Blakeley Raise Stone Circle View all content for Blakeley Raise

This is a nice little circle on a small plateau with the hill of Blakeley Raise behind it to the southeast. The books say 11 stones, the pictures show 11 stones, but in my notes I’ve got 12 stones (?!) – must have been some kind of cosmic vibe thing going on… I managed to solve the mystery of the ‘Hounds of Blakeley’ though. As I arrived at the site I noticed a number of cars had congregated over on Low Cock How and there was a loud sound of barking and excited dogs. After a while the dogs were lined up and released – I thought they were just going to race to the bottom of the hill or something but as they disappeared out of sight in a dip in the land for a few seconds I suddenly realised they were probably heading in my direction. And so they were. Now, I’m usually wary of 4-legged beasts, especially when it’s a pack of 20 large dogs which would normally have me diving for cover, but I had no time to move to safety. Sure enough the dogs hurtled across the road and shot straight past the circle (completely ignoring me) and belted up the side of Blakeley Raise, I don’t know how fast they were running but they were over the hill in a couple of minutes at most. I estimated it would have taken me at least a knackering quarter of an hour to do the same climb. About 20 minutes later while I was eating a sarnie I noticed the dogs running down the north side of Flat Fell and back to Low Cock How. After some research I found I had been watching ‘hound trailing’ a 200 year old Cumbrian tradition involving dogs following an aniseed trail over about 7 miles of fells and hills and I have to admit it was a pretty damn awesome sight.

Posted by Chris Collyer 21st April 2003ce

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