page_title: Rempstone Stone Circle
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Rempstone Stone Circle / Description
caption_attribution_description: A simple plan of the Bronze Age Rempstone Stone Circle in Dorset, England. Created by uploader based upon example by Piggott and Piggott 1939, p. 149.
context_page_description: Rempstone Stone Circle is a stone circle located near to Corfe Castle on the Isle of Purbeck in the south-western English county of Dorset. Archaeologists believe that it was likely erected during the Bronze Age. The Rempstone ring is part of a tradition of stone circle construction that spread throughout much of Britain, Ireland, and Brittany during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, over a period between 3,300 and 900 BCE. The purpose of such monuments is unknown, although archaeologists speculate that they were likely religious sites, with the stones perhaps having supernatural associations for those who built the circles. Local folklore holds that the stones arrived in their position after being thrown at Corfe Castle by the Devil.
  A number of these circles were built in the area around modern Dorset, typically being smaller than those found elsewhere. Most of these Dorset circles are made of sarsen stone, although the Rempstone circle is unique in being made from local sandstone. The southern half of the circle has been destroyed, with five upright and three recumbent stones remaining extant.
context_section_description: Burl has noted that Rempstone Stone Circle is "damaged and overgrown". Similarly, Gale stated that "the description and evaluation of this site [is] very difficult" on account of it being "much disturbed". Eight stones survive; five are standing, while three more are recumbent. The standing stones vary in size, and are irregularly shaped. The stones are sandstone boulders which geologically belong to the Bagshot Beds, on which the circle is located.
  The southern half of the circle has been destroyed, likely by clay workings that took place in the area during the late eighteenth century. At the south-west of the site, three more stones are visible but half-buried; these may not be in their original position. The west side of the site is cut by pools and ditches formed by old clay workings.  The surviving stones form an arc that suggests that the circle originally had a diameter of about 26 metres, or 80 feet. If this was the case then it would have been the second largest stone circle in Dorset, after Kingston Russell Stone Circle.
  The circle was included in the archaeologist O. G. S. Crawford's Map of Neolithic Wessex, printed by the Ordnance Survey in 1932. In this publication, the site was erroneously assigned co-ordinates of the Breamore Wood Long Barrow. As of 2003, the site had not been excavated.
caption: Plan of Rempstone Stone Circle (based on that published by Piggott and Piggott in 1939)
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