The clouds over Avebury today were just as spectacular as the henge and stones themselves.

#StandingStoneSunday #StoneClub #Avebury #StoneCircle #StoneCircleSunday

#SummerSolstice greetings to you all.

Here's a photograph I took 10 years ago to the day, of the Merry Maidens stone circle near St Buryan in Cornwall, when Matthew Shaw and I went on a research trip to West Penwith to do some recordings for our project Fougou.

Such a magical place: the stones look up, expectantly, and sing to the skies.

#StandingStoneSunday #MerryMaidens #StoneCircle #Cornwall

I'd like to with everyone a Blessed Litha!

The Holly King rises and the Oak King steps back, now we turn towards winter.

I visited the Rollright Stones on Friday and setup a small altar, it's becoming a little tradition for me. However you choose to celebrate it, may your celebration be peaceful and joyous!

#litha #solstice #summersolstice #pagan #paganism #rollrightstones #stonecircle #oakking #hollyking #wheeloftheyear

Is Buxton Missing a Stone Circle?

If you spend any amount of time exploring the prehistoric landscapes of the Peak District, a curious question begins to emerge.

Why does Buxton appear to be missing a stone circle?

Pull up a chair, let’s have a chat…

The area surrounding the spa town is rich in prehistoric archaeology. A short journey in almost any direction reveals evidence of ancient activity. Arbor Low, often called the Stonehenge of the North, lies to the east. The Bull Ring henge at Dove Holes is one of the finest surviving Neolithic earthworks in Derbyshire. Doll Tor, the Nine Ladies, the Grey Ladies and numerous burial mounds, cairns and standing stones dot the wider landscape.Yet Buxton itself appears to sit within a curious gap.

At first glance this may not seem particularly unusual. Not every settlement requires a stone circle. Ancient communities were shaped by geography, water sources, trade routes, ritual practices and social changes that are often difficult to reconstruct thousands of years later. Nevertheless, Buxton occupies a position that might be expected to attract prehistoric activity.

Long before the Romans arrived and dedicated the thermal waters to the goddess Arnemetia, the springs would almost certainly have been known to local communities. Across Britain, natural springs and unusual water sources frequently became places of ritual significance. Water was life. Water was mystery. Water emerged from beneath the earth carrying both practical and spiritual importance.The question therefore becomes whether the area around modern Buxton hosted prehistoric ceremonial activity that has since been lost, obscured or destroyed.

There is certainly evidence that people were present. The Peak District contains abundant traces of Neolithic and Bronze Age occupation. Routeways crossed the uplands. Burial monuments crowned prominent hills. Ceremonial sites were constructed across the limestone landscapes. Communities farmed, traded and buried their dead here long before recorded history.

The apparent absence of a surviving stone circle in Buxton may therefore reflect modern circumstances rather than prehistoric reality.

Urban development has transformed the landscape. Roman occupation altered the area significantly. Centuries of building, quarrying, agriculture and road construction have erased countless archaeological features across Britain. Some monuments survive because they stood in remote fields. Others vanished beneath towns and cities before antiquarians had the opportunity to record them.

Could Buxton once have possessed a ceremonial site now lost beneath streets, gardens or buildings?

It is not an impossible suggestion.

Alternatively, perhaps the sacred focus of the area was never a stone circle at all. Archaeologists have increasingly recognised that prehistoric ritual landscapes were diverse. Henges, timber circles, standing stones, springs, caves and burial monuments could all fulfil ceremonial functions. The modern tendency to focus on stone circles sometimes obscures the wider range of sacred places used by ancient communities.

This raises another intriguing possibility. Perhaps Buxton’s thermal waters were themselves the focus of ritual attention long before the arrival of the Romans. If so, the absence of a stone circle may not represent a missing monument but a different form of sacred landscape altogether.

As with so many mysteries of prehistory, certainty remains elusive. There is currently no clear evidence for a lost stone circle beneath Buxton. Yet the question remains an interesting one. In a county rich with prehistoric monuments, a town built around extraordinary natural springs occupies a landscape that seems surprisingly quiet.

Or perhaps the evidence is simply waiting to be found.

Sometimes the most interesting mysteries are not the monuments we can see, but the ones we think ought to be there.