Megalithic Monday: Iron Hills South

50 meters south of the burial cairn at Iron Hills North is the creatively named site of Iron Hills South. Nine stones form a ring around the top of a (very) low mound, with one stone about 2 metres outside the ring. Three other stones occupy the centre of the mound, with all the stones except one being Shap granite. Like its brother to the north this may also be a broken and dilapidated cairn, certainly some commentators have suggested this but there is no obvious raised structure around the remaining stones such as Iron Hills North, rather the ground within the circle is flat and level.

The feature appears to my untrained and unprofessional eye to be a small stone circle, of a similar size to the nearby Castlehow Scar circle but with a small stone assemblage in the centre. It could be anything – we really don’t know exactly what it was but like all the monuments in this complex it occupies a prominent location with wide, panoramic views.