Smelting Hill & Abney Moor Stone Circle View all content for Smelting Hill & Abney Moor

As previously mentioned parking here isn't easy. There's a passing place just to the east of the village at SK201800, if you park carefully you can avoid blocking it. From here a footpath heads north then cuts northeast across a couple of fields then onto the moor where it starts to get a bit steep but by the time you get close to the stones the track has levelled off giving views across the moor to the north. It's the views to the south and east that impress though - due south on the other side of the valley the low saucer shaped hill of Abney Low looks like a squashed Silbury while Higger Tor stands out on the horizon to the east with Eyam Moor to the southeast. The site itself isn't in a great state of preservation with just a single standing stone and a further fallen stone visible. This smaller one seems to be set into the inner edge of the bank while the larger one looks to be set further into the interior, it could just be that the bank is more eroded here - there's certainly a lot of erosion around the base of the stone. English Heritage give the measurements of this stone as 75cm high with the bank having an internal diameter of about 8 metres and a width of between 1.5 and 2 metres.

Posted by Chris Collyer 19th August 2008ce

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