Four Shire Stone
The Four Shire Stone is a boundary marker that marks the point where the English counties of Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, and Worcestershire once met. Since 1931, when the Worcestershire exclave of Evenlode was transferred to Gloucestershire, only three counties have met at the stone.
Boundary marker
The Four Shire Stone is not a single stone, but a nine-foot high monument, built from the local Cotswold stone. It is in the English midlands at the northern corner of a T junction on the A44 road, a mile and a half east of the small town of Moreton-in-Marsh, at, grid reference SP2301432023. The existing structure was probably built in the 18th century, and is a grade II listed building. There was an earlier "4 Shire Stone" on or near the site in 1675, almost certainly that illustrated in 1660. Thomas Habington's Survey of Worcestershire mentions "the stone which toucheth four sheeres, a thing rarely scene".Five civil parishes meet at the stone:
- Moreton-in-Marsh to the west, in Gloucestershire;
- Formerly Batsford to the northwest, also in Gloucestershire, until Batsford/Moreton-in-Marsh boundary change in 1987;
- Formerly Lower Lemington to the north, also in Gloucestershire, and which merged into Batsford in 1935;
- Great Wolford to the north, in Warwickshire;
- Little Compton to the northeast, also in Warwickshire;
- Chastleton to the southeast, in Oxfordshire;
- Evenlode to the south, now also in Gloucestershire; until 1931 it was a detached part of Worcestershire.