The King Stone of Rollright (photo by Sir Wilson III)
If you’ve reached the impressive Rollright Stone circle, simply cross the road, go through the gate and into the field, then up the gentle slope to your right. Y’ can’t miss it! If though, by any chance, you can’t find the Rollright Stones, get to Chipping Norton and ask a local!
Archaeology & History
An integral part of the Rollright Stones complex, this gnarled almost moth-eaten-looking standing stone, whose edges were cut away for medicinal properties in earlier centuries, still awakes each morning beside the small rise in the field, long thought to have been the remains of an ancient tomb — much to the archaeologist’s opinionated disdain in bygone years. Yet they had to swallow their pride…
This is an eight-foot-tall standing stone made from the same local oolitic limestone as the King’s Men and overlooks the village of Long Compton on the northern side of the ridge. It actually stands besides an artificial mound which has been identified as a Bronze Age cairn—known in times past as the ‘Archdruid’s Barrow’— and suggested by Lambrick to date from around 1800 BCE. More recently however, the world’s leading authority on stone circles, Professor Aubrey Burl, has given the King Stone a more probable construction date of 3000 BCE. The date is consistent with other Neolithic finds in the adjacent fields. This old standing stone has suffered much down the centuries, with bits of it being chipped away to such an extent that it has been reduced to the novel shape we see today.
Looking up at the King (photo by Sir Wilson III)The King in dance
A little-known but important piece of megalithic history took place here in the 1970s and ’80s. It centred around an idea to investigation so-called “mysterious events” that are commonly reported at standing stones—and the King Stone has its own CV when it comes to such things. Curious stories have been described by people from all walks of life. Down the years, a number of people have told me of feeling some strange and powerful ‘energy’ at these places and stories of such things have filled many volumes, along with being the subject of many a folktale. So one evening in November, 1977, the then editor of The Ley Hunter, Paul Devereux, convened a meeting where twenty people from differing backgrounds gathered. At this first meeting were people from a variety of professional backgrounds: archaeologists, dowsers, chemists, biochemists, biologists, electronic engineers, geochemists, geophysicists, zoologists—and ley hunters of course. It was time, they thought, to address this issue of anomalous energies at stone circles and other ritual sites.
After some discussion about what they should call their investigations, “the long association of the dragon with some kind of earth force made it a fitting symbol.” And so, the Dragon Project (DP) was born…
On the misty morning of Saturday, 24 October, 1978, research scientist Don Robins—in the company of his dog and young son—drove the hundred miles from London to the Rollright Stones armed with a simple ultrasound detector. He didn’t know what he would find there, and his scientific training told him there shouldn’t really be anything untoward.
King Stone, looking W (photo by Sir Wilson III)Stukeley’s 1743 sketch showing the King Stone
Arriving around dawn, Robins took several background readings along some of the lanes a mile or so away and found the usual expected background levels (on a scale of 1-10, the background flickers between 0 and 1). When he eventually walked into the Rollright stone circle with his ultrasound monitor, no undue perturbations were found. He spent thirty minutes here, but at no time did he record anything other than background readings. So he crossed the road and tried the same at the King Stone—where a big surprise awaited him.
Switching on the detector he found an anomalously high reading, beating every minute or so, not unlike a heartbeat, more than five times above the background ultrasound!
“This was really peculiar,” he wrote, “in that the pattern was spread over about a minute and then commenced again after about 10 seconds, endlessly repeated.” Robins spent some time here and found that the strange ‘pulse’ wasn’t solely confined to the King Stone, but spread some distance around the old standing stone and onto the road itself.
Investigation of potential radiation anomalies was another avenue of enquiry explored by the Dragon Project, and although thousands of hours of monitoring were done at the three focal sites, there were few anomalies to write home about. Two however, were recorded in March and August, 1981, when radiation levels were twice the normal background rate for short periods of just a few minutes each. More puzzling was the finding—which can still be verified today—of radiation levels three and four times above background on the road between the circle and the King Stone.
Next on the list was an attempt to monitor the Rollright stones with infrared devices. This proved to be a potential goldmine, as there was the chance of photographic imagery. So early one morning in April, 1979, Paul Devereux readied himself at the King Stone. He took a number of photos at five minute intervals either side of sunrise. This time of day was chosen because of the repeated anomalous ultrasound emissions from the King and it was thought that this, if any, would be the best time to capture something on film.
“When the first roll of black-and-white IR film was professionally developed,” he wrote, “I was astonished to see a curious ‘glow’ effect around the King stone on the frame taken at sunrise.” His first account of it appeared in The Ley Hunter, where he described how “a hazy glow can be seen clinging to the sides and upper parts of the megalith. This glow becomes much stronger at the top of the stone where it looks like a cap of light.” Although the sun had risen, it was off to the left of picture and apparently no satisfactory explanation can be given to the effect on the plate. Research physicist Simon Hasler—who worked for Kodak—closely studied the negatives of this image and found the evidence for a simple explanation “weak.” A possible explanation of the mysterious glow was propounded by Don Robins, who suggested that an emission of microwaves from the stone may have been responsible, and although this sounds promising it has yet to be proven.
Folklore
(photo by Sir Wilson III)
Amidst the mass of modern lore, dowsed energy lines exceed here — although to be honest, most of them are little more than bullshit. Old school alignments in the form of leys that can be walked along are more credible, and one or two have been noted here. Dowser Laurence Main found a ley running between Broughton Church, “the old White Cross, the Victorian Cross and the old Bread Cross in Banbury. In the other direction the line led straight to the King Stone.” Although this line accurately links up these sites, other ‘ley points’ are utterly necessary between Broughton Church and the King Stone to give the alignment any real credibility. In a concise survey of the megalithic remains of this region made by Tom Wilson and myself, no other ley-points were found along the line.
In more traditional animist-based folklore, the creation myth here is well known. The famous, oft-repeated tale recites how a King and his men were marching across the land intent on conquering it when he came across an old hag, or witch near Rollright who offered the regal figure a magickal challenge. Some accounts name the witch as Mother Shipton—not the famous Yorkshire seer of the same name, but her less powerful (obviously!) southern counterpart. The old witch said to the King:
“Seven long strides thou shalt take, and
If Long Compton thou can’st see,
King of England thou shalt be.”
His majesty took this as a simple task and, with contempt, said to the old witch:
“Stick, stock, stone,
As King of England I shall be known.”
From where he was standing (which is never told, but presumed by most as the stone circle) the King then took seven long strides in the direction of Long Compton. As he was taking his seventh step the witch made the ground in front of him rise up, hence blocking his view of the village in the valley below. The old hag then said:
“As Long Compton thou canst not see,
King of England thou shalt not be.
Rise up, stick, and stand still, stone,
For King of England thou shalt be none;
Thou and thy men hoar stones shall be
And I myself an eldern tree.”
Thereupon, the King’s men who were waiting behind their master, the five knights in the field who were said to be conspiring against his majesty, and the King himself, were all turned into stone where they stood. The elder tree that the old witch turned herself into, was said to have grown along the old boundary close to the roadside, but this can no longer be verified. The folklorist Arthur Evans described several spots where the famed elder tree was said to have grown: one in the field close to the Whispering Knights, and another in the same field as the King Stone, close by another large stone that has long since gone.
When William Stukeley visited the area in the 18th century and heard about the legendary origin of these great monoliths, he told how “the country people for some miles round are very fond of, and take it very ill if anyone doubts it,” telling later, “The people who live at Chipping Norton and all the country round our first described temple of Rowldrich affirm most constantly, and as surely believe it, that the stones composing this work are a king, his nobles, and Commons turned into stones.
Another piece of animistic lore tells how the King Stone and the Whispering Knights venture, at midnight, less than half a mile south to drink from a spring in the small woodland at Little Rollright Spinney—although it is difficult to ascertain precisely which of the two springs the stones are supposed to visit. In some accounts, the stones reputedly drink from the well every night, but others tell that they only go there at certain times of the year, or on saint’s days. When Arthur Evans wrote of these tales he described there being a “gap in the bushes… through which they go down to the water,” but the terrain has altered since his day.
A variation of the same tale was told by T.H. Ravenhill, who wrote:
The old King c.1945King Stone, c.1920
“The Lord of the Manor of Little Rollright desired to possess the King’s Stone in order to bridge Little Rollright brook. So he dug it up and tried to cart it away, but found that he had not enough horses. He hitched on more, and yet more, and still he found that he could not move the stone. Finally he succeeded and hauled the stone away to the Manor House. The same night he was alarmed by strange sounds about the house, which he attributed to the presence of the King’s Stone, and decided, therefore, to replace it on its mound. No sooner had he harnessed the first horse to the cart than it galloped away up hill with ease, taking with it the stone, which leapt to position on reaching its resting place.”
Evans also wrote about an eighty-year-old local woman who told that her mother visited the King Stone on Midsummer’s Eve, along with many other locals, when the elder was in full bloom and they would stand in a full circle around the tall monolith. Ritual of a sort was performed then the elder tree was cut and, as it bled, “the King moved his head.” This annual rite was said to partially disempower the witch of her magickal hold over the King when her blood trickled from the tree. Some locals believed that if but a pin-prick of the witch’s blood was drawn, she would lose her power for all eternity.
Beneath both the Rollright stone circle and the King Stone, legend reputes there to be such a cavern where the little people live. In some accounts they are said to dance around the old King.
Arthur Evans told how one local man, Will Hughes, actually saw the faerie dancing round the King.
“They were little folk like girls to look at,” he said.
Old postcard, c.1910Sketch from 1904
Will’s widow, Betsy Hughes, told Evans that “when she was a girl and used to work in the hedgerows, she remembered a hole in the bank by the King Stone, from which it is said the fairies came out to dance at night. Many a time she and her playmates had placed a flat stone over the hole of an evening to keep the fairies in, but they always found it turned over next morning.” This curious entrance was a neolithic burial mound. Mark Turner described how the little people were “supposed to come out and dance around the stones by moonlight.”
As we have already seen, people used to take chippings off some of the old stones here—primarily the King—supposedly for luck, protection and good fortune. Local people used to blame Welsh workers more than anyone, but they wouldn’t be the only ones! Although those who took such chippings believed the pieces brought them luck, more often than not it was the opposite that happened. One local woman told Evans about her son who went to India as a soldier in the 19th century with a piece of the King Stone in his possession, but it did him no good whatsoever. He died of typhus! The Oxford archaeologist George Lambrick (1988) highlights in his book on the Rollright stones the extent of damage that has been done to the King Stone since 1607.
References:
Anonymous, The Rollright Stones: Theories and Legends, privately printed, n.d.
Bennett, Paul & Wilson, Tom, The Old Stones of Rollright and District, Cockley: London 1999.
Bloxham, Christine, Folklore of Oxfordshire, Tempus 2005.
Cowper, B.H., ‘Oxfordshire Legend in Stone,’ Notes & Queries (1st series), 7, January 15, 1853.
Devereux, Paul, ‘Is This the Image of the Earth Force?’ in The Ley Hunter 87, 1979.
Devereux, Paul, ‘Operation Merlin,’ in The Ley Hunter 88, 1980.
Devereux, Paul, ‘Operation Merlin 2,’ in The Ley Hunter 89, 1980.
Devereux, Paul, ‘The Third Merlin,’ in The Ley Hunter 92, 1981.
Devereux, Paul, Places of Power, Blandford: London 1990.
Devereux, Paul, The Sacred Place, Cassell: London 2000.
Evans, Arthur J., ‘The Rollright Stones,’ in Trans. Bristol & Glouc. Arch. Soc., 40, 1892.
Evans, Arthur J., ‘The Rollright Stones and their Folklore (3 parts),’ in Folklore Journal, 1895.
Lambrick, George, The Rollright Stones: The Archaeology and Folklore of the Stones and their Surroundings, Oxford Archaeology Review 1983. (Reprinted and updated in 1988.)
Michell, John, Megalithomania, Thames & Hudson: London 1982.
Pennick, Nigel & Devereux, Paul, Lines on the Landscape, Hale: London 1989.
Ravenhill, T.H., The Rollright Stones and the Men Who Erected Them, Little Rollright 1926.
Robin Hood wells are numerous in Yorkshire and Derbyshire, but finding them in this neck o’ the woods is unusual (a Robin Hood’s Farm can be found nearly 14 miles south). The waters here would have had obvious importance for local peasant folk in bygone centuries, perhaps with scatterings of Beltane and Midsummer rites hereby; but it seems that records are silent on such matters. The only reference I can find of this place is in Bracken’s (1860) fascinating work on Sutton Coldfield, where he told that,
“At the extremity of the parish, near Pype, a little field is still called the Bowbearer’s Croft. Tradition says two officers of the chase, bowbearers, had a lodge there; and that their duty was to guide the travellers across the wild country. A very old cottage, that had been well built, was removed from the croft in 1828. In that neighbourhood was a fountain, called Robin Hood’s well, now enclosed within the grounds of Penns, where the natural beauties of the situation have been judiciously displayed and improved by the taste of the late proprietor, Joseph Webster.”
Marshy ground to the east of Pype Hall fed the large pond, which is one contender for the site of this lost well. What has become of it? A search in the local library archives for any old manorial maps, or the field-name maps showing Bowbearer’s would prove truly helpful in relocating this site.
References:
Bracken, L., History of the Forest and Chase of Sutton Coldfield, Simpkin Marshall: London 1860.
Highlighted on the 1884 Ordnance Survey map of the region and located beyond the far eastern end of Braceridge Lake, this legendary well has seen better days. A small well-house once covered the spring, but all we have left today is little more than a rectangular stone-lined concrete hole-in-the-ground where the waters collect (hopefully some local folk can bring it back to life). But in the 19th century it was well known, much frequented and maintained.
Not much seems to be known about its mythic history, as the traditions surrounding its dual pagan-christian dedication seem to have been forgotten. When the local writer Tom Burgess (1893) came to explore its history, he merely wrote:
“How it came to be called the Druids’ Well is not known, it is scarcely necessary to say that it can have no Druidical connection; it is very probable, however, that it was dedicated to Saint Mary long before the dam of Bracebridge Pool was made by Ralph Bracebridge in the reign of Henry V.”
Druids Well in 1917Druid’s Well in 1932
Jeremy Harte (2008) suggested that this well’s druidic association may have come from a local man, William Hutton who, in the middle of the 18th century, “speculated on a druid sanctuary near Sutton Coldfield.” But before Hutton, the 17th century Staffordshire topographer, Robert Plot, suggested that an arch-druid held residence on Barr Beacon, which is less than three miles west of here. This idea was echoed by Midgley (1904) who told that Barr Beacon “is supposed to have been a Druidical shrine.” Just over three miles to the northwest, the Druid’s Heath (a place-name derived, apparently, from an old family) at Aldridge also had its own array of folklore which, perhaps, may have had something to do with this well’s association. When Roy Palmer (1976) wrote about the Druid’s Well in his folklore survey, he told that Sutton Coldfield,
“is said once to have been the seat of the arch-druid of Britain; perhaps this was his well, which was later christianized.”
So much to choose from…
References:
Bord, Janet, Holy Wells in Britain – A Guide, HOAP: Wymeswold 2008.
Bracken, L., History of the Forest and Chase of Sutton Coldfield, Simpkin Marshall: London 1860.
Harte, Jeremy, English Holy Wells – volume 2, Heart of Albion press: Wymeswold 2008.
Midgley, W., A Short History of the Town and Chase of Suton Coldfield, Midland Counties Herald: Birmingham 1904.
Palmer, Roy, The Folklore of Warwickshire, Batsford: London 1976.
Acknowledgements:Huge thanks for use of the Ordnance Survey map in this site profile, reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Scotland.
Tumulus (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – SP 2946 3090
Archaeology & History
Only known drawing of Gough’s Barrow
In days of olde there were heathen sites around the edges of the beautiful Rollright Stones complex that have sadly fallen prey to the intensive agriculture of more modern ‘civilized’ times. It’s become the way of things….. One site of importance in this geomythic pantheon was the ‘Gough’s Barrow’—so named after a drawing was done of the site by Richard Gough, editor of the 1789 edition of Camden’s Britannia. As far as I’m aware, it is the only one ever done of this monument. The Oxford archaeologist George Lambrick (1988) saw “every reason to accept the position and details of the barrow”, upon which stood at least two large stones—one of which gained the description of a ‘druidical pillar.’
Stukeley’s 1743 drawing
The same barrow may have been recorded in one of drawings of the great William Stukeley, who visited the Rollright Stones in 1710 and then again in 1723. On the left-side of the adjacent drawing you can see a denuded mound close to the edge of the picture, similar in shape and form to that drawn by Richard Gough. It is probably the same tumulus or barrow. Trial excavations at the site in 1983 looked for any remains of the old tomb, but nothing significant was uncovered. Lambrick estimated that the site probably measured “about 18m wide and 20m long east-west,” and “was a megalithic barrow and was therefore probably Neolithic in origin.”
References:
Bennett, Paul & Chanter, James, The Complete Rollright Stones, forthcoming
Bennett, Paul & Wilson, Tom, The Old Stones of Rollright and District, Cockley Press: Chipping Norton 1999.
Burl, Aubrey, Great Stone Circles, Yale University Press 1999.
Lambrick, George, The Rollright Stones, English Heritage 1988.
