Standing Stones nr. Wick

From "Unbeaten Tracks of the West" P.E.Barnes 1931

Between Upton Cheney and Wick, a mile distant from the latter village, in the middle of a pasture field off a by-road, stand two huge stones.

The ordnance map, accepting tradition, names them Druidical stones, and Druidical stones probably they are.

Their tops are lichen covered and the weather of centuries has smoothed their surface here and there, and stunted them and chiselled out notches and segments, and left them scarred monolithic veterans, isolated and deserted , sole survivors of a pagan temple.

And there is a tradition that somewhere near them lies buried a golden calf.

You hear and read a lot about the stones of Stanton Drew, in Somerset. You rarely hear mention of these of Wick, though, forsooth, they may be as old as Stanton Drew's , and relics of the same paganism.


and further on...

They are fairly close together. They are five feet or so in height. Beneath them is a fallen third, almost completely buried.

What height stood they out of the ground originally? Who can tell? Where were the others that ran in avenues or in circles? Who can tell?

All we see are these two lichen-crowned and scarred survivors. They look pigmies compared with the great stones of Stonehenge. They are undersized even compared with the stones of Stanton Drew. Is that because they are of stone that has been far less defiant of age? Or was this monument here, this pagan temple, this sacrificial site, or whatever it may have been, of so much less account, so much smaller than the others?