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 it's 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.
|
The cairn near the centre. |
Southern entrance (looking
outwards). |