Elva Plain

Its been a really long time since I was last here, so long that I have no digital photos of Elva Plain, it must be near twenty years. As I remember I parked right near the farm and asked permission to park there while seeing the stones.
This time I parked on the road just outside of the little Rake Wood, walked up the road, turned left and up to the farm, at 6.15am there was nothing doing so I walked on through to the field with the stone circle, and applied myself to the seeing of stones.

The weather had been very favourable for the last few days, so standing at a stone circle on the spring equinox with a clear blue sky, I was cock of the rock, twirling in absolute splendor. On the western horizon the near full moon sank into a pink haze, it reminded me of a spring equinox at Ystumcegid in north wales many years ago, funny the effect a sky has on ones mind.
While I was zooming at the full moon the sun broke into song behind me, I twirled once more and hurriedly crossed the circle, photo photo photo. At last, a successful equinox sunrise, you, me and the stones, it’s not as good when one of us is missing.

During the sunrise there was much birdsong, except for a skylark and blackbird I’m pretty ignorant of most of natures calls, but one stuck out in particular, it wasn’t a bird, it was a Gibbon, it was doing it’s morning territorial whooooooing and wowwwwwwing, a welcome addition to whats shaping up to be one of the good stony days out.

The sun burst out of a notch on the horizon, made from a shoulder of Skiddaw and another hillside further away. The hills frame the whole western view, it made me wonder whether the sun used any other notches at either end, for solstices.
But then looking behind me to the west it looked more of a sunset oriented site, a clear sight line to the sea, not ten miles away.

The stones are low, possibly all knocked over, a couple of stones are mostly underground just breaking the surface like a small stone whale. By the biggest stone, half a dozen smaller stones huddle together for security, as if the bad man might come back again and another stone would go astray. If they could all be spread out once more the aesthetic of the circle would be much improved, but it is what it is.

Bewildering sunrise dealt with I set about adequately photographing the circle, it’s about now I should mention the rocky protuberance on the top of Elva plain hill, like Fitzcoraldo before me I saw it and thought “oooh proto temple”. Should such things exist, that could be one.
With camera on tripod and extended to it’s fullest I wander round hoiking it up in the air for an elevated picture of the stones. It works well.

On my way back to the car I surprised a small child in the farm, he wasn’t expecting to see me that was for sure, his two dogs didn’t seem to mind me and I tipped him my disarming smile, perfected over several decades of trespassing, I do it for a living you know.

Elva Plain is one of the most northerly of the Cumbrian circles , it is situated close to the River Derwent and therefore on a possible routeway from the Irish Sea into the central lakes via Lake Bassenthwaite, Derwent Water and the Borrowdale Valley. Another route could have been to skirt the Caldbeck Fells to Penrith, this route would have taken traveller past the recently recognised causeway enclosure of Aughertee Fell
On my visit I followed Sals directions. Once past the farmhouse I splodged through the gate into a large muddy swamp. There were half a dozen bullocks standing in the middle of the stone circle in the centre of the field. In the next field there was a large solitary bull, who on seeing me began to hurridly patrol the area around the stile. I was a little worried about the bullocks as they refused to budge from the centre of the field. If I had to run for it the stile was definitely not an option.
Bollocks! I had driven for two hours to reach this lovely circle, I wasn’t going to give up now. So began the Mexican standoff of Elva Plain ( cue -Ennio Morricone).
I decided that my best strategy to shift the bullocks was to confuse the crap out of them. I did a little jig to the left and the bullocks moved with me, a little jig to the right, a couple wobbly jumps with arms outstretched and then a staggered but determined march towards them, jeez I hope no-one was watching. It worked! the bullocks were freaked and moved off to the stile and the safe presence of papa bull who had stopped his patrolling to watch the freak in the field.
I was dead chuffed, I was stood in this beautiful stone circle under a beautiful Cumbrian sky with the mighty Skiddaw Massif looking down on me and I was king of the field, papa bull and his boys couldn’t touch me.
The circle is beautiful, it’s knocked about with a few gaps in it’s circumference but that means nothing when you drink in the views.
The magestic fells draw the eye here but if you turn and look to the top of Elva Hill you will notice a natural outcrop of rock. Is it too much to speculate that prior to the building of the circle this outcrop was the focus and the circle was erected lower down the hill in deference to this earlier site. Who knows?
Burl notes that The longest stone in the circle is at the western point and the shortest at the eastern point. Also there seems to be a little confusion as to the number of stones in the circle. Burl counts 15, Waterhouse counts 14 and Seton counts 13. This confusion is due to the different ways each surveyor counts the small group of 3 stones on the northern edge.

Parking – Parking is difficult in this area and I would advise that you don’t block any field entrances. If you park at the Setmurthy Common carpark NY164314 it’s only a walk of a few hundred metres to the farm entrance.

There’s a public footpath from the road up the private road to Elva Plain farm – turn right into the farm yard and follow the track keeping the buildings on your left. The circle is in the field at the top of the track.

The number of times I’d driven along the A66 and never turned off to Elva Plain .... when eventually I did, it was the perfect day for it – with views from the peaks of the northern lake district across to the sea.

‘Reminiscant of Gamelands. A fairly large circle/oval of rounded stones layn in grass. A clump of stones together have possibly been moved from elsewhere. 10 stones or sets of stones; an additional 3 have just their stump level with the ground. Most stones aren’t large but 2 are much larger than the others.
180 degrees of vista is fantastic hills: some angular lakeland drama (Skiddaw); the rest of the view this lovely Cumbrian moorland of rounded peaks and troughs.
Very open on those sides; a place to sit and look.
The 3 stones buried in the grass are likely as big as those above ground.‘

- October 2003