Castlerigg, also known as the Kewsick Carles, is a stone (or megalith) circle, about two miles east of Keswick, in the north of the Lake District. It consists or thirty-eight stones (five of which have fallen, and none of which have lintel stones, like the ones at Stonehenge), and the circle itself has a diameter, on average, of thirty metres. There is a sort of rectangular arrangement of stones within the circle too, called 'The Cave'.

The circle is situated on a hill overlooking the town, and with Skidaw and Blancathra (two mountains) to one side. Very little seems to be known about the site. Excavations done a hundred or so years ago found very little, but it's certainly a Bronze Age monument.

It's also remarkably fine. For a start, it's never all that warm up there, so the atmosphere is stunning - and it's also, in my experience at any rate, reasonably unfrequented. So it's very quiet. The National Trust look after the site, but it's not roped off or over-commercialised.

A few years ago, on Christmas Eve, when there was no-one about except for some unconcerned cows, I held my partner in the middle of the circle and watched the sun set, igniting the clouds, and thought how lucky I was.

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