The legend behind the Rollright Stones goes something like this. A local warlord was patrolling a windswept ridgeline with his soldiers when a witch appeared. She presented him with a challenge, saying that if he strode forward seven paces and could see the village of Long Compton, he would become the King of England.
So enticed, he took one long pace forwards, only for a mound of earth to rise up in front of him. As the witch cackled malevolently, the warlord and his men were turned to stone. The unfortunate fellows and their gullible leader remain there to this day, petrified on the hills of the Oxfordshire-Warwickshire border.
Looking for more days out in Oxfordshire? Try our walking routes at Uffington White Horse, Henley-on-Thames and Abingdon Lock.
Rollright Stones
The archaeological truth is no less stirring than the legend. The Rollright Stones are made up of three manmade groupings of heavily pitted natural boulders, weathered into outlandish shapes by millennia of wind and rain. All three sites are within a couple of minutes’ walk of each other.
King’s Men stone circle
The best known is the King’s Men stone circle, a ring of around 70 lichen-covered stones. The consensus is that the circle was used as a ceremonial space and has been in place since between 2500 and 2000BC. Today, votive offerings still dangle from surrounding trees.
King Stone
Across the road from the stone circle you’ll find the eight-foot-tall King Stone, thought to have been here since 1800BC and granting a fabulous view across the low hills.
Whispering Knights
The oldest site of the lot, however, is a short wander to the west, where a cluster of standing stones known as the Whispering Knights is what remains of a weighty burial dolmen, the easternmost of its kind in the British Isles.
It was first erected in 3000BC, a remarkable thought to hold in mind when you gaze across the countryside and ponder the area’s prehistory.
Rollright Stones walk
There is a fine loop walk that leads up through open farmland from the village of Salford, with the Rollright Stones encountered midway through. Say what you like about the legends attached to the place, but the boulders’ strange, hefty presence makes this a special spot.
