Castlerigg at Evening

After a pleasant and peaceful lunch over Penrith way with Anny, and three terriers to make a fuss of, my sister and I came home via Castlerigg Stone Circle, just as dusk was falling. Lots of other families also thought it would round off the day nicely before teatime so there was a distinct feeling of bustle and purpose around the stones.

Historians date the place back 5000 years, to Neolithic times and its importance, sited at the confluence of three valleys and on the way to the sea is obvious, but other than that, its actual uses, perhaps as spiritual centre, trading market or boundary definer, can only be conjecture. Different times would have brought different meanings into play. 
And in that lies part of its joy. Surrounded in a perfect circle of mountains, the view always takes your breath away but the stones link to something earthier, closer to the human heart. People down all the past ages have stood here, each with their own story. They talked, met, argued, planned, celebrated and made decisions, and the stones would have caught them, as they do us now, to think of continuity, to question and imagine those who came before and will come after.

‘Why did they build it HERE?’ asks one woman. Dad tells his kids how long ago it was made before they run off to try and touch every stone in the circle and feel for themselves. We impose an intimate landscape of thick woodland instead of the open bareness of the fellsides, whilst a lone photographer stares down at the ashes of a solstice fire lit a few days ago, in the centre.

Dreams and imaginings as fleeting and as real as the inversion clouds, before driving home to electric lights, central heating and Christmas movies.