Hurlers Stone Circles

The Hurlers are three stone circles on Bodmin Moor in east Cornwall. They lie half a mile west of Minions village and four miles north of Liskeard. Two standing stones called the Pipers stand nearby. Rillaton Barrow and Trethevy Quoit are close by as well. The site is managed by the Cornwall Heritage Trust for English Heritage. Legends say hurling players turned to stone for playing on Sunday. The Pipers are said to be musicians punished the same way. John Norden first wrote of the circles around 1584. William Camden mentioned them in 1586. William Borlase gave the first detailed account in 1754. Excavations in the 1930s restored parts of the northern circles. The southern circle now has only two upright stones and seven buried ones. The middle circle, the largest, has fourteen of its original twenty-eight stones still standing. The northern circle once had about thirty stones, fifteen of which remain visible. The stones show signs of being hammered smooth. A geophysical survey in 2004 suggested there might be a fourth circle nearby. The site was protected as a scheduled monument in 1981.