Full circle

Today is Mrs H’s birthday and so we celebrated by taking the dogs for a walk in the Spring sunshine. We opted to visit the the Mitchell’s Fold stone circle at Stapeley Hill, just over the Welsh border, close to Montgomery. It was a good trek across the moorland, very muddy in places (following the long, wet, Winter) and quite breezy at the top of the hill, but otherwise very pleasant in the warm sunlight.

The stone circle was built in the Bronze Age, about 3,000 years ago. There are fifteen stones (although it is thought that originally there were thirty) but it is unknown exactly why they were built – some think it was for religious reasons, others that it acted as a form of calendar. As stone circles go, the stones themselves are not very big – the largest is about 2 metres high, although the circle itself is 26 metres (about 85 feet) in diameter.

After a good few hours walking, and a diversion due to an excessively muddy track, we headed home for impromptu washing of our boots – and the car!