Standing Stones & Stone Circles

The prehistoric monuments of Britain and Ireland gathered folklore for thousands of years after they were raised. Circles said to be dancers or maidens turned to stone, megaliths that cannot be counted, stones that walk to drink at midnight — the traditions preserve a folk memory of the monuments as living, watchful and not to be meddled with.

Sacred SitesTwelve Apostles, West YorkshireYorkshireThe Twelve Apostles is a stone circle near Ilkley and Burley in Wharfedale in West Yorkshire, England. Sacred SitesWaun MawnPreseli Hills, Pembrokeshire, WalesA dismantled stone circle in the Preseli Mountains of Pembrokeshire — excavated in 2018 and found to predate Stonehenge, with bluestones whose sockets perfectly match holes at Stonehenge. The leading hypothesis is that Waun Mawn was dismantled and its stones transported to Wiltshire, making it Stonehenge's direct ancestor. Sacred SitesWhetstonesWelshpool, Powys, WalesThe Whetstones are, or were, a stone circle beneath Corndon Hill in the parish of Church Stoke, Montgomeryshire, Wales, near the border with Shropshire, England. They lie immediately to the west of the village of White Grit and close to Priestweston. The site is also a short distance from the better-known Hoarstones and Mitchell's Fold circles. Sacred SitesWithypool Stone CircleSomersetA moorland stone circle of about a hundred small stones on the high ground of Exmoor above Withypool — quiet, unassuming, and extremely old. Local tradition once held that counting the stones three times and getting the same number twice was impossible, and that the attempt would bring bad luck.
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