This bronze age circle of stones on the edge of Harwood Dale forest looks particularly brooding in the gloom of a November afternoon beneath a sky of gathering rain. Of the original 24 stones, 15 remain. They are set in a low earth bank and the circle has a diameter of around 8 metres.
The three centre stones form part of a burial cist. One of the flat stones that originally formed a wall of the cist can be seen behind these three set edgewise into the earth. Four of the stones which formed the lid were marked with cup and ring designs and now reside in the safety of Scarborough Museum.
In his Prehistoric and Roman Archaeology of North-East Yorkshire (1993) D. A. Spratt records six cup and ring stones from this site now in Scarborough Museum, given by Mr John Tissiman in 1852.
The area around the circle was originally dotted with a number of sepulchral cairns, many of which have now been cleared or incorporated into drystone walls. The first OS map of the area shows around 100 of these to the west and south of the monument, making it part of a much larger assemblage of prehistoric remains.
For more information, folklore and much better photographs see Richard Locker's Liminal Whitby article on The Druid Stones.
