Long Meg
Shaun Castle 12 November 2006
Long Meg - postcard circa. 1958
The monument of Long Meg, thought to date from the late Neolithic or early Bronze Age (2000-600 BC), is the third largest stone circle in the British Isles, and the sixth largest in the world.
Occupying a bucolic setting, the site comprises over 60 stones arranged in a rough circle measuring 357 feet by 305 feet, while the eponymous Long Meg - a 12 foot red sandstone monolith - stands a little way outside.
The monument was popularised through accounts of antiquarian travellers, and later, the poetry of Wordsworth and WH Auden.
A weight of Awe not easy to be borne
Fell suddenly upon my spirit, cast
From the dread bosom of the unknown past,
When first I saw the family forlorn;
Speak Thou, whose massy strength and stuture scorn
The power of years - pre-eminent, and placed
Apart, to overlook the circle vast.
Speak Giant-mother! tell it to the Morn,
While she dispels the cumbrious shades of night;
Let the moon hear, emerging from a cloud,
At whose behest uprose on British ground
That Sisterhood in hieroglythic round
Forth-shadowing, some have deemed the infinate
The inviolable God that tamed the proud.
William Wordsworth, 1822
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