Nothing to do with King Arthur

Inspired by our visit to the Stonehenge Exhibition at the British Museum and now reading the book, which I of course bought, I decided it was time to return to some of our very own ancient monuments. Most I will have blipped at least once in the past, but I am not going to worry about that. 

Yesterday I found stones which I didn’t even know about, but today is a monument I know very well indeed, having passed it regularly and visited several times:

King Arthur’s Round Table at Eamont Bridge.

Of course this has nothing at all to do with King Arthur, it is a Henge monument of the Neolithic period. A Henge is a ring of earth surrounding a parallel trench creating an enclosure that resembles an island of earth and this is one of the few surviving examples in the country. (Incidentally Stonehenge is not technically a henge!). It is also special as it has two entrances opposite each other. Henges belong to the time when people were beginning to live in settled communities and built places where they could gather, in particular it is thought to watch and celebrate sunrise, sunset, solstice. In an agricultural community these were very important times.  When we were in Northumberland last year we visited Milfield where a henge has been reconstructed (see extra). This gives an idea of what it might have been like here. 

The other interesting thing is that just across the road is Mayburgh Henge, a very impressive megalithic henge. Before the wall, the road, the houses which you can see in the photo, it would have been a very short walk across from one to the other. 

I have always had difficulty photographing this henge as it is hard to get the 3D effect. I thought that getting there just as the sun went down might create some shadows. We were a little late, as you can see from the sky. Anyway, here is the henge seen from one of the entrances. Still impressive despite everything.