Gents Mag 1833 part 1 p.4

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	introduction
	list, 2nd qtr 19th century
	Gentleman's Magazine 1833 part 1 p.4
stone circle   Shap
	Stone Circle and Alignment, Shap Jan. 13. Mr. URBAN, IN the Reliquiae Galeanae, p.387, is the subjoined interesting passage, in a letter dated Stamford, Sept. 24, 1743, from Dr. Stukeley to Mr. Gale: 'I have got a vast drawing and admeasurement, from Mr. Routh of Carlisle, of the Stones of Shap' (in Westmoreland,) 'which I desired from him. They give me so much satisfaction that verily I shall call on you next year to take another religious pilgrimage with me thither. I find it to be, what I always supposed, another huge serpentine temple, like that of Aubury. The measure of what are left extends a mile and a half, but, without a doubt, a great deal of it has been demolished by the town, abbey, and every thing else thereabouts.' I send you the above for insertion in your Magazine, with the hope that some of your correspondents may be able to inform you whether the drawing and plan which it mentions, were ever published or not: if they were, in what work? and if not - whether they exist, and where? The inclosure of Shap Fell made sad havoc in the temple. Traces of it, however, still exist, and the recovery of Mr. Routh's plans might go far to find out its original form, and throw much light upon the history of the neighbourhood, which abounds in Druidical remains. Dr. Stukeley is certainly right in calling the whole collection of stones a temple. It is not, as has been commonly and idly conjectured, a Danish monument. Similar works abound in parts of Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, where the Danes never settled. Neither is there any evidence, or probable ground of conjecture, that the Danes ever erected any such monuments in Britain as this. They were too intent upon plunder and securing their conquests, to have either time or inclination to get up monuments in their glory. It is a remarkable feature of Westmoreland and Cumberland, that their uncultivated hills and plains are scattered all over with Druidical remains; while in Northumberland and Durham, which adjoin them on the east, scarcely anything of the kind exists. There is, indeed, good historical evidence to show, that Cumberland and Westmoreland were inhabited by the Celtic race, called Cumbri, or Cimmerii, for several centuries after the Romans left Britain; whereas the eastern shores of the island, in Northumberland and Durham, were inhabited by German tribes before the Roman aera. The rude masses of stone, of which the temple is made, consist chiefly of the granite and grauwacke, which abound in the mountains to the west of Shap. They are all diluvial; and immense numbers of similar sorts of blocks are found all over the hills about Shap and Orton, and as far east as about Appleby and Brough. Some blocks of the Wastdale granite (a district to the south west of Shap) are even left upon the bare limestone strata on Stanemore; one lies as a curiosity in the street of Darlington; and rounded fragments of the same kind are often found in the
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	-- (glacial erratics, Cumbria)
	-- "Stones of Shap" -- Karl Lofts

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