King Arthur’s Round Table

That’s what it’s called, but it has nothing to do with King Arthur.

This may just look like a bumpy field, but it is actually an English Heritage site of some importance. It is a prehistoric monument, probably dating from 2,000 to 1,000 BC. It is just outside Penrith and I drive past it at least once a week, but have never stopped to have a look.

It is very difficult to take an aerial photograph when you’re not in the air and really that’s the only type of photograph that can convey what there is here. There’s a large, round, flat platform enclosed by a wide ditch and beyond the ditch is an earthen bank. There is an entrance you can see in the distance, where the wall is. Some more pictures and information are here.

A while back now I blipped Mayburgh Henge, which is less than 400 metres to the west of this site. Unfortunately a road now splits what was almost certainly one site, containing both, and it is thought that the whole area was a meeting place, or even a marketplace, for a huge prehistoric community.

It is interesting standing on the platform now and just wondering what happened here in the long ago past.