Whetstones (stone circle)

Whetstones

Shown within Powys
Location	Corndon Hill
Coordinates	52°34′16″N 3°01′41″W / 52.57108°N 3.02803°W
Type	Stone circle
History
Periods	Neolithic / Bronze Age

The Whetstones are, or were, a stone circle beneath Corndon Hill on the border of Powys, Wales and Shropshire, England. They lie immediately to the west of the village of White Grit and close to Priestweston.^[1] The site is also a short distance from the better-known Hoarstones and Mitchell's Fold circles.

The circle was largely destroyed in the 19th century, and only a few fragments now remain.^[1] An 1841 account described them as even then fragmentary, but comprising three main stones, then "leaning, owing to the soft and boggy nature of the soil. They stand equidistant and assume a circular position [...] The highest of these is four feet above the surface; one foot six inches in thickness, and three feet in width."^[2] In 1860, the antiquarian Robert William Eyton still referred to the Whetstones as a "remarkable monument",^[3] but they were later stated to have been dug up, and the stones incorporated into a boundary wall, in about 1870.^[4] Aubrey Burl notes that "nearly all of its stones were blown up in the 1860s [...] when the last stone was uprooted around 1870 charcoal and bones were seen".^[5]

The remnants of the circle can still be observed from an adjacent field boundary, or from the northern summit of Corndon Hill.^[1] Large stones are also visible now forming a boundary next to a footpath, which were probably also once incorporated in the circle.^[1]

References

1. The Whetstones, Megalithic Portal
2. Hartshorne, C. H. Salopia Antiqua, London: J W Parker, 1841, p.33
3. Eyton, R. W. Antiquities of Shropshire, Volumes 11-12, J.R. Smith, 1860, p.159
4. "The History of Chirbury" in Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, 1906, 231
5. Burl, A. A guide to the stone circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany, Yale University Press, 2005, p.175