Up Above the Clouds

27.01.2026

I have returned to the heart of Bronze age Derbyshire and the village of Birchover surrounded by an array of ancient stone circles. My first outing for 2026 would be the two stone circles around Stanton Moor and the circle of Nine Stones Close, situated just off the Limestone Way.

After days of grey skies and rain I awoke to sunshine and set off up to a gated entrance to the moor just north of the village. After a short walk through trees I emerged onto open moorland where before me stood the Cork Stone. This massive stack had been assaulted by the weather over the years. It had a worn narrow base and running up it’s south face were the hand and foot depressions from modern day climbers. Next to the Cork Stone was a small quarry with some split stone still jutting out from it’s edges. This area had a history of Limestone extraction and processing, making it hard to pinpoint a date to the first workings here. A path skirted the edge of the moor with superb views down to Darley Dale shrouded in a blanket of low cloud. The only break in the soft white horizontal was a vertical plume of billowing smoke from a battery factory hidden below the cloud.

Half a mile on, the dormant fern cover gave way to a clearing of frosted grass and long shadows from surrounding birch trees. There in the centre was a circle of nine low lying stones. I had been here before in the summer of 2023 but had experienced a flat reaction. This time as I approached I immediately felt an inexplicable stirring of some kind. This feeling happens occasionally and is usually sharpened by the privilege of having a solitary encounter. This was a popular circle with walkers and with those who have a megalithic interest, so I was again lucky to have the circle to myself. I set about what I’d come to do, taking detailed close up shots of the textures of the stones. But with the improved ambience from my last visit I spent more time photographing it more thoroughly.

The stones were smaller than I’d remembered them with many leaning into the centre. One stone lay flat with it’s large face flush with the undulating ground. Another had the faint markings of the Patriarchal Cross on it's outer edge. In the centre there was a patch of burnt grass and offerings had been placed on some of the flatter stones, suggesting there was a continuing reverence taking place here. One stone on the western side looked quite phallic with a slit in the domed top. I walked a short distance to the west to where I knew the King’s Stone to be. This small outlier leant to the south and being so similar to the Nine Ladies, it looked like it might have at one time wandered from the circle. Folklore has it that along with the dancing Nine Ladies this was a fleeing fiddler who was turned to stone for playing on the sabbath.

I walked back along the ridge passing the Cork Stone once again and crossed the road to follow a path to another outcrop named The Andle Stone. It was another natural feature that had been fashioned into climbing apparatus, but this one was hidden in a copse of trees. I remembered the route from here down through fields to the edge of a wood. In 2023 I had witnessed a bride being escorted by her kilted father to her hand fasting ceremony. With her dress gathered up they had made their way through the dense swaying wheat to the wood and on to a small gathering of guests at Doll Tor circle hidden within.

This is one of my favourite small circles at only six metres across and with none of the stones rising above a metre high. The setting is quite magical and a fitting place for a joyful ceremony with moss covering the ground, surrounding trees as well as the stones themselves. A cairn adjoins the circle to the north but it’s the circle that steals the show, looking as if it had been created by the hand of Tolkien. Respect had been paid here too with the placement of posies and painted pebbles. One stone on the eastern side had a tiny hole where a small Amethyst crystal had been inserted. An outlier stood nearby but this one had been clumsily erected more recently than my last visit with the crude placement of packing stones at it’s base. I sat with the stones for a while and began to listen in to them and to the quiet echoes of nature’s silence around me.

From Birchover I walked south west down a track which eventually linked up with the Limestone Way. I would be on it for just a few miles, up onto Harthill Moor. The route up took me past the Hermit’s Cave with giant boulders and high vertical crags hidden amongst the trees. It had been a place of refuge for someone and inside a limestone recess was a fourteenth century carving of a crucified Christ. Further on up the trail were the fortress like rocks of Robin Hood’s Stride overlooking an ancient pathway. From here the landscape opened up before me to the north and in the distance next to a drystone wall and a large oak tree were the four majestic orthostates of Nine Stones Close.

As I got close the valley beyond came into view, still blanketed in low cloud. I adjusted my approach so each of the stones stayed separate from the other and then greeted each of them in turn. This was a circle that changes it’s character and appearance dramatically every few steps you take around it. Up close the tops of the tallest two were scarred and stained by millennia of rain. At one time there may have been twice as many stones present and it’s construction, as suggested by Aubrey Burl, was for astronomical reasons. He observed that from the circle the moon descends over Robin Hood’s Stride during the Major Lunar Standstill. Standing by the wall under the Oak tree, it was easy to imagine an ancient pathway passing through or by this circle. I had a strong sense that it was an emotional place for an ancient traveler to arrive at and that it was embedded in a network connected to places nearby. I glanced over my shoulder a few times as I walked away. I remembered the myth of the stones coming to life and dancing at twelve noon and midnight. I looked at my watch. It was mid afternoon and I had missed the matinee.