A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 
be intended as a gateway is on the north-west opposite the small stand- 
ing outlier or menhir, and points downhill. 
The Swinside Circle, or Sunken Kirk, as it is called, is situate on 
Swinside Fell in the Parish of Millom, and is most accessible from 
Broughton-in-Furness in the neighbouring county of Lancashire. Its 
average diameter is 92 feet, and the stones, when it was surveyed by Mr. 
Dymond, numbered fifty-five, of which thirty-two were then standing, 
and twenty-three were prostrate ; it is remarkable, that of the prostrate 
stones, twenty-one have fallen inwards. A few stones have been removed, 
but when the circle was perfect, the successive stones were nearly con- 
tiguous. The stones are founded on a seating of small rammed stones 
which extends around the whole of the ring and across the floor of the 
gateway. The gateway is on the south-east side and points slightly down 
hill. Mr. Dymond says :-— 
There is no record of any barrow having been observed within or near the Swinside 
Circle. The ruins are those of a bold and carefully constructed peristalith, The 
stones were ranged nearly in a true circle, well founded on a dry site in a rammed 
stone bed, and placed, for the most part at least, in juxtaposition—often, indeed, so 
close that it is possible there was no convenient access to the interior, save through 
the gateway. Hence, in this case, a necessity for that feature, which was evidently 
thought an important one, and must have been designed to give ceremonial access to 
the sacred enclosure. Perhaps this is one of the best examples we have of a structure 
which, according to our ideas, would be eminently suited to be a hypzthral temple : 
and I suggest that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, this may have been the 
chief purpose for which the Swinside Circle was erected.1 
The best known and most often visited of the Cumberland mega- 
lithic circles, is that which goes by the name of the Keswick Circle : this 
arises from its proximity to the town of that name, and to its easy acces- 
sibility compared with the Eskdale and Swinside circles. It is situate 
on an eminence known as Castlerigg, and is much resorted to by tourists 
from various lands. Many printed accounts of it exist, commencing 
with one by Stukeley in 1725, and continuing to the Lake guide books 
of to-day.” These accougts contain many discrepancies, particularly as 
to the number of stones ; but one fact comes out, namely, that in 1769 
Castlerigg was sown with corn*, This is confirmed by an oil painting of 
the 18th or early 19th century, at Mirehouse, the seat of the Speddings, 
which shows Castlerigg, including the interior of the circle, covered with 
a fine and ripe crop of corn. Anything that may be now pointed out, 
either within the area of the circle or near it, as a barrow or ring- 
barrow, must be of recent origin. The stones, like those of the Swinside 
stones, which does not exist, and never did; it also shows an inclosure of stones round the 
easternmost barrow. ‘The same remark applies to this. From the remote position of this 
circle the suggested outer circle and barrow enclosure are not likely to have been wantonly 
removed, and Mr. Dymond in 1872 and 1877 could find no trace of them, though he 
carefully probed for the barrow enclosure. 
* Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archeolgical Society, 
vol. v. pp. 56, 57. 
® ‘These accounts have been collected by Mr. Dymond (ibid. vol. v. pp. 50-5). 
* Gray’s Works, vol. ii. ‘ Letter to Dr. Wharton,’ p. 332, cited by Mr. Dymond, ut ante. 
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