Reasons for Designation
Stone circles are prehistoric monuments comprising one or more circles of
upright or recumbent stones. The circle of stones may be surrounded by
earthwork features such as enclosing banks and ditches. Single upright stones
may be found within the circle or outside it and avenues of stones radiating
out from the circle occur at some sites. Burial cairns may also be found close
to and on occasion within the circle. Stone circles are found throughout
England although they are concentrated in western areas, with particular
clusters in upland areas such as Bodmin and Dartmoor in the south-west and the
Lake District and the rest of Cumbria in the north-west. This distribution may
be more a reflection of present survival rather than an original pattern.
Where excavated they have been found to date from the Late Neolithic to the
Middle Bronze Age (c.2400-1000 BC). It is clear that they were designed and
laid out carefully, frequently exhibiting very regularly spaced stones, the
heights of which also appear to have been of some importance. We do not fully
understand the uses for which these monuments were originally constructed but
it is clear that they had considerable ritual importance for the societies
that used them. In many instances excavation has indicated that they provided
a focus for burials and the rituals that accompanied interment of the dead.
Some circles appear to have had a calendrical function, helping mark the
passage of time and seasons, this being indicated by the careful alignment of
stones to mark important solar or lunar events such as sunrise or sunset at
midsummer or midwinter. At other sites the spacing of individual circles
throughout the landscape has led to a suggestion that each one provided some
form of tribal gathering point for a specific social group. A four-poster
stone circle is a rectangular or sub-rectangular setting of four or five
stones, which are, or were once, upright. The corner stones of the rectangle
usually lie on the perimeter of a circle. They are confined to high ground,
clustered on Exmoor, the North Yorkshire Moors, Northumberland, Cumbria and
West Yorkshire with outliers in Shropshire and Derbyshire. Of the 250 or so
stone circles identified in England only 22 are examples of four-posters. As a
rare monument type which provides an important insight into prehistoric ritual
activity all surviving examples are worthy of preservation.
Details
The monument includes the remains of a four poster stone circle situated on a
small knoll at the south west end of Ravensheugh Crags. It is formed of four
squat stones set in a 4m square. The stones are graded in height, the tallest
on the WSW side being 0.8m high and the smallest on the ESE side is 0.4m high.
The latter stone is decorated with cup marks or small depressions pecked out
of the rock, a well known form of prehistoric rock art in Northumberland.
There are 13 cup marks arranged on the flat top of the stone and they range in
size from 4cm to 8cm in diameter. Within the circle there are traces of a low
mound; this is thought to be the remains of a stone cairn which predates the
construction of the stone circle and by analogy elsewhere may have covered
Bronze Age burials.
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
Legacy System number:
25065
Legacy System:
RSM
Sources
Books and journals Other
Legal
This monument is scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 as amended as it appears to the Secretary of State to be of national importance. This entry is a copy, the original is held by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
End of official list entry
