More information : (NZ 85000463) High Bride Stones (NAT) Stone Row (NR) (1)
A Bronze Age Stone Circle. Many of the individual monoliths are very
large and although more than half of them have fallen this remains
easily the best sanctuary of its kind in this part of the country. (2)
The High Bridestones were surveyed by the Scarborough and
District Arch. Soc. in June 1966. A full report is to be
published; (but see Illustrations card for sketch survey of 2 6
66 and MS notes as follows:-)
Two groups of stones and two isolated stones extending SE/NW. (3)
Eleven much-weathered stones, six standing and five recumbent,
which form a general NW-SE alignment. There are no indications
that they ever formed a circle.
Resurveyed at 1:2500. (4)
High Bridestones, a so-called pair of stone circles, is better
interpreted as the remains of stone rows across 137m of moorland. (5)
NZ 851046. High Brides Stones. Scheduled. (6)
High Bridestones. There have been varying interpretations of the
eleven stones of which six stand. They have been called the remains
of two stone circles with outliers to north and south; standing
stones among natural outcrops; and a ruinous double row or avenue.
They may, instead, be the wreckage of two Four-Posters:
A. At the NW and at right-angles to the line like a terminal stone on
Dartmoor there is a single stone 1.6m high. To its SE, 58m away, are
3 stones at the corner of a rectangle 7.6m x 6.1m from which the NE
stone is missing. The tallest pillar, 1.3m high, is at the SE. The
setting resembles a 'christianised' Four-Poster.
B. A further 23.2m SE is a low, loose stump and 8.5m beyond is a very
questionable Four-Poster in such a disasterous state that little can
be claimed for it. The biggest stone, 2.3m high, still stands and
around it in confusion lie three slabs, 2.5m, 3.1m and 2.3m long.
When the heather is full several outcrops around them can be
mistaken for even more stones. If this was a Four-Poster, its
rectangle would have been about 4.6m x 4m. Like the more identifiable
setting to the NW its sides would have been roughly aligned on the
cardinal points. The circles on which these two sites were laid out
would have been respectively 9.2m and 6m. (7)
Nine Bronze Age standing stones are visible as structures on air photographs, centred at NZ 8500 0463. The stones are approximately aligned south-east to north-west over a distance of 135m, with a cluster of four together possibly forming a circle. The features are extant on the latest 2009 vertical photography.
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