Rollright Stones

The Rollright Stones stand on a ridge on the border of Oxfordshire and Warwickshire, between Chipping Norton and Long Compton. There are three monuments spanning more than 2,000 years: a burial chamber, a stone circle and a single standing stone. The Rollright Trust owns them, and the site opens daily for a small fee.

The story of the stones

The monuments were built centuries apart, and only legend ties them together. The Rollright Trust dates them like this:

• The Whispering Knights, a burial chamber, early Neolithic, about 3800 to 3500 BC
• The King's Men, a stone circle, late Neolithic, about 2500 BC
• The King Stone, a single stone, early to middle Bronze Age, about 1500 BC

Treat those as best estimates. Historic England's list entry puts the circle at about 2500 to 2000 BC and the burial chamber at about 3800 to 3000 BC. The stones are local oolitic limestone, probably gathered within 500m of the site.

The ground was busy before and after. Late Mesolithic people worked flint by the King Stone, a Bronze Age cairn nearby held cremations of about 1900 to 1700 BC, and an early Saxon cemetery was found after nineteenth-century quarrying. The earliest written mention is a late twelfth-century list of the Wonders of Britain, and William Camden's Britannia of 1607 has the first published drawing.

The twentieth century left a stranger mark. Larches planted inside the King's Men in the nineteenth century were felled during the Second World War, when a Royal Signals post by the King Stone watched for enemy aircraft. In the Cold War the post became an early warning station with an underground chamber, capped in 1992. The Rollright Trust bought the King Stone in 2020, bringing all three monuments under one owner for the first time.

The legend

The names come from folklore, which the Trust tells as folklore. A king and his army meet a witch, who challenges him: 'Seven long strides shalt thou take', and if he can then see Long Compton, he will be King of England. He fails. She turns him into the King Stone, his army into the King's Men and his plotting knights into the Whispering Knights, and becomes an elder tree herself. Other tales say the King's Men cannot be counted to the same total three times, and that a farmer who moved one of the stones had nothing but misfortune until it went back. Count them if you like. The Trust says seventy-odd remain, from perhaps about 105 once.

What to look for

Start at the King's Men, about 20m from the road: a ring of seventy-odd weathered stones covered in delicate lichens. Cross the road for the King Stone, about 30m away, in Warwickshire. Then walk the 500m to the Whispering Knights, the burial chamber and the oldest monument. The Trust asks people not to sit or climb on the stones, which are fragile, and it has put newly quarried stones in the copse and on the ridge for that purpose.

Visiting the Rollright Stones

The site is open all year, and at night for stargazers, since it is a Dark Skies Discovery Site. It costs £2 for adults and £1 for children aged 7 to 16 in 2026, paid online, by QR code, at the honesty box or to a warden. Dogs must be on leads and out of the circle. There are no toilets: the nearest are about a mile east at Wyatts garden centre, with a café and a shop selling guidebooks. Fires and camping are banned. Drones are not allowed. Coach parties must book, and commercial filming and private events need the Trust's permission first.

Getting there

From Banbury or Hook Norton, head for the A3400 and the minor road along the county boundary, north of Chipping Norton, to OX7 5QB. The two laybys hold about 18 cars, and thefts from cars are frequent, so leave nothing on show. No bus passes the stones. The Trust says Stagecoach's number 50 may stop at the crossroads at the top of Long Compton Hill, half a mile east, if the driver agrees. On foot, the D'Arcy Dalton Way passes just south of the Whispering Knights and links by a permissive path. A walk from Long Compton or Little Rollright is the way to arrive without the parking.

Nearby

Chipping Norton is the nearest town, with its theatre. Hook Norton Brewery is a short drive north east, with The Sun Inn in the same village. The Falkland Arms at Great Tew is the other obvious lunch.