The Grubstones () is a

stone circle A stone circle is a ring of standing stones. Most are found in Northwestern Europe – especially in Britain, Ireland, and Brittany – and typically date from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with most being built from 3000 BC. The be ...

Burley Moor Burley may refer to: People * Burley (surname) * Burley Mitchell, chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court Places England * Burley, Hampshire, a village and civil parish * Burley, Leeds, an inner city area of Leeds * Burley, Rutla ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...

, England. It is believed to be either an embanked stone circle or a ring

cairn A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehis ...

Location

The Grubstones circle is located on Burley Moor (to the east of

Ilkley Moor Ilkley Moor is part of Rombalds Moor, the moorland between Ilkley and Keighley in West Yorkshire, England. The moor, which rises to 402 m (1,319 ft) above sea level, is well known as the inspiration for the Yorkshire "county anthem" ...

).James Dyer, (2001), ''Discovering Prehistoric England'', page 230. Osprey Publishing. It is situated below the top of the hill on a gentle south facing slope. The circle is just over 800 metres south-east of the

Twelve Apostles In Christian theology and ecclesiology, the apostles, particularly the Twelve Apostles (also known as the Twelve Disciples or simply the Twelve), were the primary disciples of Jesus according to the New Testament. During the life and minist ...

. South-east of the circle there are several large cairns including ''The Skirtful of Stones''.Timothy C. Darvill, Paul Stamper, Jane R. Timby, (2002), ''England: An Oxford Archaeological Guide to Sites from Earliest Times to AD 1600'', page 149. Oxford University Press.

Description

The circle has a diameter of about 10 metres. It is almost perfectly circular with twenty surviving stones. The stones are set on the inside of a low bank, about 1.8 metres wide. The circle has been described variously as a

cairn circle A bowl barrow is a type of burial mound or tumulus. A barrow is a mound of earth used to cover a tomb. The bowl barrow gets its name from its resemblance to an upturned bowl. Related terms include ''cairn circle'', ''cairn ring'', ''howe'', ''ker ...

, a

ring cairn A ring cairn (also correctly termed a ring bank enclosure, but sometimes wrongly described as a ring barrow) is a circular or slightly oval, ring-shaped, low (maximum 0.5 metres high) embankment, several metres wide and from 8 to 20 metres in ...

enclosure, or a

.Paul Bennett, 1995, ''Circles, standing stones and legendary rocks of West Yorkshire'', page 33. Heart of Albion One third of the circle on the south side has been destroyed by shooting butts. Four large loose stones in the interior may have come from this break. The interior was excavated circa 1846 which revealed a cremation, accompanied by a flint spearhead. In the 20th century there was additional damage in the form of a subrectangular earthwork mound said to be an "orgone accumulator".

Orgone Orgone () is a pseudoscientific concept variously described as an esoteric energy or hypothetical universal life force. Originally proposed in the 1930s by Wilhelm Reich, and developed by Reich's student Charles Kelley after Reich's death in 1 ...

is supposed to be a vital energy or life force which informs the universe, and which can be collected and stored in an orgone accumulator for subsequent use in the treatment of illness.

Notes

Stone circles in England Buildings and structures in the City of Bradford {{UK-archaeology-stub