Map of Warrior Trail which takes in the Long Stone.
Image credit: tjj
Images
Remains of 6,000 yr old neolithic barrow
Image credit: tjj
Image credit: Graham Orriss
There is a fairly easy to follow footpath from the car park, through the trees and up a bit of a hill, but there is also a track, which I presume is not public vehicular access, but might be a more accessible route for those that need it.
Image credit: Graham Orriss
I have no idea where the dog came from, but gives a good idea of scale! :)
Image credit: Graham Orriss
The stone is right next to Mottistone Cottage, which makes a nice little marker on the map to help you find it. :)
Image credit: Graham Orriss
The Longstone (just about visible bottom right) and the nearby round barrow (on the left horizon) in their landscape viewed from the Iron Age enclosure on nearby Castle Hill.
Image credit: A R Cane
Looking south with the sea just visible behind to the left, now they’ve cut back some of the foliage that leads down to the holloway from the church.
Image credit: A R Cane
Facing more or less due South.
Image credit: A R Cane
Two days later during the day, though a little overcast and gloomy, but still mightily impressive.
Image credit: A R Cane
Facing North East in the gathering gloom. It’s quite an eerie place at night even though there’s an isolated house just 100m from the stones.
Image credit: A R Cane
Facing North West. Can’t help thinking it looks just a little bit phallic from this angle?
Image credit: A R Cane
Image credit: Bawn79
Image credit: David Milner
Image credit: David Baker
After investigating Black Mound (which lines up perfectly with the stone when approached via Strawberry Lane) we noticed these two smaller stones on the path below the mound. Have they been dumped here to make way for the path?
Image credit: A. Brewis & P. Chamberlain
Picture taken at dusk on Saturday 13th April. After being led to believe that there were no prehistoric sites on the Isle of Wight this turned out to be a pleasant surprise.
Image credit: A. Brewis & P. Chamberlain
Not the longstone itself, but another small standing stone that has recently ‘appeared’ since a load of trees around it have been chopped down. It’s a few hundred metres due west of the longstone and surrounded by numerous round barrows. If any local folk are reading, do you know the history behind this stone?... Found nothing in any local history books I’ve looked at.
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As this is the only remaining neolithic long barrow on the IoW it was a must to visit whilst spending a few days there earlier in the week. We accessed it by taking an uphill, woodland hollow-way track from the back entrance to the small old church (also worth a visit for the wildlife churchyard). Road on a blind bend so cross with care.
The now faded interpretation board told us it is 6,000 years old and that the stones had been moved from their original position by the end of the 1800s. The long barrow remained intact until the 1700s when it was disturbed by quarrying and later by excavations in 1850 and 1956.
In my previous entry for the Five Barrows site at Brook on the Isle of Wight I mentioned this site, and explained that it forms the remains of a long barrow. Well, I just paid a visit this afternoon, and it reaffirmed the greatness of this site.
Lying due south of the mighty mother hill that is Mottistone down and within Brightstone Forest, the site is composed of a large sandstone megalith approx. 5m tall and a second recumbent stone at its foot forming the former entrance to the monument. A surprising amount of the barrow remains, making it easy to trace its outline, plus the tomb itself remains defined on the ground. The barrow also appears to be aligned to the summer solstice sunrise. Adding to the splendour of the location is the nearby iron age hill fort atop a small hill a few hundred metres SE of the Longstone. The largest round barrow on the island, the Black Barrow is approximately 1km due east of the Longstone, plus there are several other smaller burial mounds nearby.
The Longstone has always been something of a local landmark and gets quite a lot of visitors due to its fantanstic location within the forest here and also for the top vibes of the area in general. It’s certainly great to have such a place more or less on my doorstep.
When at the Longstone or Mote-stone which gave its name to Mottistone, in the Isle of Wight, the other day [the writer] was told by an inhabitant of the locality that the two stones were said to have been thrown there from St. Catherine’s Down (seven miles away as the crow flies), the larger one by a giant and the smaller by the Devil; and that the giant had to stoop to throw his stone because it was so heavy.
From the Hampshire Antiquary and Naturalist (v1, 1891, p136).
biodiversitylibrary.org/item/72513#page/148/mode/1up
“A child might easily swing the great stone backwards and forwards, but a ‘mighty man’ with great strength would fail to move it if he had ‘guilt on his soul’.”
(Adrean Searle, in ‘Isle of Wight Folklore’ (1998) -he doesn’t state where he’s quoting from)
The 13 foot stone is a probable remnant of a Neolithic long barrow. legend has it that the stone was thrown here by a giant, the smaller stone being thrown by the Devil. Alternatively the Devil dropped some stones from his overloaded cart. There was also a belief that Druids used to meet at this stone.
Apparently -
Mottistone means ‘speaker’s stone’ in Old English. The Druids are supposed to have sacrificed white bulls beside the longstone (white cattle with red ears belonged to the fairies or came from the Celtic underworld, so perhaps that is relevant). The two stones here have been interpreted as male and female. Perhaps it’s more likely they are the remains of a destroyed burial chamber with more stones.
(folklore found in the Reader’s Digest ‘Folklore Myths and Legends of Britain’)
Perhaps the stones have been moved at some point:
[I state in a paper published August 1884] that the “Longstone” is an upright stone, having a large flat stone (9feet x 4feet x 2feet) lying on the north-east side of it, which I thought might have been slightly moved from its original position. On revisiting the stones last June I found that the flat stone had been shifted about ten feet and that it now lies to the south-east and not to the north-east of the upright stone. Whether anone has been digging there, and, if so, whether anything has been found, I do not know.. my original sketches clearly show that [I had not made a mistake].
The “Longstone” at Mottistone, Isle of Wight
A. L. Lewis
The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 18. (1889), p. 192.
Topics
Sites within 20km of The Longstone of Mottistone
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Castle Hill
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Pay Down
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Mottistone Down Barrows
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Five Barrows
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Brighstone Down
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Tapnell Down
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Gallibury Hump
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Cheverton Down
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Afton Down
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Chillerton Down
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Michael Moorey’s Hump
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South Baddesley Stone
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Lower Exbury
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Week Down
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Buckland Rings
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Shanklin Down
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Ashey Down
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Luccombe Down
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Beaulieu Heath
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Hatchet Pond
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Shirley Holms
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Cold Pixie’s Cave
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Setley Pond
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Pudding Barrow
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Ipers Bridge Road
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The Devil’s Punchbowl
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Setley Plain
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Holbury Purlieu
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