With Stonehenge, Avebury and Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire is the English county most associated with Neolithic stone circles and burial mounds. Dorset, its southern neighbor, has nothing of this scale, but there is an ancient quarry – the Valley of the Stones – and a number of smaller but equally atmospheric archaeological sites surrounding it and winding footpaths linking them.
Our day out has maximum atmosphere. We park in the village of Portesham, a former quarry community where boulders can still be seen lining the main street: the land above us is shrouded in mist, blurring the lines of the winter scene.
We drive northeast from the village, up a stony path towards the Hardy Monument, named not after the Dorset writer and poet, but after Thomas Masterton Hardy, Nelson’s deathbed companion. Designed to resemble a ship’s spyglass, the tower rather glows over the land, with Victorian brutalism visible for miles.
We take the footpath that leads to an exposed plateau where buzzards meow above. There we find the Hell Stone
To the south, there are sweeping views across the coast from the 14th-century St Catherine’s Chapel in Abbotsbury, which stands sentinel over Chesil Beach. Then comes the brackish Fleet Lagoon, hemmed in by the edge of sparkling stones, and across the bay is Portland, still a center for quarrying. Instead of climbing the Black Down towards the Hardy Monument, we walk past a roofless stone shed and take the footpath that leads to an exposed plateau where buzzards meow above. There we find a stone with the words: “To the Hell Stone”.
The Hell Stone is a neat burial chamber consisting of a few gray sarsen stones and a capstone above. It’s perfect, with a little room to climb into. Actually it is a bit at perfect: around the same time the Hardy Monument was completed, the Victorians decided to ‘improve’ the Hell Stone, and the capstone was replaced on the open chamber.
I am a bit wary of these interventions, but musician and author Julian Cope describes the effect as beautiful in his masterly book The Modern Antiquarian. Be that as it may, this has always been a deeply human landscape, where people have lived, worked and cultivated. The south of England was settled early, and these higher lands with thinner soil were the easiest to cultivate and more forgiving of crops, especially in winter. During our long walk we encounter few people, but this was once a busy place.
Finding our way north, we come to the Valley of the Stones, the center of this ancient landscape, a vast dry bowl of land formed by retreating ice ages, strewn with boulders like static sheep. This was the natural quarry from which stone circles and dolmens in the area were made. Much of this nature reserve is open access, so we are free to explore the stones.
Last year, a Neolithic polishing stone, or polissoir, a boulder with a smooth and slightly hollowed top, was found by volunteers clearing the brush, a rare discovery. The stone is immovably large, leading to speculation that the valley was once a working area, where people had to sharpen their tools.
I’ve met people who say the Kingston Russell stone circle is a better place than Stonehenge to watch the sun rise
We climb back through the valley, taking a quiet road and then a footpath heading northwest along the edge of a field where cows are gently harassed by seagulls and a few cattle egrets, just one of the more recent migrants to these shores. Past the birds and the cows, and over a new stile, we find the gray mare and her foals. This long burial mound was probably once of greater extent, and although it is likely that 19th-century antiquaries opened the tomb, we know little of their discoveries. This was before the professionalization of archeology by Augustus Pitt Rivers, after whom the Oxford museum is named. Yet the Gray Mare and her Colts are present, sitting in the corner of a field where sheep graze.
We could retrace our steps at this point for a shorter walk, but Kingston Russell’s stone circle is less than half a mile away, a low circle of stones towards the top of a wide hill. Even through the fog the views are dramatic. This circle is remote and unassuming, but I’ve met people who say it’s a better place than Stonehenge to watch the sun rise on the summer solstice.
A loop back through the valley below, past farm buildings, brings us to the Ridgeway. As we walk back east along it we come to the small stone circle of Hampton Down, just off the path. If I was a little suspicious of the Victorians rearranging the Hell Stone, they weren’t the only ones. In the mid-20th century, with a little more sensitivity, the Hampton Circle stones were returned to what was considered their original position. We descend back towards Portesham through a country of deep hollows and medieval field systems, the ridges of which are still clearly defined.
No walk can cover the entire Neolithic archeology here. At Winterbourne Abbas, on the busy A35 in the north, is the Nine Stones circle, which folklore attributes to the devil, his wife and their seven children; and I have heard of at least one “lost” stone circle, described by the 17th century writer John Aubrey.
There may have been others whose stones were taken away for more urgent, practical needs. But recently the power of the stone circle was recognized with the construction of a new henge, with parking, near the Hardy Monument.
It was completed to mark the sunrise on the summer solstice in 2018, when the rising sun first punched a hole in the stones, hitting the single stone in the center. Those present, including a druid and the engineer, were relieved and elated at their success, just as their Neolithic ancestors must have been.
Google map of the route
Begin the end Portesham, Dorset, near Abbotsbury
Distance: 9 miles
Time 4-5 hours,
Difficulty: moderate, some styles
OS Explorer map OL15
GPX track of the route on the Ordnance Survey website
The pub
The Kings Arms in Portesham offers main courses of chalk stream trout and local venison goulash, alongside bar favorites such as burgers and fish and chips. I also enjoyed an excellent pint of Tiger Tom Ruby Mild from the Cerne Abbas Brewery. For food on the go, Duck’s Farm Shop in Portesham (open every day) sells all kinds of picnic essentials.
The rooms
The pub’s three rooms, Chesil, Jurassic and Hardy’s (after the novelist), are decorated in soft, neutral colours.
Rooms from £91 B&B, kingsarmsportesham.co.uk
Jon Woolcott is the author of Truly Dorset (Seren, £9.99) To support The Guardian and Observer, order your copy at Guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply