The 19th Century
The apparently unspoilt and seemingly timeless landscape setting of Castlerigg stone circle provided inspiration for the poets, painters and writers of the 19th century Romantic movement. In John Keats’ Hyperion the passage “Scarce images of life, one here, one there,/Lay vast and edgeways; like a dismal cirque/Of Druid stones, upon a forlorn moor…“ is alleged to have been inspired by his visit to the stones; a visit, it seems, with which he was less than impressed. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in 1799, visited Castlerigg with William Wordsworth and wrote of it, that a mile and a half from Keswick stands “…a Druidical circle the mountains stand one behind the other, in orderly array as if evoked by and attentive to the assembly of white-vested wizards”.
An early description of Castlerigg stone circle can be found in the 1843 book The Wonders of the World in Nature, Art and Mind, by Robert Sears. In the passage quoted below, Sears also quotes an earlier description of the circle by Ann Radcliffe (Mrs. Radcliffe).
The Druidical Circle, represented in the accompanying plate, is to be found on the summit of a bold and commanding eminence called Castle-Rigg, about a mile and a half on the old road, leading from Keswick, over the hills to Penrith,—a situation so wild, vast, and beautiful, that one cannot, perhaps, find better terms to convey an idea of it than by adopting the language of a celebrated female writer, (Mrs. Radclifle,) who, travelling over the same ground years ago, thus described the scene: "Whether our judgment," she says, " was influenced by the authority of a Druid's choice, or that the place itself commanded the opinion, we thought this situation the most severely grand of any hitherto passed. There is, perhaps, not a single object in the scene that interrupts the solemn tone of feeling impressed by its general character of profound solitude, greatness, and awful wildness. Castle-Rigg is the centre point of three valleys that dart immediately under it from the eye, and whose mountains form part of an amphitheatre, which is completed by those of Borrowdale on the west, and by the precipices of Skiddaw and Saddleback, close on the north. The hue which pervades all these mountains is that of dark heath or rock; they are thrown into every form and direction that fancy would suggest, and are at that distance which allows all their grandeur to prevail. Such seclusion and sublimity were indeed well suited to the dark and wild mysteries of the Druids."
Sears then continues his description:
The one here represented is of the first, or simple class, and consists, at present, of about forty stones of different sizes, all, or most of them, of dark granite,— the highest about seven feet, several about four, and others considerably less ; the few fir-trees in the centre are, of course, of very modern growth. The form may, with more propriety, be called an oval, being thirty-five yards in one direction, and thirty-three yards in another, in which respect it assimilates exactly to that of Rollrich; but what distinguishes this from all other Druidical remains of a similar nature, is the rectangular enclosure on the eastward side of the circle, including a space of about eight feet by four. The object of this is a matter of conjecture ;—by some it is supposed to have been a sort of Holy of Holies where the Druids met, separated from the vulgar, to perform their rites, their divinations, or sit in council to determine controversies ; others consider it to have been for the purposes of burial; probably it might have been intended for both.
The later 19th century saw an increase in research into Castlerigg stone circle. C W Dymond visited the circle in 1878 and 1881, from which visits he produced the first accurate plan of the stones. He marked the position of one of the internal cairns, showing that it was clearly visible at that time, but missed the other two cairns observed by Benjamin Williams in 1856 showing that these two features have never been clearly defined.
The only known archaeological excavation at Castlerigg was carried out by W K Dover in 1882, one year before the site was scheduled. His excavation targeted the internal rectangular enclosure at the eastern side of the circle and his account of his excavation is brief and hidden within details of a day trip to the circle on 5 October 1882, by members of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, which was published in 1883:
Prior to the visit of the Society some excavations had been made under the superintendence of Mr. W Kinsey Dover, with the view of finding whether the subsoil would disclose anything that might lead to some conclusion as to the age or object of the circle. The following is Mr. Dover’s report: Length of inclosure within the Keswick stone circle, 22 feet, east and west; breadth, 11 feet, north and south. Length opened out, 18 feet to 19 feet; breadth, 3 feet 3 inches, with two cross cuts of about 2 feet. Depth of dark superficial soil to where the yellow undisturbed soil appears, 14 inches, with the exception of a small portion at the west end where the black soil mixed with stones continued to a depth of 3 feet. Near the bottom here, I found what I think to be a few small pieces of burned wood or charcoal, also some dark unctuous sort of earth, a sample of both I brought away. (Dover 1883, 505).
What subsequently happened to the samples of ‘burned wood or charcoal’ and the ‘dark unctuous sort of earth’ is unknown, other than they are now likely to be lost or, if not, too contaminated to be worth modern scientific analysis. Nevertheless, Dover's excavation is the only one to have been carried out at Castlerigg. It is, however, believed by some, based on the dimensions given by Dover, that if any stratigraphy exists within the rectangular enclosure it would not have been completely destroyed and the potential to create a relative sequence between the circle and the enclosure should still be possible. It is unlikely that further excavation around the stones would be permitted today as it is neither threatened by farming or development and erosion of the ground surface by the many visitors to the site is kept in check and is not sufficient to affect the integrity of the stones.
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