Nine Stones

The Nine Stones is a small stone circle on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, managed by English Heritage. It lies 3 kilometres south-east of Altarnun and 11 kilometres west of Launceston. The circle has only eight standing stones and one central stone, all made of granite. Its diameter is 49 feet, making it the smallest circle on the moor. Two stones were standing in 1889 when the circle was restored. A flat triangular stone rests at the base of one upright. The circle’s stones are irregularly spaced, with the tallest reaching 4.2 feet. A gap in the north suggests a missing stone once stood there. The central stone, 1.1 metres high, may have been moved from the north to mark a parish boundary. Nearby hut circles lie 550 metres to the northeast and another to the south. Alexander Thom proposed a lunar alignment with a nearby stone row, though this idea is now doubted. William Borlase wrote about the circle in the 18th century, and later studies were published by William Copeland Borlase and William C. Lukis. Aubrey Burl included it in his 2005 guide to stone circles. The site offers a quiet place to walk among the stones and see the open moorland around Altarnun.