The Ring

The Ring at Pontesbury is a puzzle, a low circular embankment that could be an ancient henge or a more modern farming feature such as a pen for livestock - the ordnance survey afford it non-Roman archaelogical significance and a small circular visible earthwork symbol. I doubt if 'The Ring' is associated with settlement as the ground slopes steeply towards the east making it perhaps unsuitable for housing. This 'alignment' towards the east, towards the rising sun, is an interesting one as the site forms an attractive amphitheatre to those perhaps viewing from the Iron Age (600BC) earthworks on nearby Pontesbury Hill and Earls Hill, (hills that are said to resemble a sleeping dragon).

We walked to The Ring through the Polesgate Nature Reserve after first visiting nearby Callow Hill Camp. The reserve is an attractive ancient oak woodland with disused quarry workings, there are colonies of orchids on site and a wide range of woodland plants; from the footpaths are tremendous views across Pontesbury and the Rea Valley.

I had all but given up hope of finding the site, (I seemed to have trouble with my navigation throughout the day!), but luckily my partner is a little more persistant and soon came back with the location of the place. On a sloping meadow, formed by a low embankmant is 'The Ring', a henge constructed without an obvious entrance and perhaps some twenty metres in diameter, oak tree's grow within it and about its edges.