Thirty-eight stones stand in a field a mile east of Keswick, set in a rough circle about thirty metres across. They were put there around 3000 BC — roughly 4,500 years ago — and inside the ring is a rectangular setting of stones that appears nowhere else in Britain. This is Castlerigg, and the circle is essentially the whole of it.
There is no village here in the usual sense. No pub, no church, no shop. Castlerigg is a scattering of farms on the agricultural fringe east of Keswick, and the circle sits on an open upland plateau above it.
What the plateau has instead of amenities is the view. Skiddaw, Blencathra, Helvellyn, and the fells running the whole way round the horizon. It is one of the most dramatically sited stone circles in Britain, and it does not have to work hard at it.
The stones are free to visit and always open. English Heritage looks after them, but there is no gate, no ticket, and no closing time. It is the most visited stone circle in northern England, which on a quiet morning you can almost forget.
In the mid-eighteenth century someone ploughed the surrounding ground and shifted at least one of the stones, which had stood undisturbed until agriculture caught up with it. A midwinter sunrise alignment has been proposed, though the people who set the stones left no note explaining themselves.
The open country above the circle gives onto the High Rigg ridge and down into the Vale of Keswick, so the fell walking starts more or less where the stones stop. Getting here is a mile on foot from Keswick, out along the A591 and then a minor road. There is no bus, and nothing here to catch one to.
Most people walk out, go once around the ring, photograph the fells behind it, and head back into Keswick for lunch. The stones have watched them do it, in one form or another, for four and a half thousand years.
