Castlerigg Stone Circle View all content for Castlerigg

A welcome evening return to Castlerigg this time, a sunny summer evening brings out the tourists though, there were kids clambering over the stones, a frisby throwing competition in the middle and even a group of elderly couples with a fully laden picnic table at the site. Not too much of a problem for me though as I was here this time to look at the carvings on the stones particularly the elusive spiral – second attempt, second failure. I managed to find the other 4 known marks, 2 of them are very faint and none are spectacular. There are several other stones that *may* have carvings that have yet to be recognised but the geology of the rock makes imagining cups, rings and grooves on their surface too tempting. Working from Fitzcoraldo’s plan of the circle, Stone 1 has the spiral on the inward facing side (facing towards the setting sun), Stone 2 has a faint wide ring, I thought I could see a central cup too but Stan doesn’t mention it. Stone 3 has a lozenge or hatching pattern but there are natural marks in the rock right next to it, while Stone 4 has a quite deep but difficult to spot partial ring and a cup at it’s top edge. Stone 5 is the easiest to see and is a clear narrowly cut lozenge.

Posted by Chris Collyer 21st August 2003ce

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