Hoarstones

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox ancient site The Hoarstones, or Hoar Stone Circle, is a stone circle in the civil parish of Chirbury with Brompton in the English county of Shropshire. The Hoarstones are part of a tradition of stone circle construction that spread throughout much of Britain, Ireland, and Brittany during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Ages, over a period between 3300 and 900 BCE. The purpose of such monuments is unknown.

The Hoarstones are one of up to five stone circles known from this area, on the borders between Shropshire and Powys. Of these, only the Hoarstones and Mitchell's Fold survive. Shaped elliptically, the Hoarstones circle measures 23.3 by 21.1m in diameter. It contains between 38 and 40 small stones, identified as dolerites probably sourced locally. There is a central stone inside the circle, although whether this was part of its original prehistoric design is unclear. Several of the stones contain small holes, which according to 19th-century accounts were caused by miners drilling holes into them; gunpowder was then placed into these holes and lit to produce explosions.

The existence of the circle was noted by the antiquarian Reverend C. H. Hartshorne in 1838. An excavation took place in 1924, led by Lily F. Chitty.

Location

The term "Hoar Stone" refers to a boundary mark and was recorded as the site's traditional name in the 1920s,Template:Sfn with the site having been referred to as the "Hoar Stone Circle",Template:Sfn as well as the "Hoarstones".Template:Sfn Thinking this name inappropriate, the Reverend C. H. Hartshorne referred to it as Marsh Pool Circle.Template:Sfn Other names for the stone circle include Black Marsh and Hemford.Template:Sfnm

The area on which the circle stands is called Black Marsh.Template:Sfn The Hoarstones are located 7 miles north of Bishop's Castle,Template:Sfn and 5 ½ miles north of Lydham.Template:Sfn It is also one mile northwest of Shelve.Template:Sfn The area on which it stands is moorland, at 300 m O.D.Template:Sfn The circle is overlooked from the east by the Stiperstones, a quartzite ridge.Template:Sfn

Context

While the transition from the Early Neolithic to the Late Neolithic in the fourth and third millennia BCE saw much economic and technological continuity, there was a considerable change in the style of monuments erected, particularly in what is now southern and eastern England.Template:Sfn By 3000 BCE, the long barrows, causewayed enclosures, and cursuses which had predominated in the Early Neolithic were no longer built, and had been replaced by circular monuments of various kinds.Template:Sfn These include earthen henges, timber circles, and stone circles.Template:Sfn Stone circles are found in most areas of Britain where stone is available, with the exception of the island's south-eastern corner.Template:Sfn They are most densely concentrated in south-western Britain and on the north-eastern horn of Scotland, near Aberdeen.Template:Sfn The tradition of their construction may have lasted for 2,400 years, from 3300 to 900 BCE, with the major phase of building taking place between 3000 and 1,300 BCE.Template:Sfn

These stone circles typically show very little evidence of human visitation during the period immediately following their creation.Template:Sfn This suggests that they were not sites used for rituals that left archaeologically visible evidence, but may have been deliberately left as "silent and empty monuments".Template:Sfn The archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson suggests that in Neolithic Britain, stone was associated with the dead, and wood with the living.Template:Sfn Other archaeologists have suggested that the stone might not represent ancestors, but rather other supernatural entities, such as deities.Template:Sfn

The Hoarstones are one of two prehistoric stone circles known to survive in Shropshire, the other being Mitchell's Fold.Template:Sfn These were among five probable stone circles that are historically recorded as being within two miles of each other, largely in Shropshire but also stretching in neighbouring Powys.Template:Sfn Alongside the Hoarstones and Mitchell's Fold, the Whetstones was also a large circle; it was destroyed in 1870. A fourth stone circle, the Druid's Castle, as well as a fifth possible example, at Shelve, were smaller.Template:Sfn Given the differences in size, the archaeologist Aubrey Burl suggested that the Druid's Castle was erected at a different time to the larger three rings.Template:Sfn Of this group of stone circles, the Hoarstones were the most northerly.Template:Sfnm

Description

File:Shot holes in one of the stones in Hoarstones stone circle - geograph.org.uk - 209196.jpg

Two of the small holes evident in a stone within the circle, reportedly drilled by miners

The ground on which the circle stands is flat,Template:Sfn and often boggy.Template:Sfn The Hoarstones contains between 38 and 40 stones,Template:Sfn arranged in an elliptical fashion.Template:Sfnm The ring measures between 23.3 by 21.1m in diameter,Template:Sfn making it larger than average for the stone circle tradition.Template:Sfnm Burl noted that it was "irregularly graded" to the southeast.Template:Sfn There is a gap between stones on the east side of the monument, which may have been originally intended as an entrance into the ring.Template:Sfnm Just south of the centre of the circle is a single stone, measuring around 1 metre (3 feet) high;Template:Sfnm it is unclear if this is an original prehistoric feature of the monument or a later addition.Template:Sfnm Unlike at some stone circles, there is no clear evidence of a ditch surrounding the stones.Template:Sfn

The stones themselves are small.Template:Sfnm They are a type of local dolerite, which Burl suggested came from the nearby Stapeley Hill.Template:Sfnm The stones have been inserted into a bed of loam.Template:Sfn Some of these stones are buried within the surrounding peat,Template:Sfn and they are often concealed amid the grass growing around them.Template:Sfn Chitty suggested that some of these stones might have been deliberately shaped and that the larger examples were supported with small pieces of sandstone packing their bases.Template:Sfnm There are small holes in some of the stones. According to an account recorded in 1893, these were caused during weddings held nearby, when miners drilled holes in the rocks and filled them with gunpowder to produce explosions.Template:Sfnm

Burl believed that the Hoarstones dated from the Early Bronze Age.Template:Sfn

History

Antiquarian and archaeological investigation

The Reverend C. H. Hartshorne visited the site in 1838, publishing the record of this in 1841.Template:Sfn Around 1897, a Mr Jarrett ploughed up a perforated sandstone axe-head from the field immediately to the south of the circle, later donated to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.Template:Sfn

In August 1924, Lily F. Chitty visited the stone circle to measure it for the Stone Monuments Committee of the British Association, noting that at that time the area around it was overgrown with gorse, heather, and marsh grass. On that visit, she was able to identify 33 stones in the circle.Template:Sfn She returned in September with her father, the Reverend J. C. M. Chitty, at which point she was able to ascertain the location of three more stones.Template:Sfn Assisted by Mr Roberts, the Chittys removed much of the foliage and opened a trench across the northeast part of the circle, revealing a previously concealed stone. This project resulted in the identification of 38 stones.Template:Sfn Chitty took chippings of several stones and presented them to Dr H. H. Thomas of the Geological Museum in Jermyn Street, who identified it as being of the dolerite found in Stapeley Hill.Template:Sfn

Folklore

In 1881 a widow surnamed Preece, who lived in Rorrington, reported that she knew of the stone circle as the "Fairesses Ring" and that six figures had been reported as having been seen dancing there.Template:Sfn Writing in the 1920s, Lily F. Chitty commented that she suspected that this name and its associations had actually been applied to the Mitchell's Fold circle.Template:Sfn Chitty also reported a tradition that the ring was called "the Roman Stones," supposing that the name had been transferred from the nearby Roman Gravels, and that "visitors" to the site whom she encountered had reported that the sacrament used to be administered from a hole in the stones.Template:Sfn

Further reading

• CH Hartshorne, "Salopia Antiqua" 1841, p. 39
• WF Grimes in Culture and Environment 1966, p. 127

External links

• Hoarstones at The Megalithic Portal