Arbor Low

One of the megalithic sites I first read about, way back in the late 70s, was Arbor Low, in Derbyshire. The name stays with you, somehow. It is a sizeable henge, with ditch, big circle, a causeway and a little tumulus (Gib Hill) a few hundred yards away. The whole thing is a kind of Avebury/Silbury Hill on smaller scale, in limestone. As with Avebury, the Christians tried very hard to take this one down, and here, unlike Avebury, they succeeded. Not one of the stones now stands. But they all lay where they fell, and despite being limestone and melting away, it takes little imagination to see a very impressive circle, of interesting stone, large, and with associated peripherals. It is on a farm out in the boonies, several miles from Bakewell (not Half-Baked).

Places like Arbor Low were not protected, from Christians

or antiquarians or farmers, until the Antiquities Act of 1882;

at Arbor Low, the "VR" (Victoria Regina) posts circle the

monument itself; damn, I'd like to have one of those for my

garden!

Arbor Low; imagine all the stones up-right

Scale...big stones

Ditch and henge segment

Mental note: when we build our stone circle, we'll want to

use metamorphic rock

Gib Hill, a few hundred yard away from the henge