This page gives a list of the ‘Standing Stones, Circles, and Megaliths’ sites in the ‘Banburyshire Ancient Sites’ guide.
Some years ago now, the starting point of this guide was walking the standing stones of North Oxfordshire. While our local pre-history ‘megaliths’ represent a spectacular link to our past, walking the stones can give access to a wider range of sites which convey a far better impression of the ancient local landscape than just visiting the stones alone.
Churchill Churchyard is an emblem of late Georgian prejudice. Built in 1826 (replacing the more ancient Saxon church which stands further down the hill) the tower dominates the landscape. But in a deliberate act of cultural supremacy, the churchyard is surrounded by stones robbed from a stone circle that stood in nearby Sarsgrove Woods, re-purposed as kerbstones and retaining walls.
This is an ‘Anomalous Megalith’, unremarked, buried in a hedgerow next to a road, seemingly at risk of damage each time the hedge is flailed. Its origins are unclear, as is its current status – as it doesn’t appear on the register of scheduled monuments.
For me, if there is one site that has to be ‘top of the list’, this is it. The Hawk Stone is the site I love to return to. It’s not just the stone itself; it’s the way it interacts with the location, and the landscape it sits within. It’s a very ‘special’ place to pause and take a break, irrespective of weather or time of year.
The Hoar Stone is ‘elusive’: I've known of people trying to find it and walk right by; I've known of people happening to pass there and seeing it by accident; sometimes its bathed in an eerie green light; sometimes, when the sun catches it through the small gap in the trees, it shines.
A roadside cross, probably 15th Century, a reminder that over the years the road priorities have changed. It pre-dates the nearby Ditchley Park, and leaves Kiddington Hall at the bottom of the hill in its shade. With the coming of the Woodstock & Rollright turnpike around 1800 – what is now the A44 – this route was sidelined.
A large portal stone stands alone in the field, the scrubby mound beyond shrouding the earthwork of the long-barrow structure, the stones and chamber robbed for stone over the centuries. A strange location, alone at the fingertip of a promontory of land jutting out into the Evenlode Valley.
‘The Rollright Stones’ are not a single feature. It is made up of three distinct sites which span 1,500 years of history. Set within a landscape which gives views over a wide area, it sits upon The Cotswold Ridgeway, spanning England from east to west; and very near to The Jurassic Way, running from Lincolnshire to Stonehenge.
As the site represents three distinct phases, it is split into three separate pages: Frozen in their dance, ‘The King’s Men’ hold their circle amidst the trees. These ancient stones are almost certainly not arranged as they were laid out, though the location has lost none of its splendour. Standing alone on the far side of the road, The King Stone enigmatically surveys the view, still unable to see Long Compton. Across the field from the circle stand a small close group of stones; the knights ‘whispering’ their treachery against The King and his Men, cast out to the edge of the site.
The King’s Men Circle
The King Stone
The Whispering Knights
Seemingly a backwater today, Sarsden Cross sits at what a few centuries ago would have been a significant local crossroads. Probably restored from its original form, in keeping with the nearby 17th Century manor house, it still makes a lovely spot to sit and have a break after the climb up into Sarsden.
They are a strange pair: A large megalith protruding from a retaining wall; and a weathered, battered old stepped stone cross in the middle of the road. Millennia separate their construction, though in the modern-day both seem to be monuments from worlds unrelated to our own.
Most people speed past it along the A422 Banbury to Stratford road. Even if they notice the monument, they may not realise what it is. When you get up close to ‘The Wroxton Fingerpost’, though, if you really think about it, it’s telling you a story which – in the modern context – seems to make no sense.