The holed stone
A granite slab with a round hole that visitors still crawl through, following a centuries-old healing legend.
Bkroll — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Pascual De Ruvo — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Kernow Skies — CC BY-SA 3.0 · "unloveable"/Steve Berry, Hertfordshire, UK — CC BY 2.0
A slab of granite no taller than a standing man's belt, pierced by a round hole about half a metre across, with a single upright stone on either side. That is the whole of Mên-an-Tol, whose Cornish name means simply 'stone of the hole', and yet people drive to the end of England and squelch across the lonely moors of West Penwith to stand in front of it. Few monuments in Britain pack this much mystery into so little stone. Archaeologists place it in the late Neolithic or early Bronze Age, roughly 4,000 years ago, and think it was once part of a larger stone circle of perhaps nineteen stones, the survivors of which were rearranged at some later date. The folklore has outlived every theory. Locals called it the Crick Stone and believed that passing through the hole nine times against the sun cured backache and childhood rickets; it was also said to help couples conceive. Visitors still wriggle through today, some as a joke and some with startling seriousness, and watching them is the part children enjoy most. Be honest with yourself before you set off: the stones are smaller than the photographs suggest — the holed stone is only about 1.1 metres high and the two uprights around 1.2 — and the pleasure is the walk rather than the arrival. The site is free and open at all hours, but there are no facilities of any kind, no toilets, no café, barely a signpost. From Penzance take the B3312 to Madron and then the narrow lane towards Morvah, about fifteen minutes' drive, until a rough lay-by for a handful of cars appears beside the road. From there it is roughly a kilometre, fifteen to twenty minutes, along a nearly level farm track that turns boggy after rain, followed by a stone stile in the hedge. That rules out pushchairs, and waterproof shoes are essential even in summer. Make it a two-hour circuit of the moor: Lanyon Quoit, a huge dolmen on three legs, stands a few steps off the same road; the Mên Scryfa, 300 metres to the north, is a standing stone carved with a Latin inscription; and the Nine Maidens circle at Boskednan sits higher up the hill. On July and August evenings the site fills with sunset photographers, so come in the morning for quiet, and skip wet winter days, when the light goes before five and the track becomes a stream.
A granite slab with a round hole that visitors still crawl through, following a centuries-old healing legend.
The walk itself across open heather moorland, with glimpses of the sea, is the real reward.
A giant dolmen a few steps off the road and a hilltop stone circle round out a two-hour prehistoric walk.
Madron–Morvah road, near Penzance, Cornwall
Yes if they can walk a kilometre themselves and will enjoy crawling through the hole, which is what they remember. With a pushchair or a baby, no: the track is boggy, it ends at a stone stile, and there are no facilities at all. In that case stop at Lanyon Quoit, which stands a few steps from the road.
There is no contest on scale; Stonehenge is vastly bigger, with a visitor centre and timed tickets. But here you stand among the stones and touch them, for free, in the silence of the moor, which Stonehenge never allows. If you are already in Cornwall it makes a fine morning outing; do not drive four hours specially for it.