Images

Image of The Wishing Stone (Standing Stone / Menhir) by dorsetlass

View of the Cerne Giant from near the Wishing Stone.

Image credit: Lucy Jones
Image of The Wishing Stone (Standing Stone / Menhir) by dorsetlass

The Wishing Stone is in the hedge on the right hand side of the track.

Image credit: Lucy Jones

Articles

The Wishing Stone

The Wishing Stone is a single standing stone of flinty conglomerate material approximately 1.3m high and 1.0 m across in a hedgeline near to Cerne Abbas.

Access is via a bridleway which starts opposite Higher City Farm on the Cerne Abbas to Sydling St Nicholas road.

There is plenty of room to park in the entrance to the track as long as you do not block the gateways. Walk up the track and you will see a mobile phone mast ahead of you. Before you reach the mast and after about 0.5km, the track has a small dog leg to the right. (you will see a pair of galvanised gates ahead of you and the track skirts round to the right before continuing in the same direction). The Wishing Stone is approx 60 yard before this dog leg. It is in the hedge on the right hand side immediately next to the track.

The view of the Giant is obtained by continuing past the dog leg and going through the hedge on the right along a marked footpath. As soon as you are through the hedge you will see the Giant.

The views are outstanding and it is a lovely, if exposed, spot.

Folklore

The Wishing Stone
Standing Stone / Menhir

Three generations of my family have called this ‘The Wishing Stone’ but I cannot find any reference to the stone’s proper name, or in fact any reference to the stone at all.

We have always gone up to see the stone if we had any issues which needed to be mulled over. The fabulous views, the bracing air and the ambience of the stone have definitely put a new perspective on many things over the years!

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Miscellaneous

The Wishing Stone
Standing Stone / Menhir

Details of stone on Pastscape

ST 64610078 A large natural boulder of irregular oval shape, 1.4m high, 1.5m wide and 0.5m thick, very weathered and moss covered. It is set on edge alongside an old trackway running due NW/SE, which here forms the boundary between Up Cerne and Sydling St Nicholas. Possibly an ancient boundary stone and/or way-mark. (1)

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