
General view across the very overgrown site. The snow against the bank on the left marks the opposite side.
General view across the very overgrown site. The snow against the bank on the left marks the opposite side.
Triangular slab marking the southern entrance through the bank.
The track leading to the circle, left off the main path to the Nine Ladies. It ends at the embankment, from which point the southern entrance (and ‘T56’ stone) is several metres to the left.
A small area of exposed stonework in the SE quadrant of the bank.
The remains of the central cairn have almost disappeared under the heather.
A panoramic image taken in August 2010.
Looking through the southern entrance into the centre of the circle.
Panorama of SMC looking South East
The now visible marker stone at entrance.
Entrance to Stanton Moor Central with “T56” marker stone in foreground.
Overview of Stanton Moor Central
Entrance and bank
Part of the bank.
Remains of the cairn near the centre.
Looking west. The path leads from the bottom left to the circle which can be made out as the dark ring amongst the heather.
Standing at the centre of SM III, looking through the southern entrance across the heathered slopes, the line appears to be aligned exactly on the Gorse Stone in the distance. You have to be tall to see this, however, and the heather low.
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This is the Heathcote ‘marker’ stone for SM III (T56), left by the Heathcotes after their excavations at this site. It lies at the southern entrance near the eastern orthostat.
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03/02. The Bank at the Central Circle
03/02 stones at the southern entrance
I’ve added a photo that should help identify the track to the circle.
The next major site is Stanton Moor Central, a wide (c.20m) circular enclosure surrounded by a well-preserved (restored) bank, with an entrance at the south and a marker stone numbered 56, a reference to the numbering system used by Heathcote who dug and meddled on the Moor in the 1930s. This site is easy enough to find but is also virtually impossible to photograph owing to a thick covering of heather (where’s Postie with his step-ladders when you need him?).
Thanks to TMA, I was able to track down the three other sites on Stanton Moor (North, Central and South). It took me a while to find the “T56” marker as it was quite overgrown with heather. Not sure whether its allowed, but I did take out my trusty Swiss Army knife and cleared back the heather from this marker in the hope that it will make it easier to identify for others (see photos I just posted).
After visiting this area quite a few times now, I am amazed that I had walked past it without realizing.
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.
Sticks out like a sore thumb from the eastern pathway to Nine Ladies. Mound of a cairn in the centre
This circle has a North Yorks Moors groove about it, it’s wrecked, it’s buried in heather and there’s not a lot to see.
I love it!
Located south of the 9 Ladies, the largest circle on the moor, the only stones lay near the two entrances (N & S), and banking is well preserved.
On one of the entrance stones is a carved ‘56’. This was done by J.P Heathcote, as he mapped out the moor. The Notrhern circle is T61 and the Southern T43. Some of the cairns dotted across the moor still have a numbered stone.(T= Tumulus)