CASTLERIGG stone circle near Keswick - surrounded by some of the highest mountains in England - has been a magnet for tourists to the English Lake District since the eighteenth century.

New research by Cumbrian archaeologist Steve Dickinson has suggested that part of the circle, known as the ‘Sanctuary’, replicates in stone many small rectangular Neolithic structures in Ireland and Yorkshire.

These were built with timber and used from around 5,700 to 5,600 years ago.

If this theory is correct, it suggests Castlerigg’s Sanctuary could pre-date the first phase of Stonehenge by some 700 years.

It could make Castlerigg one of the first prehistoric stone circles built in north-west Europe, he said.

Recent archaeological finds from satellite imaging in coastal south-west Cumbria, reported by Mr Dickinson in The Prehistoric Society’s newsletter in 2022, also demonstrate, through crop-marks 'visible from space', huge Neolithic earthen and timber enclosures and linear processional ways.

One of the Cumbrian enclosures is matched by another in the Boyne Valley, Ireland; famous for its huge Neolithic passage graves, rock art and similar enclosures.

Such sites for mass gatherings and commemorations are most likely connected with complex rituals, including the veneration and distribution of distinctive stone axes, quarried, crafted and polished in their thousands 6,000 to 5,000 years ago from the central fells of the Lake District; including from England’s highest mountain, Scafell Pike.

This was 'probably regarded as sacred' to the people of the Neolithic in both Britain and Ireland, due to its remoteness and the challenges and adventures involved in acquiring the axe stone from it, according to Mr Dickinson. 

A new stone circle festival in Keswick, Castlerigg Connections, held on June 1 to 9, 2024, is set to explore these finds and many more.

These discoveries could 'revolutionise' our understanding of these enigmatic monuments and the Neolithic period, Mr Dickinson said - a time marking the arrival of the first farmers in Britain and Ireland - and a time of a warming climate.