Stone circles are not quite the rarities they might seem. While only a few are widely known – Stonehenge, Avebury, Callanish, Castlerigg – there are hundreds more standing sentinel in the British and Irish countryside. Despite some dating back 5,000 years, their haunting presence has never been fully explained.
In their guide, the archaeologists Colin Richards and Vicki Cummings give a brisk summary and visiting notes to 344 of them. They range along the western swathe of these islands, from the clusters on the Orkneys and Lewis, to those in Devon and Cornwall and the many examples across County Cork (there are none in eastern and south-eastern England). Along the way they include a welter of information about dating, purposes – whether ceremonial or burial – geology and the incorporation of rogue stones dragged huge distances by glaciers or by human hands, and the quarries the megaliths came from. They look too at the importance of the land – and skyscapes of each location. The authors are, at heart, enthusiasts (“this site is a real gem”) and their handsome book will encourage the same in anyone they persuade to go stone-circle bagging.
By Michael Prodger
Yale University Press, 494pp, £30
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