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!
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.
View of the Cerne Giant from near the Wishing Stone.
The Wishing Stone is in the hedge on the right hand side of the track.
I live near to Evershot and my children have attended school there so I see the stones most days. Occasionally you see people sitting there eating their sandwiches, somehow it just doesn’t seem right.
JS Udall in Dorsetshire Folklore 1922 said: “Amongst my notes I find a reference to a tradition attaching to a field called the “Dumb Maids’ Plot” in the parish of Evershot, not far from Stutcombe Bottom (the fine weather musketry range of the old Evershot Volunteers), according to which three dumb sisters used to meet to while away the time by dancing on the green. This tradition was mentioned by the late Mr. S.R. Baskett, who acted as cicerone [guide for sightseers] at a meeting of the Dorset Field Club in that neighbourhood in August 1895; but no further particulars appear to have been given, nor can I find any reference to it in the published accounts of that meeting either in the Dorset County Chronicle or in the Proceedings of the [Folklore?] Society.”
Stutcombe Bottom is a wooded area to the south west of Melbury House according to The English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest. It would not be far from the small village green on which the stones currently stand. Perhaps they have not been moved far if at all.
Nine Stones 02.05.0. I deliberately came early in the season to photograph the circle before the leaves were out on the trees not realising that the mighty beech had been reduced to a stump. Although the tree has been butchered it did meant that the circle was flooded with light and easier to photograph. The wild garlic in the surrounding woods was beautiful. It is a shame that the A35 is so close and it feels like one is taking one’s life in one’s hands to walk along the road from the layby to the circle.
The Grey Mare and Her Colts on 04.05.09.