Stanton Moor Central Stone Circle View all content for Stanton Moor Central

This ring cairn or ruined stone circle is easy enough to find as you walk north along the main path that leads to the Nine Ladies. About 230 metres south of the Nine Ladies look to you left (west) for a raised oval of heather about 20 metres away. Evidence of the bank is heavily covered with heather like most of the other sites on the moor but from the central cairn it's form is clear and walking around it reveals the bank still stands nearly a metre high in places. It seemed to me to be better preserved to the west, which is also the most overgrown side. There are entrances to the north and south and in a couple of places on the eastern side the small boulders of the bank have been knocked down making them look a little like extra entrances - it's worth rooting around at the south entrance for the inscribed stone that bears the Heathcote's T56 identification for the site. My estimate for the diameter of the bank is about 25 metres, as to whether it was originally a ring cairn or stone circle is difficult to say, if it was a circle then it has suffered differently from the nearby Nine Ladies that managed to keep its uprights and (just about) loose its bank and central mound. Here the situation is reversed - it reminded me a little of a larger version of Barbrook II minus the uprights.

Posted by Chris Collyer 9th October 2003ce

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