Druid's Temple
Local highlightA Georgian squire's private Stonehenge in plantation woodland above Masham, built to put wages in local pockets
William Danby of Swinton Castle had this folly built in the woods above Masham in the early 1800s, largely to give work to local men at a time when there was little going. What they raised is a rough copy of a prehistoric stone circle: an oval of standing stones with trilithons (two uprights carrying a lintel across the top), an avenue leading in, a flat altar slab, and a low chamber at the back with a tomb in it. It has been Grade II listed since 1966. Danby then offered an annuity to whoever would live here as a hermit for seven years, hair and beard uncut, speaking to nobody — no one saw the term out.
You park at Swinton Bivouac and walk up through the conifers, ten minutes or so; the temple itself is free to visit all year, though the car park charges. It’s in the Nidderdale National Landscape, and Yorke’s Folly, another of the dale’s mock ruins, is about ten miles south.
