The Devil’s Arrows

The Devil’s Arrows, also known as the Three Greyhounds or the Three Sisters, are a row of three colossal standing stones near Boroughbridge in Yorkshire. The stones, which reach seven metres in height with another three metres underground, are taller than the sarsens of Stonehenge. They were probably raised in the early Bronze Age, around 2000BC. 

Legend says the devil, sitting on How Hill near Ripon, a strangely prominent and eerie-feeling hill with a ruined church dedicated to St Michael, threw rocks at the town of Aldborough after it offended him. They fell short and formed the Arrows.

The row of Arrows, looking uphill

The three stones are the survivors of a larger row. One stone was pulled down in the 16^th century; a fifth one is reputed to have also been removed. Perhaps there were even more, forgotten even by legend. 

The stones, weighing 25 tonnes, are millstone grit, probably originating from a location near Knaresborough, nine miles away. It is possible they were carried by glacial action to a much nearer point, making their transport much easier. The stones were then raised and slid into their sockets, probably using levers and pulleys, and their holes packed with cobbles. It was a phenomenal undertaking. 

The stones were shaped and dressed to give them a smooth finish, something which was rarely done in British stone monuments. The sarsens of Stonehenge are the other best-known example of this, and may suggest this monument was a rival or equal power base to Stonehenge. This area of Yorkshire is believed to have once been equal in importance to the Stonehenge monuments.

The uppermost stone.

The stones are on a 320º alignment, which roughly faces the midwinter sunrise and midsummer sunset, but they are not quite in a straight line. They climb a shallow slope leading from the River Ure – this link to water is reminiscent of Stonehenge – and the final stone sits on the top of the hillside. Perhaps the destroyed stones continued towards the river and the monument formed an elaborate procession up the hillside towards the rising midwinter sun. 

Interestingly, two now vanished henges which stood on shallow hillsides near the village of Hutton to the north, are also on the same alignment as the Arrows. Perhaps it was part of a much greater monumental complex than is currently thought.

The River Ure at Boroughbridge

The Bulford Stone

The Bulford Stone is another former standing stone which formed part of the vast Stonehenge ritual landscape. Like the Cuckoo Stone, it is a glacial erratic which was raised in its natural location, and like the Cuckoo Stone it has survived through chance. It has long fallen and was until recently believed to be a natural erratic, until excavation revealed its true importance.

The Bulford Stone is around two miles from Woodhenge and the Cuckoo Stone, which are visible to the west, and intriguingly is on the same alignment as these sites and the Stonehenge Cursus discussed last week. It seems this alignment of natural features stretches far further than was once thought.

The Bulford Stone, looking towards Woodhenge

Around the standing stone, which was raised at an unclear date, was once a Bronze Age round barrow which was positioned to incorporate the stone. The barrow contained three burials dating to 1900BC-1750BC.

They included an intriguing array of grave goods, including flint knives, arrows and antler tools for flaking flint; a piece of Cotswold limestone shaped very much like one of the Stonehenge sarsens, perhaps representing a microcosm of the stones’ spiritual power; a boar’s tusk pendant; and a piece of rock crystal which may have come from the Alps. These unique finds suggest high-status burials, perhaps of shamans. Rock crystal is commonly used for divination, healing and other spiritual purposes. Other high-status burials nearby, such as the Amesbury Archer, had come from the Alps region, an arduous journey 4000 years ago and one which conveyed considerable prestige.

The Bulford Stone, looking east towards Beacon Hill

While the Cuckoo Stone stands in rough grassland, the Bulford Stone is in the middle of an agricultural field, and for hundreds of years farmers and machinery have had to dodge around it. Most large boulders which were in the way were simply removed, the reason for the huge loss of standing stones over the past few centuries. Why did the Bulford Stone, until recently believed to be a natural erratic with no significance, not suffer the same fate? Perhaps the spirits of the shamans who were buried at its foot continue to guard their ancient ward.

The Cuckoo Stone

The Cuckoo Stone is a fairly modest standing stone around a mile from Stonehenge. The sarsen is one of many which once littered the landscape, left here long ago by glacial action, and the stone was simply raised in its original, natural location. It has long since fallen again. 

A pit near the stone contained cattle bone, flint, pottery and an antler pick, perhaps the tools used to raise the stone and the subsequent feast to consecrate it. The pick dates to 2900BC, the earliest phase of Stonehenge which at this point comprised a circle of bluestones but none of the huge sarsens.

Bronze Age burial urn from the Stonehenge area.

The Cuckoo Stone remained a revered site for the next three thousand years. Several Bronze Age cremation urns were interred around the stone, with dates ranging from 2000BC to 1260BC. Much later still, a Roman-era village with large farms and a wide spread of fields grew up around the stone, and burials from this period were inserted into a Bronze Age barrow a short distance away near Woodhenge. Almost certainly this village was the home of people whose ancestry stretched back to the Neolithic and Bronze Age inhabitants of the area, despite their adaptation of Roman ways in the early centuries CE, and they were successors to the ancient traditions of the still-sacred Stonehenge landscape.

The Cuckoo Stone looking towards Woodhenge

Why was the Cuckoo Stone so important? It lies on gently sloping grassland on the eastern edge of Salisbury Plain, with wide views in all directions but the west, where Stonehenge itself is hidden by the slope. The stone is on the same alignment as the Stonehenge Cursus, an enigmatic ditched enclosure 3km long and 100m wide, which seems to commemorate an ancient routeway. This route, and perhaps the cursus if it had been continued, would have incorporated the Cuckoo Stone, at the time recumbent but eventually raised, and continued to Woodhenge a few hundred metres to the east.

We will probably never know the reason for the importance of this alignment of natural features, but they remained respected in people’s memories as the Neolithic was succeeded by the Bronze Age, as Celts and then Romans swept across Britain and the country’s way of life changed beyond recognition, again and again. Eventually the Cuckoo Stone succumbed and became a mere rock in a field, but thanks to recent archaeology, its importance has been rediscovered.