stubob

When following the A4080 down from Llanfair PG instead of turning into the Plas Newydd estate car park (NT sign posted) take the turn just before it. This lets you get right up to the stones.

A short walk from the A4080 thru long grass, follow the hedgerow down to these 2 amazing stones. Thought to be the remains of a large stone circle.

Easy access from the ‘Surprise View’ car park.
The stone marks the Mid-Winter full moon rise minimum when viewed from ‘Wet Withers’. Several books mention that fires may have been lit behind the stone to help with the alignment.

I’ve never found this ring cairn, J.Barnatt mentions it in his 1990 book but doesn’t give any idea, apart from the grid ref, to it’s location. Okay the grid ref. should be enough but in this case it ain’t.
I’ve scoured the area a few times and scanned it again with a guy who had scoured it a few times as well......phew. Still nowt.

JB reckons there’s a rubble/stone bank 1-2m wide with a diameter of 7x5m, with a stone in the NE....entrance in the South, a boulder free interior.

Good Luck.

What can you say.....a corker...

The Eastern circle is around a 100ft away and is a smaller grass/bracken bump( depending on time of year) badly ruined by a shooting butt. Entrance? can just be made out.

The largest of the two circles, overgrown with heather with maybe one very small stone remaining (covered in heather) in the SE (ish). When viewed from Wet Withens, the 2 circles mark the points on the horizon for the Mid-Winter full moon set and it’s maximum (the eastern circle). Although badly overgrown this and the smaller eastern circle have some of the best views of all the Peak District sites.

No path to the stone but it’s easy enough to find once you see the dry stone wall. Christianised in medieval times when it was used as a boundary marker.
To say how tricky the large circle of Offerton Moor Westcan be to find when you’re right next to it......it’s quite easy to pick out over the wooded valley.

A.K.A Abney I

Easily found if approached from Abney, parking a car there is not easy though. Head for the open moorland, the paths by the ’ welcome to Abney’ sign. At the path crossroads head straight on thru the heather. The 2 remaining stones are in the grass clearing, faint traces of a bank can be made out in places. Excellent Views to Wet Withens on Eyam Moor and the hillfort at Carl Wark.

Confusing as nothing really stands out in the heather, some form of enclosure once thought to be a stone circle.
The ‘aerial maps’ at multimap are a big help in finding the right area to hunt in.

Discovered in 1985 after the moors had been burnt back, these 3 standing stones are thought to be the remains of a 4 poster although no trace of a 4th stone has been found. Well hidden in the grass and heather.

Keep on the path, passed ‘Park Gate Circle’ for a few hundred yards, turn right onto the moors when you’re in line with the firebreak, over in the Bunkers Hill Wood plantation. The ring/robbed cairn is found in the slight dip.

May ‘03

When I first posted this I thought it was Beeley Warren NW, having since found the proper NW........ this isn’t it.
It has a definite robbed cairn look to it, a ring of rubble around a disturbed mound.
Not far from Beeley NW, in the dip of the two low ridges that cross the moor.

The ring cairn is disected by a number of old packhorse routes and only a section of the bank and 4-5 kerbstones remain in the SE sector of the monument.
Nothing exciting but the settlement at Swine Sty is only a coupla hundred metres or so away.

Head down the track towards ‘Park Gate’ after a few 100yards there is the large cairn of Beeley Warren to the right, the Central Circle is 50m further on.
Unsure of access, but it’s worth seeing.

Near Hathersage. Amazing hill fort on the moors very easy to get to too.
Two sides of the fort have a steep slope for defence the 3rd has a massive drystone wall, made from gritstone boulders. The site is approx 2 acres in size.
The rock outcrop at ‘Higgar Tor’ is definitely worth a scramble round too, this was ‘Wet Withens’ main alignment the Midsummer Sunrise.

The sad bump at Bee Low is all that remains of a Late Neolithic round cairn in use for over 3 centuries.
No path across the field to the plantation where the cairn is located.....but when you get to the gate leading into the plantation, the sign don’t read like you’re unwelcome.

Marked as ‘enclosure’ on the O.S Map...where the footpath is shown as passing through the cairn...not quite the same on the ground though the cairn is to the left of the ‘main’route up onto Gardom’s.

One of the Peaks largest circles.....
Visit before the grass gets going and it’s hard to find a better site in Derbyshire.

The settlement and field systems at Swine Sty cover a considerable area of Big Moor western side and are amongst the U.K’s best preserved, much of them being overgrown although still visible. Amongst the field boundaries around seven building platforms or rings have been identified, the clearest of them is actually below the boulder escarpment of Swine Sty difficult to find at the best of times in recent years the site is being encroached upon by the thick bracken that covers a large part of this lower shelf.
The site rewards a bit of exploring and with the moor being Open Access it’s a shame not to.

An odd shaped barrow that was neither round nor long, nothing remains inside the tree enclosure, in Bramwells ‘Archaeology in the Peak’ he mentions stones of the ruined chambers...didn’t look too hard for them as the place was full of rotting goat(?) carcases.

One of a number of rectangular barrows/cairns in the Harland Edge area, above the Park gate Circle. The shape of the ditch and mound are clearly defined altho’ covered in heather. An oblong of perhaps 8-10 stones, the remains of a cist, sits on its top.

2 cairns lie in the plantation at Minninglow a massive Neolithic and a smaller Bronze age one, both with exposed chambers.
The Neolithic cairn is still big after much stone robbing, there are four visible chambers a couple with intact capstones, tho’ some of the chambers have been infilled, after some dodgy digging unsettled the place. There may be another chamber still in the remaining mound.

Minninglow can be from miles away, (Five Wells, Bamford Moor). Only when you’re up close to it the hill looks pretty unremarkable.

An excellent place, and no-one goes up there ...that might have something to do with dodgy access rights...
But it’s got to be seen. This is ‘the’ site of The Peak District.

Also known as The Druids Circle. Access is thru Harwood Dale Forest, the stones are in a field on the edge of the plantation. Four Stones were found here with cup and ring markings, now in Scarboro’ museum.

These two rocks were found by a JCB levelling the school field, They are in a garden at the back of Ashover primary school(unsure about access, ask at the school office). Along with the the stone rows, standing stones and roundhouse erected by the school. Quite mad.

A real Beaut....you’ll not come across owt like it.
When following the Path from Barbrook one, look for the small cairns that sit by the path, there’s an excellent small, restored, kerb cairn on the right hand side of the path before you get to this stone circle.

John Barnatt reckoned the circle to have been designed so that it could accurately mark all the major solar and lunar events throughout the calendar.
He suggested the circle had 8 outliers and, using these stones and the cairn above the circle, each event aligned to a landscape feature that marked such an event
In a way, the sad thing is.... Barnatt changed his mind several years later....

No ones sure wether this is a ruined or uncompleted henge, or the result of stone quarrying. The Ditches lay just West of Gib Hill.

Hard to find, after a wade thru’ the heather along Bamford Edge. The circle has no remaing stones, a well preserved bank but averaging only 1ft in height, helping to hide it in the heather.

A small embanked circle and well preserved, although hard to find. It has 4 outliers, one ‘The Old Womans Stone’ was nearly 8 ft tall, only the stump remains upright, after being split, early in the 20Century to stop ramblers using it as a guide stone

Exposed passage and chamber of one of the ‘Peak’ passage graves.
The passage and the grave are both the same width, a curled horned forecourt is still visible( just ). The site is thought to have been robbed since the Romans arrived.

Green Low is on private ground, 50yds away from the footpath.
Great views...except the quarry.

Recently discovered hillfort. Rock strewned interior, protected by steep drops to the east and south. A boulder wall to the North and West.

The boulder wall uses earthfast boulders in its construction and there are only small sections left.....non of these are overly impressive and its a fair old search to find the sections that remain.

Definitely worth checking out......
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06/06
John Barnatt has suggested that this hillfort is in fact a ‘causewayed enclosure’ or ‘tor enclosure’ like Gardoms Edge or Carl Wark.

Pre-historic rock carvings have been found on the rocks, although where amongst them all....?

In the dry stone wall south of the circle once used as a gatepost. May once have been part of the circle.

Head towards the tower from the Gorse Stone, in trees perched right on the edge of the moor

Can be seen from the Southern circle, on the eastern edge of the moor.

About 350-400 yards south of the Central Cirlce, right next to the path. The South Circle is roughly triangular in shape with a few surviving small stones on the internal edge of the bank.

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.

A few hundred yards North of the 9 Ladies, follow the first stone wall you reach down to the right. The site is badly overgrown, but the banks and entrances can be seen.

Located behind Staden industrial estate.
Often suggested to be the remains of a henge, the slight earthworks visible however were more than likely constructed in the Iron Age/Romano-British period. There is a large settlement site from the latter of the two periods only 100m or so away.

The ‘henges’ near circular banks can just be made out in the grass, a smaller more angular enclosure abutting this can also be seen (top left corner of the field in the photograph).

Located in the middle of Doveholes village, The Bull Ring Henge is very similar in design and size with Arbor Low, though not as well preserved, all the stones have been removed from the site.

Said to be the highest megalithic tomb in Britain.
Excellent place.. but catch the landfill site blowing the wrong way and it.....Certainly stinks to high heaven....

Does anyone know what these are about?
I think they mark the way of an ancient track (how ancient?), they appear in little groups stretching for 75yds or so. The path is linked to St Helens Church, Churchtown Darley Dale. The original Church was meant to have been built on an earthwork mound on the banks of the Derwent, the churchyard contains a 2000yr old Yew.
Any ideas?

Harland Edge in the East and views over much of the Peak District including Stanton Moor. Only 6 or 7 of the stones remain standing, the others lean severely. WNW of the circle are two stones, they seem too small to be useful outliers but are set vertically. The remains of a large cairn within the circle can be seen.

The tallest stone (now leaning inwards) was thought to have a cup mark near the top on one side...this has now been found to be a bullet hole from the moors Army training days.

Derbyshire’s biggest embanked circle and so tricky to find, well off the paths and well hidden in the heather. Keep a look out for sign planted in the stones of Eyam Moor Barrow, the circle is right behind it.

Burl mentions old reports of a supposed stone avenue in the SW, nothing has ever been found.

The circle has one of the best alignments in Derbyshire when the midsummer sun rises above Higgar Tor. The chair shaped stone mirrors the shape of the Tor on the horizon.

Just up the road from the Fox House Inn (1/2m), are 2 ring cairns.
Follow the wall by the ruined house on the heathered side half way up the wall, theres a stone on the floor with a ‘I’ painted on it, this lies on the Northern circles bank, unsure whether it belongs to the ring cairn.The large Northern ring can be made out in the heather.
A smaller circle is found just before the larger North circle, although very badly damaged by the wall and a sunken track that runs through it. No remaining stones.

The larger northern ring although covered in heather is very easy to make out.

Probably the most visible section of the smaller South circle, is just over the wall in the grassy field.

Just over the road from the Andle Stone, metal handles as well.
A 1789 document recorded that the Cork Stone had four other stones surrounding it, at a diameter of about 25ft, no longer there.