Arbor Low
Arbor Low is a well-preserved Neolithic henge in the Derbyshire Peak District, England. It lies on a Carboniferous Limestone plateau known as the White Peak area. The monument consists of a stone circle surrounded by earthworks and a ditch.
Description
The monument includes about 50 large limestone blocks, quarried from a local site, which form an egg-shaped circle. There were probably 41–43 stones originally, but some are now in fragments. They range in size from, with monoliths of between. One stone is partially upright; the rest are lying flat. Although it is often stated that the stones have never stood upright, it is possible that they had originally been set upright in shallow stone holes.In the centre of the circle lie at least six smaller blocks known as the cove, originally believed to have been set in a rectangle.
The stones are surrounded by an earth bank, approximately at the outside edges and high, with an interior ditch about 2 metres deep and wide. There are two causeway entrances breaching both the bank and ditch; a north-west entrance wide, and a south-east entrance wide. The inner bank encloses an area of.
Few henge monuments in the British Isles are as well preserved.
Finds
Human skeletal remains were discovered close to the cove during excavations between 1901 and 1902. Other finds have included flint scrapers, arrowheads, and bone and antler tools.Surrounding landscape
A large Bronze Age round cairn or barrow was built later, to the east of the henge, using material taken from the earth bank. It was excavated in 1845 and found to contain a cremation burial, flint and bone artefacts, and two pots similar to Late Neolithic Peterborough ware now in the care of Weston Park Museum.Arbor Low is part of a larger complex, and is linked by an earth ridge to the earlier Neolithic oval barrow of Gib Hill 320m away.