Me looking tiny next to the tallest stone, which is thin and pointed with long grooves at the crown.
Two tall thin standing stones (Devil’s Arrows) in a green field on a grey day.
Blue plaque reading: THE DEVIL'S ARROWS Three pre-historic monolitis of millstone grit, probably transported here from the area of Knaresborough Co 2700 B.C
Info panel reading: THE DEVIL'S ARROWS This alignment of three standing stones is known as The Devil's Arrows. These stones are nationally important Scheduled Monuments, protected by law. The three stones are unevenly spaced, running north-northwest to south-southeast for a distance of 174 metres. The height of the stones descends from south to north from 6.9 to 5.5 metres. The southernmost stone is the second tallest single standing stone in Britain and is taller than any of the stones at Stonehenge. The stones were erected between 5000 and 3500 years ago in the Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age and are part of a wider, seemingly ritualistic. prehistoric landscape that extends from Catterick, 21 miles to the north, to Ferrybridge, 27 miles south of Boroughbridge. This landscape includes standing stones, cursus monuments long narrow enclosures edged with banks and ditches, the use of which is still unclear) as well as a series of henge monuments (large circular structures with ditches and banks) including the famous Thornborough Henges approximately 10 miles northwest of The Arrows, where there is a group of three henge monuments. As with cursus monuments, archaeologists do not know what henges were used for. but it is likely that they had community gathering or ritual functions. Origins of the Stones The stones are thought to have been quarried and transported here from an outcrop at Plumpton Rocks approximately 9 miles to the southwest. Early accounts of The Devil's Arrows record varying numbers of stones - normally four or five though one account tells of seven standing stones!
It’s never too cold to go on a stone hunt!
The Devil's Arrows: 3 stones spaced north-northwest to south-southeast near Boroughbridge.
The southernmost is the 2nd tallest single standing stone in Britain erected between 5000 and 3500 years ago.
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