There are ancient stone circles all across the British countryside – here’s what we know about them <\/p>
There is something about standing stones that is strangely captivating. Their peculiar, ambiguous form draws your attention first. <\/strong><\/p> Many menhirs (an alternative name that translates as \u2018long stone\u2019 in Cornish or Breton) appear as isolated, accusing fingers that do little but point at the sky, lending them an air of mystery. Then there is the extravagant effort required to quarry, transport and erect them, when our ancestors must have had other calls on their time. <\/p> Finally there is the question of purpose. Are they ancient memorials, avatars of ancestors still at large in the landscape or did they have a more prosaic function?<\/p> Sadly, the thinking that drove our megalithic cultures to do this is lost to us now and we may have to make do with the mystique that remains, along with the consolation that visiting our most interesting stones leads us to corners of Britain that are fascinating in their own right.<\/p> The stones are part of a wider landscape upon which our ancestors erected stone circles, dolmen, barrows, avenues and other pieces of Neolithic <\/a>or Bronze Age field furniture. In a few cases, they are found in a small group of other stones forming rows or odd arrangements and for which there is frequently a legend attached.<\/p> One of the most bizarre arrangements of stones is at the M\u00ean-an-Tol on Penwith in Cornwall<\/a> \u2013 a holed stone, about a metre high, is aligned between two short standing stones, almost certainly not in their original positions. It\u2019s thought to be part of a former circle, with the holed stone probably part of a long-forgotten nearby tomb, but in its rearranged form it is ssociated with a treasury of miracles, from healing rickets to magical fertility rites.<\/p>