page_title: Trellech
section_title: Harold's Stones
hierarchical_section_title: Trellech / Places of historical interest / Harold's Stones
caption_attribution_description: English: Harold's stones, looking north east.
context_page_description: Trellech is a village and parish in Monmouthshire, south-east Wales. It is in the community of Trellech United and located 5 miles south of Monmouth and 4 miles north-north-west of Tintern on a plateau above the Wye and Usk Valleys in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Three Bronze Age standing stones are situated in the village, known as Harold's Stones which overlook the historic church of St Nicholas which is a Grade I listed building.
  Although a relatively small village in modern times, it was one of the largest towns in Wales in the 13th century, and is now the location of archaeological investigations to determine its extent and role at that time. The village is designated as a conservation area.
  There are four nature reserves nearby; New Grove Flower Meadow, noted for its orchids, and Trellech Beacon are both owned by Gwent Wildlife Trust while Cleddon Bog and Croes Robert Wood are both SSSIs.
context_section_description: Three large monoliths of conglomerate stone, commonly referred to as puddingstone, are located in a field on the eastern side of the  B4293 to the south of the village. (SO 498051) The stones, situated on publicly accessible land belonging to the Davies family of Crosshands Farm, are a scheduled ancient monument. The stones have been described as "one of the more substantial megalithic monuments in Monmouthshire".
  The stones are on slightly elevated ground close to running water and springs, which might be relevant to the choice of site. They are believed to date back to the Bronze Age.  Such remains are rare in this part of Wales.  They derive their name from a legend that they mark the spot at which three chieftains fell in battle with Harold Godwinson, who defeated the Welsh in Gwent in 1063.  In another legend the stones were flung from Skirrid by the mythical Jack o' Kent in a competition with the Devil.
  The stones form an approximate line running between north-east and south-west at an azimuth of about 229°, which probably indicates the midwinter sunset, though the midsummer sunrise cannot be excluded on account of the lack of precise alignment of the stones. They have been described as "the most visually impressive of the alignments in South Wales." Their location, without good views beyond the immediate surroundings, suggests that its alignment may be significant.  The stones are respectively 2.7 metres (8 ft 10 in), 3.7 metres (12 ft), and 4.6 metres (15 ft) high, the tallest being at the south-west; the overall length of the row is 11 metres (36 ft).  The central stone has what are thought to be cup marks.  It is supposed that the stones were dragged to the site on logs and levered into position, probably either for seasonal information or for use at religious ceremonies. Houlder (1978) speculates that they were once part of a much larger and impressive alignment, but Castleden (1992) suggests that they did not form part of a stone circle
  Aubrey Burl asserts that short stone-rows of this kind were used as the ritual centres of families of "perhaps ten or twenty adults and children", though the erection of large stones required the co-operation of several such families. He compared the Trellech stones to the row at Le Vieux-Moulin, Plouharnel, near Carnac, and says that "Similar short rows were erected by communities in Ireland, Britain and Brittany in the centuries of the Bronze age between 1800 and 1000 BC". The source of the Trellech stones may have been the nearby Beacon Hill where there are outcrops of a similar conglomerate.  A fourth stone, on nearby common land, is believed to have been destroyed in the 18th century.
caption: Harold's Stones, looking north east
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