Devil
The Devil's quoit
Still lying where the Devil's throw came down.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Stone burial chamber with heavy capstone
- Legend from
- Hutchins (18th c.) / local tradition
- Tone
- Curious
The Devil pitched a quoit from Portland, and it landed on Portesham Hill.
The Hell Stone is a Neolithic burial chamber on the ridge above Portesham: nine upright stones under a huge capstone. Hutchins wrote that the common people believed the Devil flung it from Portland while playing quoits, and the chamber's opening faces Portland. Dorset Ancestors notes that it was rebuilt, probably wrongly, by Portland quarrymen in 1866 and 1869, and that the name probably comes from an old word meaning to cover. Dorset National Landscape's storytellers have added a modern tale in which the Dorset Ooser sleeps under the stones until hail wakes him.