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The Negen Stones

Standing Stones

<b>The Negen Stones</b>Posted by jimgoddardImage © Plotted by Jim Goddard
This site is of disputed antiquity. If you have any information that could help clarify this site's authenticity, please post below or leave a post in the forum.
Nearest Town:Staines (2km E)
OS Ref (GB):   TQ031715 / Sheet: 176
Latitude:51° 25' 57.25" N
Longitude:   0° 31' 0.08" W

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<b>The Negen Stones</b>Posted by pure joy <b>The Negen Stones</b>Posted by jimgoddard

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(site of) The Negen Stones – 27.7.2003

Not much I can add. ‘Jimgoddard’ has obviously done his homework!! Like many of the important sites on the fringe of Greater London there is nothing to see at the ‘site’ (unlike you really like busy roundabouts)

Just to say that if you want a nice short walk and a decent place to park (if you can avoid the ‘Private Road’, ‘No Parking’, ‘I have a Big house’ etc signs that pervade the area), drive a few hundred metres down the A320 (Chertsey Lane, which by the by takes you to St Ann's Hill Fort within about 5 minutes) and take the first left into the side streets. Walk back to the site of the Negen Stones, and then wander along the river and back up to where you parked. ‘The Hythe’ (mentioned by ‘Jimgoddard’) is the lane parallel to the river, starting from the bridge, and has a pub. The riverbank has a pub as well, so a short walk could be turned into a long session – hic!
pure joy Posted by pure joy
28th July 2003ce
Edited 28th July 2003ce

The name of the town of Staines means "stones" and it is thought to come from a group of nine stones mentioned in a twelfth century charter of Chertsey Abbey which delineated the boundaries of the Abbey lands, and was reported in Up Pontes by Christine Lake. The charter says this:

"Down to that Eyre that stands in the Thames at Lodders Lake and so along Thames by mid-stream to Glenthuthe (Glanty: M25 roundabout), from Glenhuthe by mid-stream along Thames to the Huthe (Hythe) before Negen Stones". ("Negen stanes" is Saxon for "nine stones").

If this was a prehistoric stone circle, it is the only one known in the south-east of England; the nearest today is the Rollright Stones in Oxfordshire. And when we look at the site which seems to be indicated, now occupied by a roundabout on the Egham side of Staines Bridge, there is a definite convergence of ways, and each of them seems to mark a ley; though, curiously, the ways do not meet at a single point but rather skirt a small area.

The most striking alignment is that of the Roman road coming from London to Staines, now the A30 and Staines High Street; the alignment goes through the proposed site, although the Roman road diverges from it slightly to cross the river downstream of the present bridge.

The Egham Causeway is another of the alignments converging on the proposed site of the stones; a ley which passes through a Neolithic and Bronze Age site by Runnymede motorway bridge.

The third alignment is the one running up Thorpe Road, Egham Hythe, close to St. Paul's Church there which is visible from the Negen Stones site.

When aligning the site with St. Mary's Church, Staines, the line is also found to go south through St. Peter's Church Chertstey, from where another ley was followed some years ago. Going north, it skirts the fort at Gerrards Cross and continues through the church St. Michael and All Angels and nearby Sycamore Corner cross-roads at Amersham-on-the-Hill. St. Mary's Church is 19th century but is on the site of a stone church built by St. Erminildis in 675, on a pronounced rise in the ground. It also has a tradition of stones at the site, and this has been linked with the Negen Stones charter in the Staines Town Trail, but this is unlikely to be the site of these stones as it is not near The Hythe, which is a riverside road, presumably originally a wharf, on the Egham Hythe side of the river. However, it could be another site of stones.

The site of the Neolithic causewayed enclosure mentioned in Prehistoric London by Nick Merriman is now Junction 13 of the M25, although there is a picture of the cropmarks in that book. It was excavated in 1961-63 and was found to have had inner banks which had been ploughed flat. Pottery of the type found at Windmill Hill in Wiltshire was found there.

When aligned through the Negen Stones site this alignment was found to pass through Weybridge Church, nineteenth century but the site of an older church.
Posted by jimgoddard
13th June 2002ce

Miscellaneous

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The Staines area seems to have had a prehistoric landscape which is comparable to the one in Wiltshire, with the Negen Stones and the Stanwell cursus even seeming to parallel the Stonehenge arrangement. It is now almost completely eradicated by the modern environment, but luckily the sites were investigated and their positions recorded just in time. And they show that the ancient ley system discovered by Alfred Watkins is indeed a reality. Posted by jimgoddard
13th June 2002ce

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The Old Stones of Staines


A site about the site of the Negen Stones, no longer in existence but mentioned in a charter of Chertsey Abbey, and its associated ancient sites in the area.
Posted by jimgoddard
13th June 2002ce