<< Our Photo Pages >> Rolstone - Standing Stone (Menhir) in England in Somerset

Submitted by richbaber on Saturday, 11 May 2024  Page Views: 4340

Neolithic and Bronze AgeSite Name: Rolstone Alternative Name: Banwell Moor Stone 3
Country: England County: Somerset Type: Standing Stone (Menhir)
Nearest Town: Weston-super-Mare  Nearest Village: Banwell
Map Ref: ST38736120
Latitude: 51.346563N  Longitude: 2.881108W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
 5 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
 4 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
 3 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
 4

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philw visited on 1st Aug 2020 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 3 Access: 4 Just a single stone, access is via hopping over a gate into the field. I cycled here as it's not far from where I live, but theres a few wider parts of the road you could probably park in. Lots of quartz in the stone.

TheCaptain have visited here

Rolstone
Rolstone submitted by philw : taken 01/08/2020 (Vote or comment on this photo)
This stone is in a field off of Silver Moor Lane. This can be reached via Woolvers Hill Road near the village of Banwell, North Somerset.

Access is over a small bridge over a rhyne, where it is possible to park. A farm gate then provides access to the field where the stone is clearly visible.

My local research has drawn a blank as to the stone's origin. (but see additional information in comments below) There are standing stones a few kilometres away at Compton Bishop and Yarberry. Hill forts abound in the North Somerset area. I am convinced that this is a stone from the same period.

Note: I have added some more stones mentioned by Phil Quinn in The Forgotten Stones of West Mendip, 3rd Stone Issue 25 (Spring 1997) - details on this page
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Rolstone
Rolstone submitted by philw : Close-up of the quartz, taken 01/08/2020 (Vote or comment on this photo)

Rolstone
Rolstone submitted by philw : Taken 01/08/2020 (Vote or comment on this photo)

Rolstone
Rolstone submitted by TheCaptain : Near Cannaway's Farm, this stone stands in the middle of a field. Apologies for awful picture. It was a miserable wet and misty day, and the batteries on my camera had died, so this was taken from the fieldgate on my phone. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Do not use the above information on other web sites or publications without permission of the contributor.

Nearby Images from Geograph Britain and Ireland:
ST3861 : Grazing off Silver Moor Lane by JThomas
by JThomas
©2019(licence)
ST3861 : View from Silver Moor Lane by Kevin Pearson
by Kevin Pearson
©2021(licence)
ST3861 : Cattle off Silver Moor Lane by JThomas
by JThomas
©2019(licence)
ST3861 : Drain beside Silver Moor Lane by JThomas
by JThomas
©2019(licence)
ST3861 : Buildings at Cannaway Farm by Roger Cornfoot
by Roger Cornfoot
©2018(licence)

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Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
 307m ESE 102° Banwell Moor Stone 1 Marker Stone (ST39036113)
 1.1km NE 50° Banwell Moor Stone 4 Marker Stone (ST39576188)
 1.7km E 101° Banwell Moor Stone 2 Marker Stone (ST40406086)
 2.4km SSE 153° Butstone (Banwell) Marker Stone (ST398590)
 3.1km SE 135° Banwell Camp Hillfort (ST409590)
 3.4km S 174° Wook's Quoit* Standing Stone (Menhir) (ST39045783)
 3.7km SSW 193° Flagstaff Hill* Stone Circle (ST3785257630)
 4.7km SSW 207° Loxton Hill Barrows Round Barrow(s) (ST36565704)
 4.7km NNW 332° Wick St Lawrence Village Cross* Ancient Cross (ST3660565388)
 5.3km ESE 120° The Wimblestone* Standing Stone (Menhir) (ST43355848)
 5.5km ENE 62° Congresbury Church Cross* Ancient Cross (ST4359863744)
 5.5km S 191° Loxton Churchyard Cross* Ancient Cross (ST3762455813)
 5.6km ENE 62° Congresbury Village Cross* Ancient Cross (ST4373263818)
 5.7km SSE 159° Wavering Down cairn* Round Cairn (ST40705590)
 5.8km NNE 13° Kingston Seymour Churchyard Cross* Ancient Cross (ST4010166846)
 5.9km S 171° Compton Bishop Church Cross* Ancient Cross (ST3959955378)
 5.9km NNE 14° Kingston Seymour Village Cross* Ancient Cross (ST4022366941)
 6.1km NE 46° Yatton Churchyard Cross* Ancient Cross (ST4312665395)
 6.3km SW 226° Bleadon Cross* Ancient Cross (ST3411056921)
 6.5km W 272° North Somerset Museum Museum (ST322615)
 6.6km W 273° Weston-super-Mare Museum* Museum (ST3217061568)
 6.6km NE 55° Cadbury Hill* Hillfort (ST442649)
 6.7km ESE 110° Dolebury Camp* Hillfort (ST450589)
 6.8km SSE 161° Compton Bishop* Standing Stones (ST409548)
 6.8km ESE 114° Barrow at Rowberrow* Round Barrow(s) (ST44925834)
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"Rolstone" | Login/Create an Account | 5 News and Comments
  
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Re: Rolstone by Andy B on Saturday, 11 May 2024
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To find a large number of standing stones on an area that was swamp until the Roman period is perhaps rather peculiar, but here are four thin, narrow slabs boldly set amongst enclosure-age fields. None are more than four feet high, show any magnetic anomalies or appear to have any relationship to other old or distinctive local features. What little comment they have aroused has tended to explain them away as scratch- ing posts for livestock or as internal boundaries for the great dole moor which preceded today’s neat pasture and arable land. Both theories are plausible, the latter perhaps more so. Nevertheless there are clues, although frustratingly few, that suggest a more ancient origin.

Our first guide is the Somerset historian and topographer John Collinson who suggested in 1791 that the Banwell Moor place name “Rolstone” was derived from an earlier spelling of “Worlestone”, a name encountered elsewhere in the district in connection with other ancient stones.

One of the Moor’s surviving monoliths. is at Rolstone and local folklore states that it marks the grave of a great man - a Roman or a Viking being the preferred
choice. Could this be the Worlestone? Closer to Weston another monolith-associated place name - “Lypstone” - is almost identical to “Lipstone”, the name of an undisputed
monolith that stood at Failand near Bristol.

The other Banwell Moor stone which had folklore attached to it was at Wolvershill, on a small area of high ground which was unfortunately destroyed in the early 1970s by the construction of the M5. Here was a scatter of large conglomerate blocks, originally forming one large slab, and known locally as “The Ploughman and Two Horses”. The name arose in the belief that it marked the spot where the eponymous plough team were struck by lightning.

Altogether the Banwell Moor stones can prove no great antiquity but neither is an ancient origin disproved; archaeological excavation around them could help solve the riddle of their age and function but the paucity of current interest in the stones would seem to preclude this for the time being at least.
Phil Quinn, The Forgotten Stones of West Mendip, 3rd Stone Issue 25
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Phil Quinn gives another location for the Rolstone by Andy B on Saturday, 11 May 2024
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In The Forgotten Stones of West Mendip, 3rd Stone Issue 25 Phil Quinn names the Rolstone stone as this one at ST39576188:
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=60312

He also gives the following locations for lost stones in the area:
ST36246240
ST38706110
ST37806180 (The Ploughman & Two Horses)
ST36206160

I have added site pages for the following locations that he lists as having extant stones - Banwell Moor Stones Extant (see nearby sites list above)
ST39036113
ST40406086
ST38756120

Source: The Forgotten Stones of West Mendip, in 3rd Stone Issue 25 (Spring 1997) page 15, Phil Quinn - Download from here:
mega.nz/file/fFonFAgS#3q9VHhjbwjJYJKzgU-XTA3mVPkArQWQ_HDmFthS7oU8
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Re: Rolstone by dooclay on Tuesday, 14 March 2023
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The North Somerset Know Your Place website lists this as MNS6587, Stone 180m SE of Cannaways Farm and describes it as Post-medieval without further reference. It does mention a second to the SSW, 240m SSE of Cannaways Farm which it also laconically calls 'Post-medieval'. The HER map gives the same - but no further information.
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Re: Rolstone by Anonymous on Sunday, 11 June 2017
the Rolstone is in Somerset
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