Image credit: Chris Bickerton
Images
Image credit: Chris Bickerton
Image credit: Chris Bickerton
Image credit: Chris Bickerton
Image credit: Chris Bickerton
Image credit: Chris Bickerton
14th September 2018
Image credit: Michael Mitchell
14th September 2018
Image credit: Michael Mitchell
14th September 2018
Image credit: Michael Mitchell
14th September 2018
Image credit: Michael Mitchell
14th September 2018
Image credit: Michael Mitchell
14th September 2018
Image credit: Michael Mitchell
Cotswolds Winter.
Image credit: A. Brookes (26.1.2013)
Showing how the snow has melted around the stone, but lies deep across the field.
Image credit: A. Brookes (26.1.2013)
A nice bit of winter sun.
Image credit: A. Brookes (26.1.2013)
The northeast face of the stone.
Image credit: A. Brookes (26.1.2013)
Image credit: A. Brookes (26.1.2013)
Through the weird window.
Image credit: A. Brookes (26.1.2013)
Little wall stone.
Image credit: A. Brookes (26.1.2013)
Twilight
Image credit: A R Cane
The smoother side.
Image credit: A R Cane
Close up of the knobbly side.
Image credit: A R Cane
The stone in the wall showing it in context with the Longstone. Bit of a crazy balancing act getting that one!
Image credit: A R Cane
Smaller loose stones next to the stone wall alongside the road.
Image credit: A R Cane
Image credit: takes some bloomin' finding this one!
A second stone with a Cotswold stone wall built around it.
Image credit: tjj
Image credit: tjj
Image credit: tjj
Image credit: tjj
The Longstone and local bird-life.
Image credit: A. Brookes (21.3.2009)
J Burrow 1913
Image credit: J Burrow
As seen on 21 August 2006 CE.
The Longstone featuring it’s shorter companion stone which has since become part of the farmer’s wall. As seen on 21 August 2006 CE.
Image credit: Laughing Giraffe
drawn from my photos taken in autumn. sandraorme.co.uk
Image credit: sandra orme
dj took this on a foggy morning. 20/09/03
dj took this on a foggy morning. 20/09/03
Didn’t get closer. In the days when this was taken I didn’t like risking things like trespass. It’s become a bit of a hobby in itself nowadays....
Image credit: Tim Clark
A bit better than my last pic of it.
Image credit: Mike Murray
An odd visit, difficulty parking was enhanced when we tried to park opposite the site, a member of the local constabulary who was sat in his Landrover said ‘you can’t park here, it’s a royal estate!’ We were followed away from the site by another constabulary member in his Volvo T20.
In the end, undeterred, we parked on the grass by the local bus stop and walked, we passed our friend in the Landrover and smiled.
I’m glad to say he smiled back.
The site itself was good, it reminds us of the Rollright Stones, same type of corrosion on the stones, same height and overall impression. Lovely day, warm sun in March, the spring equinox has blessed us.
Image credit: Jman March 03
Image credit: Rowan Gurney (aged 8) June 2002
Taken 4th August 2002: Detail of the stone showing some of the smaller holes caused by erosion. This reminds me of the Rollright Stones in Oxfordshire.
Image credit: Simon Marshall
Taken 4th August 2002: An ‘edge on’ view of the Longstone.
Image credit: Simon Marshall
This is the small stone mentioned by tamlin.
Image credit: Mike Murray
Articles
Visited 5/08/10
This beautiful lichen covered standing stone is similar to the Rollright stones and I imagine it is the same oolite limestone. Positioned in a gated field near the road between Gatcombe Park and Nailsworth it is full of holes and crevices so to be enjoyed while it remains. Also noticed the nearby Cotswold stone wall had been built around second stone which seemed to be a different type of stone – no holey permeations.
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Visited August 2009.
Nice and easy – just inside the field by a gate. Funny thing is though, that after visiting the Tinglestone and Gatcombe Lodge Longbarrow I was too nervous to enter the field for a ‘hands on’ visit and settled for a view from the gate. Silly I know and I now regret this. Another visit required when next in the area!
A quick visit (21.3.2009) between The Tinglestone and Gatcombe Lodge long barrows. The area is swarming with members of the constabulary, in landrovers and a helicopter, so I guess there’s royalty nearby. I was mentally practising an “all property is theft” rant that I knew I would never use, but no-one bothered me.
What a great stone – like a weird piece of coral dropped in the middle of a field (probably by aliens). From here it’s into royal territory and Gatcombe Lodge.
Recently visited the Rodmorton long barrow 05,03,09 .I found it a very magical place . Also visited the long stone just outside Minchinhampton ,that was abit of a hard place to find but once I found the stone it was very rewarding .The stone in the wall is pretty cool too. I found the longstone to be the same type as at the Rollright stone circle ? .
20/09/03. Toby and KJ, TJ and DJ (all sisters) met up with Amy and Barry in the road outside the stones. It was a fairly easy site to find, and all was quiet in the foggy morning except for the horse show going on in the field on the other side of the road. We all took photos and got in each others way. Never seen a stone with such holes in it before.
I have visited this Stone many times,it seems to have an “atmosphere” about it.People report feeling strange or suffering from headaches,like Tamlin,after visiting.
I took another pic of the little Stone in the wall but haven’t posted any more of the Long Stone.
We visited on 4th August 2002, and had trouble finding the stone because it was just over the edge of our map!
When we got there we parked at the gate near the stone, under the watchful gaze of a police officer wearing fluorescents. He was directing traffic to some sort of equestrian show on the other side of the road. We half expected to be arrested for trespass, or climbing over a gate without due care and attention, but rather disappointingly he just stood there looking bored.
I don’t think there is a footpath to the stone, but I guess we have the ‘right to roam’ there. I’ll have to read up on this and find out how the Law stands on this sort of thing.
I read the posts about this stone, consulted my maps, thought whats the problem.
Minchinhampton is indeed a maze, the kids in the back questioning every U turn and stating the obvious ’ Didn’t we just go here ?‘
Anyway got my act together, and its easy to find, Take the road across the common, follow the lane down the side of the pub ‘The Ragged Cot’ about 3/4mile down this road the stone stands in a field, but its hard to spot as its at right angles to you and only abouut 20cm thick. Anyway take the right fork signed ’ Minchinhampton Only’ and there is a small wood on the junction and then after about 50m the stone is easy to spot through the gate.
Spent a good half hour in the sun , poking our arms and faces through the holes.
I spent yesterday evenings beautiful sunset by the stone, just made it in time weaving through hte maze of roads which all seem to bring you out at the same place. Note the stone of identical texture built into the wall. Could this be as antiquated? I know that someone once speculated that this was the entrance to a barrow.
Tis a pretty place indeed but returned with a dreadful headache. Not a stone for brittle heads!
Well i live near to the stones, the other one is on Princess Annes estate, tHE tINGLESTONE, and you need permission... to visit it....
tYHE OTHER i LOVE, IS AT the camp.... THE CAMP..... THAT is hardly visited, but i jumped over the wall,and felt “things” around it.... ideal for dowsers.
Ive been doing visits to the stone, near to the golfcourse, and every pagan festival, go and take photos of it, we still have to download our own bl and white photos taken last winter solstice, of it in snow.No it doesnt go down to the stream to bathe, or dance in the moonlight, this is, as most people thought, they were witches turned to stone!
To find it, its best to go to the pub,THE OLD RAGGED COTT, have a visite there, there are ghosts in there too, then go straight down the road, to CRACKSTONE... and turn right at bottom, and then its in that feild, its overlooked by the old camp, which is now a residential area of small houses. There is also of course THE DEVILS CHURCHYARD, nearby, a footpath goes through PEACHES FARM, I think.... check on OS map.... this is Im told my ye locals, an eerie place, also there are ghosts, all around here,s BE WARNED! STARGAZER.
THE LONGSTONE OF MINCHINHAMPTON – Visited 26/8/00
My god...Minchinhampton is a bit of a maze. Once again we tried to locate this without an OS map, and the many and varied streets of the town and the common didn’t make using the road map very easy at all. However, as we passed the correct field we spotted the elusive stone, stopped, turned around and jumped over the fence to view this strange object. The type of rock was like many others we had seen, but the holes and shape added a uniqueness to the stone.
We took our photo, but alas, were not rewarded with a rainbow. We shall return at night, with Mike Reid, to see if it really does RUNAROUND the field!
Following on from the information about “Molly the Dreamer” at Gatcombe Lodge:
“Molly is also supposed to have dug at the Longstone, where she did find gold, but lightning flashed just as she was about to lift it out; ‘after that she was never the same again’.”
From an article in ‘Folklore’ (1912), mentioned by Westwood and Simpson in their 2005 ‘Lore of the Land’.
.. a very fine monolith, locally called the “Long Stone” [is] on the left hand side of the main road a short distance from Gatcombe Lodge entrance. It is 7 1/2 ft high above the ground, and is said to be as much below the surface.
It is a very fine block of the peculiar stratum of the great oolite formation, locally called holey stone, which underlies the surface soil to a thickness varying from 6” to 18”.
Report says that the superstitious mothers were in the habit of passing ricketty children through a hole in this stone with the idea that they would become strong.
A much smaller stone of a similar kind stands in a wall about 30 feet away, and a third is said to have been removed during the last century.
From ‘A history of the parishes of Minchinhampton and Avening’ by Arthur Twisden Playne (1915).
Much more famous than “Ragged Jonathan”* is a perforated menhir about a mile to the east of Minchinhampton. It was formerly surrounded by the Common arable fields, to one of which it gave the name of “Longstone Field.” Once, when they were ploughing there with oxen, they yoked a good many together, and tried to pull the Longstone out of the ground, but “something” held it firm. [..] Further, “when the Longstone hears the clock strike twelve, it runs round the field,” as almost every child in the place will tell you. Within living memory, children with whooping-cough and rickets used to be put through one of the holes in the stone. Traditions of bloodshed also cling round the Longstone; some say that it marks the burial place of a Danish chief killed in a battle at “Woeful Danes’ Bottom,” about half a mile distant, where “the blood ran as high as the wheels of a cart,” and the victory was won by women who gave the Danes poisoned pancakes to eat. At the battle of “Woeful Danes’ Bottom,” which is much talked about, “the solders shot through the holes of the Longstone”; and all the tumuli or “tumps” in the neighbourhood are held to be “the soldiers’ graves.”
From: Cotswold Place-Lore and Customs, by J. B. Partridge, in Folklore, Vol. 23, No. 3. (Sep., 1912), pp. 332-342.
It’s also been said that a hellhound-style black dog has been seen in the stone’s vicinity. Not that you’ll probably see the black dog at midnight – bar its nasty red glowing eyes. In the ‘alternative approaches to folklore bibliography’ at
hoap.co.uk/aatf1.doc
it specifically mentions Woefuldane Bottom as the location of the spectral dog – this appears to be the road that the stone lies next to.
In ‘A history of the parishes of Minchinhampton and Avening’ by Arthur Twisden Playne (1915) it’s mentioned that the Danes marched in here via the Daneway and met the Saxons at Woefuldane bottom. The slaughter of the Danes was so great that ‘the blood came up over the fetlocks of the Saxon horses’. But then Playne ruins it all: “I am sorry to throw doubt on so picturesque a legend” – he says Daneway is from ‘Dene Way’ or valley way, and Woeful from ‘Wulfflaed’, a personal name.
The ‘Ragged Jonathan’ mentioned above is explained as follows (also in the Folklore article):
Two menhirs, “Cob Stone” and “Picked Stone,” were destroyed on or near Minchinhampton Common, about seventy years ago. Still standing is the curious “Ragged Jonathan” or “Holey Stone” about 5 ft. high, pitted all over with small regular cup-like depressions. It has been used at some time as a milestone; but one old inhabitant says he thinks it came from the Devil’s Churchyard, while another says that children used to be lifted over it to cure whooping-cough. I have also been told that the holes in the stone were made by Oliver Cromwell’s guns.
I was taken to this site a couple of times by a now deceased relative as a child & remember having infinite fun sticking my hands through the holes! As Stargazer has mentioned, the local legend is that the Longstone & Tingle Stone uproot themselves & take a trek to nearby Minchinhampton to drink from the spring. Never understood that one myself, but then again why do the people in the nearby village of Avening also celebrate Pig Face Sunday on 14 September each year? Do make your visit coincide with a visit to Avening church at the very least as it remains the only church in England founded by a queen – Matilda, wide of William I.
This is my local site as I grew up in Amberley which is the next village to Minchinhampton
My mother tells the tale that newborn babies used to be passed through the hole in the Longstone, if they were small enough to pass through the hole they were deemed to sickly to live and were killed.
Details of stone on Pastscape
The Long Stone (NAT) (SH 88409990 sited to name only.) (1) ST 88369992. A standing stone 7ft 9in high on the remains of a mound. To the west is a smaller stone which has been incorporated in a modern wall, but is still in situ. The site is probably the last vestige of a long barrow. (2) Rudder likens the barrow on which the Long Stone stands to that of the Tingle Stone (ST 89 NE 12). (3) The Long Stone, ST 88349991, is 2.1m high, 1.7m wide and 0.4 thick. The smaller stone, ST 88339991, is 1.2m long, 0.7m high and 0.3m thick. It is incorporated in a modern wall but at right angles to it. There are no remains of a mound. The field is under the plough. Published survey 25’ revised. (4)
Topics
Sites within 20km of The Longstone of Minchinhampton
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Gatcombe Lodge
photo 4 forum 1 description 7 -
Cobstone
photo 1 description 2 -
The Tinglestone
photo 32 description 9 -
The Lang Stone
description 1 -
Norn’s Tump
photo 4 description 3 -
Upper Hyde Farm
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Avening Burial Chambers
photo 20 forum 1 description 7 -
The Oven
photo 4 description 1 -
Oldfield Wood
photo 4 description 2 -
The Bulwarks (Minchinhampton)
photo 10 description 3 -
Lechmore Long Barrow
photo 13 description 2 -
Lechmore Round Barrows
photo 7 description 1 -
Whitfield’s Tump
photo 11 description 5 -
The Horestone (Rodborough)
photo 3 description 2 -
Manor Farm
description 1 -
Avenis
photo 1 description 3 -
Nash End Farm (Bisley)
description 1 -
Inlands Plantation
photo 1 description 2 -
Money Tump
description 3 -
Windmill Tump
photo 31 description 10 link 2 -
Beverston Stones
description 1 -
Broadfield Farm
description 2 -
The Twizzle Stone
description 1 -
Twizzle Stone Long Barrow
photo 5 description 4 -
Bown Hill
photo 1 -
The Toots
photo 12 description 3 -
Woodleaze
photo 2 description 3 -
The Giant’s Stone
photo 9 forum 1 description 6 -
Haresdown Barn
description 2 -
Westwood
photo 3 description 1 -
Tump Belt
photo 3 description 1 -
Througham
description 3 -
Buckholt Wood
photo 6 description 4 -
Bowldown Wood
description 1 -
Kingscote stones
description 1 -
Nympsfield
photo 48 description 14 link 3 -
Randwick Long Barrow
photo 21 description 5 link 1 -
Soldier’s Grave
photo 17 description 6 -
Standish Wood
photo 7 description 1 -
The Camp
photo 21 description 4 -
Hetty Pegler’s Tump
photo 78 forum 6 description 32 link 2 -
Trewsbury
photo 4 description 3 -
Symonds Hall Farm
description 2 -
College Plantation
photo 9 -
Boxwell stone
description 1 -
Tabitha’s Well
photo 2 description 2 -
Honeycombe Farm
photo 2 description 1 -
Uley Bury Camp
photo 26 description 9 link 1 -
Shortwood mounds
photo 11 description 1 -
The Hoar Stone (Duntisbourne Abbots)
photo 13 description 6 link 1 -
Haresfield Camp
photo 34 description 3 -
West Barrow
photo 6 description 3 -
Park Wood Farm
description 1 -
Painswick Beacon
photo 18 description 6 -
The Clump
photo 7 description 2 -
Buck’s Head Barrow
photo 3 forum 1 description 2 -
Cranham Corner
photo 2 description 1 -
Nan Tow’s Tump
photo 1 description 3 -
West Tump
photo 35 description 6 link 1 -
High Brotheridge Camp
photo 11 description 2 -
Cotswold Park
photo 6 description 1 -
Cooper’s Hill
photo 8 description 2 link 1 -
Bagendon Earthworks
photo 11 description 3 -
Combend Farm
photo 7 forum 1 description 2 -
Brackenbury Camp
photo 37 description 1 -
Tar Barrows
photo 13 description 6 -
Starveall
photo 13 description 4 -
North Cerney
photo 6 -
Woodmancote
photo 5 description 1 -
Birdlip Camp
photo 21 forum 1 description 4 link 1 -
Hangman’s Stone (Preston)
description 1 -
Emma’s Grove
photo 18 description 6 -
Crickley Hill
photo 55 forum 1 description 14 link 1 -
The Beck Swan
description 1 -
Coberley
photo 33 description 5 -
Hawkesbury Knoll
photo 14 description 1 -
Henley Bank
photo 5 description 1 -
Crippets Long Barrow
photo 45 description 8 -
Giant’s Cave
photo 12 description 8 -
North of Hebden Farm
description 1 -
Norbury Camp (Upper Coberley)
photo 22 description 2 -
Shawswell Farm
photo 4 description 2 -
Boy’s Grove
photo 4 description 1 -
Churchdown Hill
photo 16 description 4 link 1 -
Pinkwell
photo 5 description 3 -
Horton Camp
photo 26 description 2 -
The Grickstone
description 2 -
Leckhampton Hill
photo 85 description 6 link 2 -
Barnsley Wold Barrow
description 2