Nine Ladies Stone Circle

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The Nine Ladies stone circle

Nine Ladies is a Bronze Age stone circle on Stanton Moor in Derbyshire. Part of the Peak District National Park, the site is owned by English Heritage and is often visited by tourists and hill walkers.

The traditional explanation for the circle in local folklore is that nine ladies were turned to stone here in punishment for dancing on the Lord's Day, transformed as they danced in a circle.

The circle is part of a complex of prehistoric circles and standing stones on Stanton Moor.

Description

The King Stone looking towards the Nine Ladies

There are nine upright stones, each of local millstone grit, each about a yard high, in a clearing in a modern wood planted on Stanton Moor.[1] They stand in a rough circle with a gap at the south side of the circle where no stone-hole has been found. However, an additional stone, lying flat rather than upright, was discovered after being exposed as a crop mark in the dry weather of 1976. It is now visible.[2]

The circle is built on an embankment which levelled the local terrain.[3] The small "King Stone" lies 45 yards from the circle to the west and is clearly visible from it.[4]

The Nine Ladies were among the 28 archetypal monuments in England and Wales included in General Pitt-Rivers’ Schedule to the first Ancient Monuments Protection Act, which became law in 1882. It was taken into state care the following year.[5]

Quarry protest

The site has been the focus of a long-running environmental protest.

In 1999 Stancliffe Stone Ltd submitted a planning application to re-open two dormant quarries (Endcliffe and Lees Cross) on the wooded hillside beside Stanton Moor. The proposed quarry was only 200 yards from thr Nine Ladies, on land owned by Haddon Hall estate and leased to Stancliffe Stone.

The hillside

A local protest group SLAG (Stanton Lees Action Group) was set up to oppose the quarry. The group was joined by environmental protesters who set up a long-running and controversial protest camp. They built many tree houses, from which the inhabitants are hard to evict. The protesters defied a court eviction order in February 2004. However in that year the High Court determined that the quarries were dormant and so within the rules of the National Park they could not be reopened. The protestors nevertheless continued to occupy the site until the winter of 2008–09 when the quarry company finally abandoned its plans,

Modern Druid Activity

A 'sacrifice' in the circle

The site is a popular venue for pagan worship, particularly around the time of the solstices.[6] Pagans were amongst those protesting against the quarrying on the moor.[7] However, the pagan worshippers at the site are not a unified body and so tensions exist: for example, some pagans may leave offerings in the circle, but others regard these as litter.[8]

Outside links

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References

  1. Cope 1998:262
  2. McGuire and Smith 2007:20
  3. McGuire and Smith 2007:26
  4. Burl 1995:53
  5. McGuire and Smith 2007:19
  6. McGuire and Smith 2007:49-50 citing Isherwood 2004
  7. Blain and Wallis 2007
  8. McGuire and Smith 2007:109-110