Curiosities of Cheshire - The Bridestones Neolithic Chambered Cairn

Today we visit The Bridestones Neolithic cairn on the Staffordshire/Cheshire border. This prehistoric site was one of the most impressive in Britain at one time and unique to the region in that Cheshire is not renowned for structures of this kind.

In 1723 Henry Rowlands described the site thus in his Mona Antiqua Restaurata:

"A A, etc. are six upright free stones, from three to six feet broad, of various heights and shapes, fixed about six feet from each other in a semicircular form, and two within, where the earth is very black, mixed with ashes and oak-charcoal. It is apprehended the circle was originally complete, and twenty-seven feet in diameter; for there is the appearance of holes where stones have been, and also of two single stones, one standing East of the circle, at about five or six yards distance, and the other at the same distance from that.

B B are rough, square tapering stones four feet three inches broad and two feet thick. One on the North side is broken off, as is part of the other.

C C is the pavement of a kind of artificial cave. It is composed of broken pieces of stones about two inches and a half thick, and laid on pounded white stones about six inches deep; two inches of the upper part of which are tinged with black, supposed from ashes falling through the pavement, which was covered with them and oak-charcoal about two inches thick. Several bits of bone were also found, but so small that it could not be discovered whether they were human or not.

The sides of the cave, if I may so call it, were originally composed of two unhewn free stones, about eighteen feet in length, six in height and fourteen inches thick at a medium. Each of them is now broken in two.

D is a partition stone standing across the place, about five feet and a half high, and six inches thick. A circular hole is cut through this stone, about nineteen inches and a half in diameter.

The whole was covered with long, unhewn, large, flat, free stones since taken away. The height of the cave from the pavement to the covering is five feet and ten inches.

The entrance was filled up with free stones and earth, supposed to be dust blown by the wind from year to year in dry weather.

There remains another place of the same construction but smaller and without any inward partition, about fifty-five yards distance from this. It is two yards and a half long, two feet and a half broad and three feet two inches high. There is also part of another.

There was a large heap of stones that covered the whole, a hundred and twenty yards long and twelve yards broad. These stones have been taken away from time to time by masons and other people, for various purposes."

In 1764 the site was described as being 120 yards long with 3 distinct chambers and must have been a sight to behold back in the day. Unfortunately, only one of the chambers remains standing today after the site was ransacked for hundreds of tons of stone to build a nearby turnpike road.

Further acts of vandalism over the centuries, including but not limited to: stone being removed to construct a feature in Tunstall Park, fire damage from feckless 19th century visitors and the alleged use of the site to demonstrate a detonator (yes, really!) mean that the monument is in a sorry state in the present day. Very indiscreet repairs have been carried out to several of the stones using concrete in a half-hearted attempt to preserve them.

Still, the ruins are worth a visit- even if it is just as a reminder of how we must take care of our ancient monuments far better than our ancestors did!

It is located on Dial Lane near Timbersbrook. Map ref SJ9061762182