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The history of the Rollright Stones - Stone Age to Space Age(5000 Years of History in 3½ minutes)In the neighbourhood of Oxford there are great stones, arranged as it were in some connection by the hand of man. But at what time; or by what people; or for what memorial or significance, is unknown. Though the place is called by the inhabitants Rollendrith.(1) There are three main elements to the Rollright Stones (the name is believed to derive from "Hrolla-landriht", the land of Hrolla.) 1. The Whispering Knights dolmen  The 5000 year old burial chamber of a
Neolithic long barrow. The Knights are a small group of five upright stones 400
yards away from the actual Stone Circle, who got their name because of the
conspiratorial way in which they lean inwards towards each other as if they are
plotting against their king. |
2. The King Stone. This monolith stands 50 yards away from the Stone Circle itself,
across the road in a different county (Warwickshire). Its purpose and age are
unclear, although it is believed to be of middle Bronze Age origin. Some
sources suggest that it might be an outlier to the Stone Circle. The strange
shape (likened to a seal balancing a ball on its nose) of this standing stone
has less to do with the weathering effects of Nature than with the destructive
habit of 19th century drovers who chipped off small pieces to act as lucky
charms and keep the Devil at bay. Thankfully this superstitious vandalism no
longer goes on. |
3. The King's Men, a late Neolithic
ceremonial Stone Circle dating from 2500 to 2000 bce. The
King's Men form a perfect circle 104 feet (38 Druid's Cubits or megalithic
yards) across and stand on a prehistoric trackway at the edge of a ridge. The
hill falls steeply away to the north towards the village of Long Compton which,
in days gone by (and maybe even today), was a stronghold of witches.At present there are 77 stones of heavily weathered local oolitic limestone, which were poetically described by William Stukeley as being "corroded like worm eaten wood, by the harsh Jaws of Time", which made "a very noble, rustic, sight, and strike an odd terror upon the spectators, and admiration at the design of 'em". Aubrey Burl has, in a more down to earth way, called the Rollrights "seventy-seven stones, stumps and lumps of leprous limestone".(2) This number seems to have altered considerably over the years - drawings from the tail-end of the 19th century, just before the Stones were scheduled under the 1882 Ancient Monuments Protection Act along with Stonehenge and Avebury, show about 25 stones in the Circle. "In the year 1882 the proprietor of Little Rollright replaced all the fallen stones in their original foundation." (3) The Rollright Stone Circle is the southerly cousin of the Cumbrian circles such as Swinside and Long Meg and her Daughters in the English Lake District. Family traits include similar size, shape, close-set stones (it is believed that there originally some 105 stones standing shoulder to shoulder), astronomically-aligned entrance and a pair of outlying portals where the gates were hung to stop the sheep from straying into the road. |
The Original
Megalithomaniacs The
17th and 18th century antiquarians who first investigated the British megaliths
were obviously totally fried inspirational geniuses, but were also completely
devoted to their cause and laid many of the foundations for modern archaeology.
Theories for the Rollrights ranged from a victory memorial for Rollo the Dane
(Camden's "Britannia" 1586) to Druid temples (John Aubrey 1649) to having been
built by Romans (Inigo Jones 1655). The Danish interpretation was swept away in 1743 when William Stukeley published "Abury, a Temple of the Druids". Stukeley was to become obsessed by his C-of-E Druidic theories. Of the Rollrights he said, "I cannot but suppose 'em to have been an heathen temple of our Ancestors, perhaps in the Druids' time". Dr (later Rev) Stukeley called Rollright "Rholdrwyg" or "Druid's Wheel" - and he was likely to have been an inspiration behind William Blake's vision of a New Jerusalem. Between them Stukeley, the scholar, and, later, Blake, the poet, ensured that megalithic studies would never in future be entirely secular...and would be as much the rightful property of artists and mystics as of archaeologists.(4) A contemporary of Stukeley, Roger Gale, arrived at the Rollrights in 1719 after visiting Stonehenge and Avebury. He was disappointed that this famous third Circle should seem "but a molehill to a mountain". However, even to this day, many visitors to the Stones find that their character, "approachable in size, yet fantastic in form, produces a much stronger feeling of the mystery of their ancient purpose."(5) |
| Alignments and
Archaeo-astronomy During the last century archaeologists and antiquarians started to adopt a more scientific approach to the study of "megalithic piles". The realisation was dawning that human prehistory was much older than had previously been suspected, and the division of prehistory into the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages was firmly established. The romantic notion that the Druids had been responsible for all things megalithic was also starting to lose favour as rigorous fieldwork became the flavour of the day. At the same time interest in stellar alignments was growing. It was suggested that the King Stone was aligned with the rising of the star Capella or the setting of Alpha Centauri, and various attempts were made to compare the architecture of the Rollrights with that of Stonehenge. All sorts of learned theories were proposed to support idiosyncratic ideas. Many of these "never provided more than tantalising scraps of evidence for the erection of imposing hypotheses...and all too often proved too top-heavy for their meagre foundations of fact."(6) However, the ancient builders of the Circle did create an sightline to the major rising of the midsummer moon - it was raining (again) on the last Solstice so we'll just have to take Aubrey Burl's word on this one.(7) The period between the 1920's and the 1950's saw a revival of straight archaeology at the Rollrights and other Stone Circles. Archaeo-astronomy made a very public re-appearance in 1967 when Professor Alexander Thom published "Megalithic Sites in Britain" - a synthesis of his research into the astronomical alignments, geometry and mathematics of Stone Circles, in which he demonstrated that many megaliths served an ancient astronomical function. Orthodox archaeology by and large dismissed Thom's view that Neolithic men and women possessed considerable, and now lost, mathematical skills. Since then, interest in megalithic studies has been on the increase, with some of the more radical claims for prehistoric science being balanced by traditional archaeology. Even though the Rollright Stone Circle is only 104 feet in diameter it seems to us that there is plenty of room inside it to accomodate whatever theory the visiting megalithomaniac wants to believe. Bibliography 1. Anonymous Cambridge Clerk - 14th Century 2. Aubrey Burl "The Stone Circles of the British Isles" 1976 3. Anon. 1884 4. John Michell "Megalithomania" 1982 5. George Lambrick "The Rollright Stones" 1988 6. George Lambrick "The Rollright Stones" 1988 7. Aubrey Burl "A Guide to the Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany" 1995 |
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