One of the largest stone circles in Britain, a huge ring of boulders in a Cumbrian field with a tall carved outlier standing apart
Open accessfree to visit at any reasonable time
Standing remainssubstantial fabric survives to stand in front of
Long Meg and Her Daughters is one of the biggest stone circles in the country, a wide ring of low grey boulders spread across a field above the River Eden. The circle is the “daughters”, dozens of glacial stones set in a great oval that you can walk right into, standing at the edge of open farmland. Long Meg herself is the odd one out: a tall pillar of red sandstone standing just outside the ring, well over three metres high, carved with cup-and-ring marks — spirals and rings pecked into the stone thousands of years ago, the meaning long since lost. People raised it all in the late Neolithic or early Bronze Age, four thousand-odd years back, though nobody knows quite why the circle was built or what happened here. The old story says the stones are a coven of witches turned to rock by a wizard, and that they can never be counted twice to the same number. It sits on quiet lanes near Kirkoswald and the River Eden and Tributaries, and the circle stands on private farmland that visitors are welcome to walk into, so leave gates as you find them.
Full name: Long Meg and Her Daughters stone circle, associated cursus and prehistoric enclosure
More at the National Heritage List entry
