Rollright Stones

Warwickshire/Oxfordshire

NGRef: SP296309 OSMap: LR Sitetype: Nbc/BAsc/BAss

Neolithic Burial Chamber and Bronze-Age Stone Monuuments

This site consists of three contemporaneous groups of objects dating to c. 2000 BC set on an exposed ridge above the Oxford plain:

• The 'King's Men' consists of 77 weathered limestone blocks, varying in shape and size up to 2m tall, closely set in a circle 31.6m across, the entrance to which was probably on the N.
• The 'King's Stone' is 2.5m high and 1.5m wide, and stands 73m to the NE of the stone circle, actually in Warwickshire. This stone possibly acted as a marker for the prehistoric trackway which led up past the ring, or may have been an outlier for the circle.
• 360m ESE of the circle are the 'Whispering Knights', consisting of the 4 uprights and fallen capstone of a burial chamber denuded of its covering mound.

Legends abound: The circle is supposed to represent a King and his army, turned into stone by a witch; Barren women can be cured by touching the stones with their bare breasts; Anyone who counts the stones and obtains the same number three times will have their wishes granted; The stones go down to the stream at midnight to drink; Young people used to meet at the circle on midsummer's eve for feasting, dancing and debauchery; In the 18th century the King's Stone was dragged down to the nearby stream by 20 horses to form a bridge, but every morning the stone was found overturned. Eventually the stone was returned to its original location and the task was achieved by a single horse!

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