History of Castlerigg Stone Circle
Castlerigg in Cumbria is one of the best-known and most enchanting stone circles in Britain. This is partly due to its breathtaking setting, on a hilltop with panoramic views of the Lake District’s dramatic scenery. The ceremonial monument, a ring of 38 standing stones, was probably built around 4,500 years ago, in the late Neolithic period.
Various astronomical alignments have been proposed for Castlerigg, but it is most likely to have been linked to midwinter sunrise.
Making the circle
No excavations have taken place here since 1882, so the age of the stone circle is uncertain. In 1976 the archaeologist Aubrey Burl argued that Castlerigg is a very early example, made by Britain’s earliest farmers about 5,200 years ago, but the evidence supporting his theory is not strong. Many stone circles were built hundreds of years later, between 4,500 and 4,200 years ago, when the use of metals began in earnest. Recent archaeological survey hints, however, that the stone circle may rest on top of an earlier monument comprising a circle of bank and ditch.
Large boulders, released by melting glaciers at the end of the Ice Age, were once scattered over the surrounding fields, so the standing stones were probably not transported far. But since the largest stone may weigh 16 tons, dozens of people must have been needed to move it. This implies that the monument served a fairly large community.
Quite typically, the stones do not form a geometrically perfect circle. This is almost certainly because the builders were concerned to make the ring appear circular to people close to it on the ground, rather than to achieve geometrical accuracy. The diameter varies between 30 and 33 metres, and the circle’s 38 stones vary in height between 1.0 and 2.3 metres. A wide gap on the north side seems to be an original entrance. Originally the circle may have comprised 50 or more stones.
Within the circle
There are two low, circular mounds, each 3.6 metres (12 feet) in diameter, placed symmetrically just inside the north-facing entrance. These were never much higher than they are today and are very easy to overlook. They have never been excavated, but resemble burial mounds from the earliest part of the Bronze Age (sometimes referred to as the Copper Age), which were made about 4,300 years ago to mark the graves of individuals. They may therefore be about the same age as the stone circle. People entering the circle through the northern entrance must have passed between the mounds.
Also within the stone circle is a rectangular arrangement of ten stones, measuring about 7 by 3 metres internally. Early archaeologists named it The Sanctuary, believing that it might be the remains of an ancient burial chamber. A trench was excavated within the rectangle in 1882. No artefacts were unearthed, and archaeological deposits that would be studied carefully today were thrown aside.
The Sanctuary is clearly a later addition to the circle, but how much later? The feature has always been assumed to be prehistoric, but recent analysis suggests that it may be the remains of a medieval shepherd’s cottage or sheep pen. If it was constructed by shifting some of the smaller prehistoric standing stones, the original circle may have comprised 50 stones or more.
Astronomical alignments
In the 20th century, several archaeologists identified various alignments between stones in the circle and one or two outlying stones. They argued that these alignments were carefully designed to predict the points where celestial phenomena would appear on the mountainous horizon.
There are serious problems with this theory. First, we know that many of the standing stones were moved slightly between 1790 and 1850. Secondly, we know that when the circle was made, much of this landscape may have remained heavily wooded. It is possible that the circle stood in a small clearing and that trees screened out the panoramic views we enjoy today.
The largest stone at Castlerigg stands edgeways to the curve of the circle. Next to it is a second large stone, now fallen, which may originally have formed a pair. For someone standing between the two low burial mounds, the sun would in theory rise between these two stones at the midwinter solstice, on the shortest day of the year. But this would only be the case if the horizon was flat: in reality the distant mountains mean that the sun first appears further to the south. If the stone circle was surrounded by woodland, that would have increased this effect.
However, most archaeologists believe that prehistoric people were usually more concerned to achieve approximate alignments that symbolised a relationship with midwinter sunrise or sunset, rather than absolute precision.
How was the stone circle used?
The apparent relationship of the tallest stone, or stones, to sunrise on the shortest day of the year hints that the stone circle hosted annual ceremonies. Throughout north-west Europe, Neolithic and Bronze Age people were concerned with the ‘rebirth’ of the year at the winter solstice, when the sun rises at the same point on the horizon for nearly two weeks, before the days get longer again. We may imagine that there were rituals, perhaps lasting all through the longest night of the year, to encourage the sun to return.
Seasonal gatherings were also opportunities for scattered communities to trade, exchange information, socialise and find partners. Some archaeologists have argued that stone circles played a key role in trading stone axeheads. Thousands of these were quarried and shaped at Great Langdale, less than 20 miles from Castlerigg, and then distributed throughout the British Isles and even into northern Europe.
This theory is now in doubt. One Great Langdale axehead was found near Castlerigg in 1875, but the exact location is not known. In addition, recent research suggests that almost all stone axes were made and distributed early in the Neolithic, possibly before the stone circle even existed.
A Neolithic axehead
This Neolithic stone axehead, found near Castlerigg in 1875, is made from a distinctive blue-green stone quarried from nearby Great Langdale. This one was left ‘flaked’, while others were ground down more and polished smooth. Various types of wood were used to make the axe handles, but few of these have been preserved.
Until recently, it was assumed that all Neolithic axes were used by early farmers to clear woodland to make space for growing wheat and barley. However, the latest scientific analysis shows that they were also used for other tasks, while the most beautiful examples were probably status symbols, or ceremonial weapons.
A contemporary newspaper report explains that the axehead was found by a farmer, Wilfrid Crosthwaite of Low Nest Farm, while raking ‘twitch’ (an invasive grass) in a field near the stone circle. The farmland he owned means it was found in either the field immediately to the north or the one to the east.
The axehead is now in Keswick Museum.
‘Playing Tricks with the stones’
In the mid 18th century, the land around the stone circle was ploughed to grow wheat and barley, leaving obvious ridges on the ground surface. At least one stone was moved to make ploughing easier and the cultivation even encroached slightly within the circle.
When the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge visited Castlerigg in November 1799, he commented that ‘The Keswickians have been playing Tricks with the stones’. Analysis of early drawings and paintings shows that 13 stones were re-erected or moved slightly between about 1794 and 1848. These changes included the creation of two closely spaced pairs of stones on the south-west part of the circle and the erection of a new outlying stone, which together created an alignment towards midwinter sunset.
At a similar date, a stand of larch trees, resembling a ‘druidical grove’, was planted at the centre of the circle to enhance its mystical atmosphere. All this activity relates to the growing perception of the Lake District as an untamed, primeval landscape – a romantic fantasy promoted by poets and artists.
Further reading
Anderson, WD, ‘Some recent observations at the Keswick Stone Circle’, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, new series, 15 (1915), 99–112
Burl, A, A Guide to the Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany, revised edn (New Haven and London, 2005)
Clare, T, ‘Some Cumbrian stone circles in perspective’, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, new series, 75 (1975), 1–16
Clare, T, ‘The environs of the Castlerigg stone circle: an analysis of the landscape of the Naddle Valley near Keswick’, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, new series, 99 (1999), 67–87
Oswald, A and Durgeat, C, ‘A new survey of The Carles stone circle, Castlerigg, Cumbria’, in New Light on the Neolithic of Northern England, ed G Hey and P Frodsham (Oxford, 2021), 203–9
Waterhouse, J, The Stone Circles of Cumbria (Chichester, 1985)
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