Belted Galloway Calf

Misty again so decided to venture on to pastures new at Swinside.This is a fantastic stone circle that stands on a small plateau of land with Thwaites Fell to the north and more closely overlooked by Swinside Fell to the west which gives the site its alternate name of Swinside Circle.

The site itself consists of a ring of about 55 close set stones of porphyritic slates. To the southeast is a gap that forms an entrance to the circle which is further marked by 2 large outer portal stones and it could be that this formed a sightline to the midwinter sunrise.
There have been few finds from the circle but excavations at the turn of the 20th century discovered that the area had been leveled prior to the erection of the stones - the name Sunkenkirk comes from a legend that the Devil pulled down the stones each night as the circle was being built.

At Swinside farm we found this Belted Galloway calf along with its foster mother. They have been introduced to try and keep the bracken on the fell down.