Stanton
Moor Central Also known as Stanton Moor III and T56 Bronze Age Ring Cairn Northeast of Birchover, Derbyshire OS Map Ref SK248633
OS Maps - Landranger 119 (Buxton & Matlock), Explorer OL24 (The Peak District
- White Peak Area)
Looking west to the circle.
A path leads up from the bottom left of the picture to a dark ring in
the heather with the raised bank just within it. The central lower area
and the cairn are obscured from this angle.
This site
is sometimes thought to be a ruined embanked
stone circle although English Heritage list is as a ring
cairn instead - it's difficult to tell which. Like many of the other
sites on the moor it is engulfed in thick heather but from the centre its
form is clear and walking around it reveals a bank of earth and cobbles
about 20 metres in diameter that still stands nearly a metre high in places
which seems 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 - at the south entrance there
is an inscribed stone that bears the Heathcote's T56 identification for
the site. Near the centre are the remains of a low cairn
although there are no records of any finds from it. As to whether this site
was originally a stone circle or a ring cairn it 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
earth and cobble bank. Here the situation is reversed and it resembles a
larger version of Barbrook II
minus the uprights, indeed there are no records of any standing stones here.
The site which dates from the Bronze Age 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 outline of heather about 20 metres away.
