By Steve Matthews of Bookends

Last updated 05:39, Friday, 19 September 2008

Long Meg and her Daughters is the largest stone circle in Cumbria and the sixth largest in the country. This enigmatic disposition of rocks – 69 standing stones arranged in an approximate circle – has been a source of wonder, no doubt since it was first assembled in Neolithic times.

A Guide to the Stone Circles of Cumbria by Robert W E Farrah. Hayloft. £20

However, sometime towards the end of the 18th century, a certain Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Lacy, the owner of the land and probably a keen “improver”, tried to remove the monument by blasting. His attempt was thwarted by latent powers. An account of the time describes what happened: “The slumbering powers of druidism rose in arms against this violation of their sanctuary; and such a storm of thunder and lightning, and such heavy rain ensued, as the fell sides never before witnessed. The labourers fled for their lives, vowing never more to meddle with Long Meg”.

Further south, Kemp Howe and the Shap Avenue cannot have been under such awesome divine protection. The railway, with its customary insistence, cut straight through the circle of Kemp Howe in 1844. Other stones were blasted or taken away to be used elsewhere and this “stupendous monument of antiquity” has largely disappeared. All we are left with are a few stones including the delightfully-named Goggleby stone. Early accounts, (there is one by William Stukeley in 1725), describe an avenue 70ft wide “composed of very large stones, set at equal intervals” of 35ft and stretching from the 80ft stone circle at Kemp Howe to a far larger one, possibly 400 feet in diameter, at Brackenbyre.

The name Shap means a “heap of stones” and many of the ancient stones may have been recycled to build the village. The author suggests that “the village we see today has been shaped by the avenue’s linearity, and the ghostly presence of the avenue lies at its heart.”

Modern man with his commercial interests may not have respected these ancient stone circles. A certain publican, one William Bushby, sought to turn Mayburgh Henge into a tea garden and, to expand the accommodation, he cut away the inner face of the henge bank.

Wordsworth wrote of Long Meg:

“Speak Giant-mother! Tell it to the Morn, . . .

When, how and wherefore, rose on British ground

That wondrous Monument.”

This guide seeks to answer those key questions, but the stones do not yield easy answers. To understand the circles a person must visit them frequently, comprehend their positioning in the landscape and know their relationship to solar and lunar movements. Such perceptions may not provide certainty, but we may begin to guess why the people of 5,000 years ago went to such efforts to locate these massive stones in the mountainous landscape.

The most magnificent of all is Castlerigg, “an almost complete circle located on level ground on the top of Chesnut Hill (by Keswick) overlooking several valleys and set in a crown of mountains”. Certain lines of sight correspond to the sunrise and sunset at the equinox and a line from the sanctuary through one stone to Great Mell Fell “marks the horizon event of the rising star constellation of the Pleiades, heralding the approach of May and the beginning of summer”.

Robert Farrah is an intimate of the stone circles and has sought to tap their inner mysteries. He has provided a comprehensive guide to all the stone circles in the county.

The stones, I suspect, will remain as silent and enigmatic as they have always been.