encompassed the area. Discoveries there have quite literally rewritten the (pre)history books.

What discoveries like the Ness of Brodgar demonstrate is the one elusive fact that makes megaliths so powerful – they were made by people. Whether or not you believe in energy lines and ley lines, the healing properties of stone, the historical folklore, the UFO sightings, or any other leftfield theories, there is an undeniable mystique and sense of connection that comes simply from knowing that these unbelievably beautiful and sometimes staggeringly intricate monuments were built by people just like us, who lived full lives up to 5000 years ago in a society we know next to nothing about. Whether you visit them out of historical interest, spiritual connection, or a mixture of the two, they are focal points of a lived-in landscape, a way to connect with humanity beyond the scope of our finite existence.

George Parr and Bunty May Marshall create Hwæt!, a fantastic magazine focused on myths and legends. Visit www.hwaetzine.co.uk

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