Shap Stone Avenue

About

Shap Avenue is the name given to a, now mostly destroyed, megalithic complex near the village of Shap in Cumbria, England, comprising at least two stone circles, a two-mile avenue of megalithic standing stones, and several adjacent burial mounds. Before its destruction, it was one of the largest megalithic monuments in Europe. As it survives today, the site comprises a rough and highly damaged avenue of stones arranged over a mile, aligned northwest.

At its southern end is the avenue's terminal, a stone circle named 'Kemp Howe', which has been mostly buried by a rail embankment. Up until the 18th century, Shap Avenue was comparable to Avebury in Wiltshire, making it a popular tourist destination for antiquarians. William Stukeley, famous for his work at Avebury, visited the site before its destruction, sometime before 1725.

He said of Shap Avenue: “Though it's ourney be northward... it makes a very large curve, or an arc of a circle, as those at Avebury, and passes over a brook too. A spring likewise arises in it, near the Greyhound inn.” Stukeley had earlier received a plan of the monument from a local antiquarian (now missing).

Of this, he notes: "I have gott a vast drawing and...