Ninestane Rigg Stone Circle View all content for Ninestane Rigg

No field notes til now? for shaaaame! This was a total bastard to find! Or rather my brain was fried by the time we got here. First attempt to get there ended when I realised I was in the wrong place, your supposed to just follow a line of trees up hill, but these trees turned half way up, back to the car. Second attempt, took rather longer to work out I was still in the wrong place. Tree felling combined with the slightly misty view from the nearby Buck stone, convinced me for quite a while that I was Ok, I wasn't, back to the car. Nearly gave up here. A bit further on the road turns a quick right then left, whilst going over a stone bridge, I finally decided this was the right place and I should go for it seeing as I'm here.There are lots of old stone bridges round here. Park near the bridge and climb up the embankment. Burl calls this first part of the walk, almost precipitous. Follow the fence up hill, then onto open moorland until you find a stile with a handy sign pointing the way to Ninestanes Rigg, which was way more than handy. Until in the end the two still standing stones come into view, and I breath a heavy sigh of relief, it should've been quite easy to find, but first you must be in the right place. Well, I wasn't expecting there to be this many stones here, yes it's called nine stones, but you don't really expect there to be nine. All the other pictures by Rockartwolf showed only four, I was pleasantly surprised. Burl says it's an unusual ring, one stone down eight still standing, most of the stones are small perhaps stumps, it strikes me as one of the few circles he hasn't dug at. Two stones still stand, one is leaning quite precariously, some of the other stones are quite the stump though, or perhaps they are just low stones, long grass does quite well at hiding the lower stones. Much tree felling has occurred, changing the aspect of the circle dramatically, they seem to be felling these trees by crashing a UFO into them, Armageddon seems to have transpired with the nearest still extant forest, 'tis a right mess. After stamping the long grass down a bit I set to with the camera, hoiking up the tripod as far as it goes for that lofty view. The day has taken a decidedly grey turn, thin mist hangs in the air, but I think I really liked this stone circle, was it the euphoria at finally finding a long awaited quarry? or the satisfying number of stones, or lots of different things. Liked it. Bye stones.

Posted by postman 8th April 2019ce Edited 12th May 2019ce

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