Sunday, July 1, 2012

Rollright Stones

I recently was perusing through a large lot of old postcards. I located an interesting old Real Photo postcard of some kind of rock formation. Upon closer examination, it turned out to be a British postcard. At first glance it appeared to be a Stonehenge type of landmark. It was called Rollright Stone or Roll Right Stones. 


As I kept scanning through the lot I located another similar view, and then another, and another....Apparently there must be a set of these? I kept going and assembled a nice group of these and decided to research them at a later date. 


Well here is is six months or so later and I just came across these cards again in my "to be sorted" box! A quick Google search yielded a ton of info on this bizarre British attraction! 


The Rollright Stones are a group of 3 Neolithic and Bronze Age megalithic monuments located near the small village of Long Compton, on the borders of Oxfordshire and Warwickshire in the English Midlands. They are constructed from local oolitic limestone and are called as The King's Men, The King Stone and The Whispering Knights. Each was built at a different period in history. The long stretch of time during which the three monuments were erected bears witness to a continuous tradition of ritual behavior on this sacred ground, from the 4th to the 2nd millennium BCE.  



The ancient site complex consists of three main elements, The Kings Men stone circle, the King Stone, and the Whispering Knights. The King's Men is a late Neolithic ceremonial Stone Circle dating from 2500 to 2000 bce. The King Stone is a monolith standing 50 yards away from the Stone Circle itself, across the road in a different county (Warwickshire). And the Whispering Knights is a 5000 year old burial chamber, believed to be part of a Neolithic long barrow. The Knights are a small group of five upright stones 400 yards away from the actual Stone Circle, who got their name because of the conspiratorial way in which they lean inwards towards each other as if they are plotting against their king. 


The name “Rollright” is believed to derive from “Hrolla-landriht”, or the land of Hrolla.


A neat old group of postcards from the UK! 

1 comment:

  1. jhildreth@threelobed.comAugust 24, 2012 at 7:42 AM

    Very nice cards, the locals used to think these stones would move on their own at certain times...

    ReplyDelete