Mitchell's Fold
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Mitchell's Fold (sometimes called Medgel's Fold) is a Bronze Age stone circle in South-West Shropshire, located on dry heathland at the south-west end of Stapeley Hill in the civil parish of Chirbury with Brompton, at a height of 1083ft (330m) o.d.
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[edit] Description
As with most sites of this type, its true history is unknown. The name of the cirlce may derive from 'micel' or 'mycel', Old English for 'big', referring to the size of this large circle.
Its doleritic stones came from Stapeley Hill. Many of them are now missing and others are fallen. One example is that “This circle was the site of vandalism by a local farmer in the summer of 1995 when several stones were uprooted by a mechanical digger. The stones were promptly righted and "planted" again and the culprit punished. Ongoing unsympathetic use by both local youth and townie pagans, such as the creation of numerous fire pits and the leaving of litter and broken glass after the festivals, does nothing for the atmosphere of this site.” ' [1]
In the beginning their may have been some thirty pillars. The survivors that stand range in height from 10ins to 6ft 3ins, and stand in an ellipse 89ft NW-SE by 82ft. The tallest is at the south-east end of the major axis, standing, perhaps by coincidence, close to the line of the southern moonrise. This pillar and a companion have been taken to flank an entrance about 6ft wide.
Aubrey Burl has stated in his 2000 book 'A Guide to the Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany' that "There was a claim for a central stone and a very dubious eighteenth-century report that 'there was a stone across your two Portals, like those at Stonehenge, and that the stone at eighty yards distance was the altar.'" but that the "probability of a trilithon, otherwise unique ot Stonehenge, at Mitchell's Fold, like an identical claim for Kerzerho in Brittany, should be regarded as rumour rather than reality."
[edit] Folklore
As with most sites of this type, its true history is unknown. However, there is a traditional story that a giant whose marvellous cow gave unlimited amounts of milk used the circle until a malicious witch milked the cow using a sieve until it was drained dry, as a result of which it fled to Warwickshire where it became the Dun cow. As a punishment, the witch was turned into stone and surrounded by other stones to prevent her escaping. What became of the milkless giant is unknown.
Burl goes on to state that "An intriguing fact does exist however. Aerial photographs have revealed mediaeval ridge-and-furrow ploughmarks not only running up to the ring but also through it as though this 'prehistoric' megalithic ring might postdate the Middle Ages! It does not."
[edit] Other nearby prehistoric sites
The only other known stone circle in Shropshire is the Hoarstones, only 1 1/2 miles northeast of the Fold, and the Whetstones, less than half a mile to the east of the Fold. Nearly all the latter's stones were blown up in the 1860s; now there is only a collapse of stones. When the last stone was uprooted in 1870 charcoal and bones were seen in its hole.
The circle is 6 miles north of Bishop's Castle, 1 mile north of Corndon Hill and within a few miles of the Late Neolithic-Early Bronze Age picrite stone axe factory of Cwm-Mawr. To the south-east is a weathered cubical block on a small cairn. Along the path leading from the Fold which crosses Stapeley Common, home to the Cow Stone [1], or single standing Stone - Menhir and the Stapeley Hill Ring Cairn [2] [3].
[edit] References
[edit] See also
- Hoarstones
- Whetstones
- Dun cow
