Ibelstone* 



By VERE L. OLIVER, F.S.A, 



(Read 1 6th September, 1920). 



HE Helstone is situated on Ridgehill, one of the 

 spurs running up North to Blackdown from 

 Portisham. It stands on a slight mound, which is 

 more noticeable on the North side, but to the 

 South there are only hollows, whence soil has evidently been 

 removed. A held wall (older than 1803) runs across the 

 mound North and South. 



Hutchins, in his History of Dorset (1st edition), wrote, in 

 1774, that nearly all the upper stones were thrown down, the 

 table-stone leaning on only one at the North, and that 

 shepherds had dug a hole beneath it for a shelter. He gave 

 a ridiculous plate of its supposed restoration, which looks like 

 a round table on thick legs. In the 2nd edition, of 1803, an 

 artistic illustration appeared showing the table-stone tilted and 

 the existing held wall in the back-ground. What we now see 

 may well be the remains of a long barrow which was placed 

 N.W. and S.E. Hutchins stated that there was a terrace to 

 to the N.W. leading to it 60ft. long, 30ft. broad at one end 

 and 10ft. at the other; but the plough has obliterated all traces 

 of this, 



