Whetstones

The Whetstones were a stone circle near Corndon Hill in Montgomeryshire, Wales, close to the Shropshire border. The site lay west of White Grit village and Priestweston, a short distance from other circles such as Hoarstones and Mitchell’s Fold. Stone circles appeared across Britain between 3300 and 900 BCE, with the main building phase between 3000 and 1300 BCE. Many were left untouched after construction, suggesting they were silent monuments rather than places of visible ritual. Archaeologists like Mike Parker Pearson link stone with the dead and wood with the living in Neolithic belief. Aubrey Burl noted that circles varied in size and date, and the Whetstones were once one of five such rings within two miles. The Whetstones were recorded in 1841 as a circle with three leaning stones, the largest 1.2 metres long. By 1860 most stones had been destroyed, and the circle was fully demolished in 1870. The Reverend C. H. Hartshorne described the stones as leaning because of soft, boggy soil. Robert William Eyton still called the site remarkable in 1860, but soon after the stones were dug up and used in a boundary wall. When the last stone was removed around 1870, charcoal and bones were seen in the ground. Visitors today can still see remnants of the circle. Large stones from the ring now form part of a field boundary near a footpath. The remains can also be viewed from an adjacent field boundary or from the northern summit of Corndon Hill. Though the circle no longer stands, its traces remain in the landscape. The nearby Hoarstones and Mitchell’s Fold survive as larger examples of the same tradition. The site offers a quiet reminder of Neolithic monument-building across the Welsh borders.