Old Rayne Stone Circle View all content for Old Rayne

Apparently the remains of this circle were used for the site of a court in 1349. The King's Justiciar was present to explain the seizure of some church property. How common was this, to use a stone circle? And was the site chosen just to rub the nose of the church in the situation? Has anyone more information? (Mentioned in Grinsell's 'Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain') Canmore's record includes the following: "A recumbent stone circle, previously known as Tap o' Mast. Before Dalrymple's excavation moved them in 1856-7, there were twelve stones forming a circle nearly 60ft (18.3m) in diameter, with the recumbent, its two pillars, and a fourth slab arranged to form two sides of a parallelogram, whose other two sides had traditionally been dry stone walls. This arrangement may have been caused by the district Head Courts held here in medieval times. All that remained in 1902 were the prostrate recumbent stone, the two broken and displaced flankers, and six other blocks, only one of which was in situ."

Posted by Rhiannon 2nd June 2004ce Edited 1st July 2005ce

Comments (0)
You must be logged in to add a comment