Hoarstones

The Hoarstones, or Hoar Stone Circle, is a stone circle in the civil parish of Chirbury with Brompton in the English county of Shropshire. The Hoarstones are part of a tradition of stone circle construction that spread throughout much of Britain, Ireland, and Brittany during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Ages, over a period between 3300 and 900 BCE. The purpose of such monuments is unknown. The Hoarstones are one of up to five stone circles known from this area, on the borders between Shropshire and Powys. Of these, only the Hoarstones and Mitchell's Fold survive. Shaped elliptically, the Hoarstones circle measures 23.3 by 21.1m in diameter. It contains between 38 and 40 small stones, identified as dolerites probably sourced locally. There is a central stone inside the circle, although whether this was part of its original prehistoric design is unclear. Several of the stones contain small holes, which according to 19th-century accounts were caused by miners drilling holes into them; gunpowder was then placed into these holes and lit to produce explosions. The existence of the circle was noted by the antiquarian Reverend C. H. Hartshorne in 1838. An excavation took place in 1924, led by Lily F. Chitty.