Rollright Stones - Construction

Construction

The Rollright Stones themselves are three separate megalithic monuments, all of which were constructed in close proximity to one another during the later prehistoric ages of the Neolithic and Bronze Age. The names which are currently given to them — the King's Men, the King Stone and the Whispering Knights — descend from folklore that has surrounded the site since the Early Modern period, although these terms have since been adopted by archaeologists and heritage managers.

Fragments of stone used in the construction of the monument underwent a petrological examination at the British Museum in London, where it was established that they were a form of oolithic limestone that was local to the area around the Rollrights. Archaeologist George Lambrick argued that the stones had been discovered by prehistoric peoples as naturally occurring surface boulders, rather than having been quarried, because of certain weathering patterns that could be found on them and which were consistent with those found on surface boulders. He went on to argue that the most likely place that such surface boulders would have been found in the late prehistoric was "on the sides of the ridge at or near the level of the strong spring line between the Inferior Oolithic and the Lias clay." If this had indeed been the place where the megalith builders had found the boulders, then they would have had to be transported up hill, at a gradient averaging about 1 in 15 on the shortest routes, for either 250 metres (for the Whispering Knights), or 450 metres (for the King Stone and King's Men).

Basing his ideas upon experimental archaeological investigations performed at Stonehenge, Lambrick suggested that the prehistoric workers who hauled the stones uphill would have made use of wooden sledges, which were perhaps made more efficient by the use of timber rollers beneath them, cutting down the manpower needed to drag the sledge. After calculating the estimated work force and labour that would have been required to produce the Rollright Stone monuments, Lambrick related that in comparisons with many other monuments, the time and labour investment would have been "trivial", not stretching resources in terms of manpower.