Yorkshire's Stonehenge

Was walking in the Yorkshire Dales and visited Yorkshire's Stonehenge - the Druid's Temple at Swinton.

This circle wasn't built by ancient mysterious ancient Celts, but a man called William Danby (1752 - 1833) who lived in Swinton Hall about a mile away. 

He paid a shilling a day to his workers to build this amazing folly from local stone. It involves an enormous oval of altars, menhirs, dolmens, sarsens and other phallic and neo-Druidical paraphernalia, with several solitary standing stones in a ceremonial avenue to lead the way to the temple. It's in the middle of Forestry Commission land and a great place to go.

Have since read on the internet that a guide (dated 1910) claimed : "the builder of the temple offered to provide any individual with food, and a subsequent annuity, providing he would reside in the temple seven years, living the primitive life, speaking to no one and allowing his beard and hair to grow. It is said that one man underwent this self-imposed infliction for four-and-a-half years, at the end of which he was compelled to admit defeat.'

I stayed a good few hours, but then retreated to the good nearby cafe. 

Sadly there were no windows for New House blind fabrics, braids and pulls! 

One the way there this winter tree was full of 100's of noisy starlings :