Devil
The Devil's Quoits
A long throw from Wytham Hill.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Reconstructed stone circle inside a rebuilt henge bank
- Legend from
- Local tradition
- Tone
- Light-hearted
One Sunday the Devil played quoits against a beggar, hurling stones from Wytham Hill. They're still lying where they landed.
In flat gravel country south of Stanton Harcourt, a ring of standing stones sits inside a rebuilt bank and ditch. It is a Late Neolithic henge, almost destroyed by quarrying and an airfield, then excavated and rebuilt between 2002 and 2008. The name comes from a legend that the Devil played a game of quoits against a beggar one Sunday. He threw the stones from Wytham Hill, several miles away, and where they landed they stayed. The Oxford Archaeology report on the site does not tell the legend.