![]() ![]() The stone circles, henges, cairns and other standing stones in the area are often grouped near water (rivers, springs), possibly for religious or cosmological reasons. The terrace upon which Long Meg and the circle sit extends along the River Eden to also include, besides Little Meg, the Glassonby Circle and Old Parks, all of which are decorated with rock art. The Long Meg monolith and accompanying circle ( grid reference NY571372) forms one part of a complex of monuments in the Penrith area that includes, as well as the nearby Little Meg circle, a smaller circle seen by William Stukeley in 1725 to the south-west, no longer extant, plus the impressive henge at Mayburgh, a partly destroyed henge at nearby King Arthur's Round Table, and a third, completely destroyed, henge just a few yards to the south of King Arthur's Round Table. There is also the smaller kerbed burial mound of Little Meg close by. Infra-red aerial photography has identified several Early Neolithic enclosures, including a so-called 'super henge' that seem to pre-date the Long Meg circle in the area. Long Meg is marked with examples of megalithic art including a cup and ring mark, a spiral, and rings of concentric circles. Long Meg herself is a 12 ft (3.6 m) high monolith of red sandstone 80 ft (25 m) to the southwest of the circle made by her Daughters. There may originally have been as many as 70 stones. It consists of 59 stones (of which 27 remain upright) set in an east/west oval configuration measuring 340 ft (106 m) on its long axis. The stone circle is the third widest in England, behind Avebury in Wiltshire, and only slightly smaller than Stanton Drew in Somerset. One of around 1,300 stone circles in the British Isles and Brittany, it was constructed as a part of a megalithic tradition that emerged during Neolithic, and continued into the Early Bronze Age. Long Meg and Her Daughters is a Neolithic stone circle situated north-east of Penrith near Little Salkeld in Cumbria, North West England. ![]()
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