Hoarstones

The Hoarstones is a stone circle on Black Marsh, a stretch of moorland 300 metres above sea level near Shelve in Shropshire. It stands seven miles north of Bishop’s Castle and five and a half miles north of Lydham, overlooked by the quartzite ridge of the Stiperstones to the east. Built between 3300 and 900 BCE, it belongs to the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Ages when such circles spread across Britain, Ireland and Brittany. The circle measures 23.3 by 21.1 metres and contains between 38 and 40 small local dolerite stones, with one taller stone standing near the centre. A gap on the east side may once have served as an entrance, though no surrounding ditch has been found. The circle is one of only two prehistoric stone circles still standing in Shropshire, the other being Mitchell’s Fold. Reverend C. H. Hartshorne recorded it in 1838 and named it Marsh Pool Circle, while earlier names included Black Marsh and Hemford. In 1924 Lily F. Chitty excavated the site, identifying more stones and confirming their local stone type. Some stones bear small holes said to have been drilled by miners for gunpowder explosions during 19th-century weddings. Archaeologist Aubrey Burl believed the circle dated to the Early Bronze Age. Visitors find an elliptical ring of low stones set in flat, often boggy ground amid heather and marsh grass. The central standing stone rises about a metre high, though it is unclear whether it is original. The stones are small dolerites from nearby Stapeley Hill, some half-buried in peat or hidden by grass. Folklore once spoke of the circle as the Fairesses Ring where dancing figures were seen, and later as the Roman Stones, perhaps linked to nearby Roman remains. The site remains quiet and open, its purpose still unknown after more than four thousand years.