English and Scottish Sites

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One of the largest prehistoric henges in Britain, construction began on the Avebury complex in approximately 2600 B.C. The complex in Wiltshire, England consists of the Avebury stone circle, monuments at Windmill Hill and the Sanctuary, West Kennett Long Barrow, Silbury Hill and West Kennett Avenue.

Covering 28 acres, the Avebury Circle is surrounded by a bank and ditch which is approximately 30 feet in depth. During the medieval period misled Christians undertook the destruction of the site by burying and burning the great sarsen stones. Later inhabitants of the growing village within the circle tore down and broke more stones for use as building materials. Restoration on the site began in the 1930's and the monuments of the Avebury complex are now designated a World Heritage site.

An Avebury sarsen.

Thought possibly to align on the moon's most northerly rising point, these two stones of the ruined Northern Inner Circle of the Avebury Circle represent the two prominent shapes found among the Avebury stones. The massive triangular-like shaped stones are believed by some to represent the feminine, while the columnar, phallic shaped stones possibly represent masculine energies.

The largest man-made mound in Europe lies in Wilshire, England near the Avebury stone circle. Dating from 2660 B.C. Silbury Hill is an unusually stable chalk/earth construction approximately 130 feet in height. Excavation has proven the hill is not funerary in nature, and supportable theory suggests the hill and surrounding plain are an earthen representation of the Great Goddess.

View of the Sanctuary in the Avebury complex. The markers represent timber post holes and an outer stone ring.

Looking across Marlborough Down from the Sanctuary at Avebury.

West Kennett Barrow, part of the Avebury complex, is one of the best preserved burial chambers in Britain. The Barrow is composed of stone, sarsen stones, chalk and earth. There are two ditches running parallel to the mound which although once 12 feet in depth, are now silted up. The Barrow has yielded remains of approximately 45 individuals from several stone chambers and is thought to have been in use from 3700 B.C. to approximately the late Neolithic around 2000 B.C. Originally the sarsen stones seen here at the entrance would have been part of a forecourt to the tomb, but once the tomb was full, the sarsen stones were moved to block the entrance to the structure. The Barrow is contemporary with Silbury Hill and the rest of the Avebury complex.

An interior view of West Kennett Long Barrow.

The Glastonbury Tor in Somerset, England rises 520 feet about sea level and is topped with the ruins of a church to St. Michael. As with many hills, and lakes, the Tor has been associated with the Otherworld since the Neolithic era. A spiral maze on the Tor was created in approximately 2500 B.C. Lore informs us that Glastonbury is the location of the Isle of Avalon, the fabled realm of the Goddess and the Tor itself an entrance to the Celtic underworld. The Tor was in fact an island, surrounded by vast swamp and lake lands which have since been drained to make way for human habitation. The area is a favorite for lovers of Arthurian legend.

The Chalice Well Garden in Glastonbury is as rich in folk tradition as it is in beauty. The garden is an ancient sanctuary which protects the Chalice Well. The iron laden waters of the Well, fed by a spring which flows from further up Chalice Hill, have been long thought to have miraculous healing powers. The entwined circles of the fountain, though a recent addition, mimic the design on the lid which covers the Well head. Designed in the early 1900's the lid depicts two overlapping circles pierced by the "Bleeding Lance" which irrevocably binds the two worlds of myth and mortality together.

The Chalice Well is named for the famous incident in which Joseph of Arimathea came to Glastonbury and hid the Chalice of the Last Supper inside the Well, which stained the water forever - causing it to colour red the rocks over which it passes. Long before this story came to be, the area of Glastonbury and Chalice Hill was a site of Neolithic occupation and later the Garden is thought to have been a Druidic sanctuary, the remains of a colonnade of Yew trees still to be seen.

Called the "holiest ground in England" the area of the Glastonbury Abbey has been infused with spirituality since prehistory. Very likely a centre of Goddess worship in the Neolithic era, a Druidic college is believed to have been founded later on these surrounds. Eventually the Christian community built an abbey on the site and over time the Abbey again became a pilgrimage site. The ruins of the Abbey house the supposed one-time resting place of the legendary King Arthur and Queen Guinevere and the grassy area of the now disappeared Christian high altar is thought to be in the approximate area as the earlier Druidic altar.

Located in Cornwall, England, Boscawen-Un has nineteen regularly-spaced stones granite stones in an oval-shaped ring surrounded by a dense turf bank that is smothered in gorse and bracken. One of its western stones is thought to provide a sightline to the Beltaine sunrise.

This leaning 8-foot pillar stone stands at the centre of the Boscawen-Un ring. Excavation has proven that the stone was carefully erected to insure that the stone leans to a height of about 6-feet above the ground.

Like the other Lands End circles, Boscawen-Un was probably constructed in the late Neolithic period, approximately 2700 BC. Clearly an important site, Boscawen-Un is said to have been a Druid temple and also one of three great meeting places in prehistoric Britain. Cloaked in scrub, brush and mystery, Boscawen-Un, meaning "house of the elder tree," is still a popular site. Many visitors leave flowers or tokens at the base of the leaning pillar stone before making their way out of the circle.

Restored in the 1860's the Merry Maiden's stone circle in Land's End, Cornwall, England emanates a curiously peaceful and cheery atmosphere. Upon visiting one cannot help but feel there is something to the story that the four foot stones were once jolly girls who dared to dance on the Sabbath and were turned to stone. The ring is also known as the Dawn's Men which came from "Dans Maen" or the "stone dance" as the stones do truly appear to be dancing. A second ring, paired with the Merry Maiden's, was destroyed in the 19th century.

With nineteen stones spaced at 12 feet apart, the Merry Maidens is similar to its neighboring Land's End stone circle, Boscawen-Un, only 2.25 miles to the southwest. Like Boscawen-Un, the Merry Maidens also has a noticeable widening between two stones that may have served as the entrance. The entrance to the Merry Maidens is situated due east, while the entrance to Boscawen-Un is due west.

Others have written of the strangely peaceful feeling of the circle. Such feelings have sometimes been attributed to suggestions that the 19 granite blocks have accumulated "bio-electricity" from the Neolithic era in which they were built which is still accessible to those visiting the stones today.

This holed stone is just across the road from the Merry Maiden stone circle and was undoubtedly pilfered from the site for its use as a gatepost. Holed stones are known throughout Celtic mythology as "cursing" stones and "sighting" stones. Holed stones are thought to possess particular "energy" and it is by and through holed stones that trial marriages of a year and a day were often formalized.

On Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, England stands the Hurlers, a series of three large stone rings. Composed of shaped granite stones, the northern and central ring each retain about sixteen or seventeen stones of their original twenty-eight and the southern circle has only nine stones remaining of its original twenty-eight stones. The cart-track that destroyed the southern circle enjoys considerable popularity among the local populace. Legend has it, as with so many other stone rings, that the stones in these rings were once just lads out for a day of hurling, unfortunately, on the Lord's Day. These two particular stones are known as the "Pipers," unfortunate musicians who shared the same fate as their friends for playing on the Sabbath.

Only a mile or so from the Culloden battlefield in Inverness-shire, Scotland, lies a site known as the Clava cairns. Dating from approximately 3000 BC, this delightful area lies in pleasant surrounds bordering the River Nairn. The site consists of two passage-tombs, a ring cairn and a stone circle.

A Clava passage-tomb bordered by standing stones.

The stones of Clava, whether they are prominent as this one here, or off in the woods all have exceptional personality.

A profusely cupmarked kerbstone at the Clava cairns site.

With the central area blacked by charcoal, this Clava ring-cairn was also found to contain a small quantity of cremated bone.

It is a unique experience to be able to sit quietly within the womb-like presence of a passage-tomb. This Clava passage-tomb held the cremated bone and spirit of those long since reborn.

Leaving the maternal arms of the tomb, one journeys down the birth passage to the waiting outside world. Both of the entrances to the Clava passage-tombs are aligned on the winter solstice sunset.

Midmar Church, Aberdeenshire, Scotland was built in 1797 on the much older stone circle site existing there of standing and recumbent stones. The graveyard to the church was added amid the stones in 1914.

Two pillar stones of approximately eight feet flank a fourteen-foot, twenty-ton recumbent stone. The construction method and chockstones used to keep the recumbent stone almost precisely horizontal show the great effort utilized when constructing stone circles. The recumbent stone is thought to mark the southern moonset.

Possibly an outlier, or the lone remnant of another stone circle, the Balblair stone is just 100 yards north of the Midmar Kirk stone circle. When empty, the Midmar Kirk has a certain enchanting atmosphere. The commingling of Neolithic beliefs and Christian architecture do not create the clash that one might expect -- rather, a pleasant humming of timelessness that is not unpleasant.

The Rollright Stones, Oxfordshire, England, stand in a perfect 104 diameter circle aside a prehistoric trackway. The pair of entrance stones to the circle form a sightline to the moonrise at midsummer.

The Rollright stone circle is constructed of local oolitic limestone. The name of the site derives from "Hrolla-landright" -- "the land of the Hrolla."

Long the subject of mystery, the Rollright Stones were raised in the late Neolithic era and for millennia have been associated with legends of "witches" from nearby Long Compton vanquishing traitorous Knights and treacherous Kings.