The Nine Maidens Stone Circle

Description

The Nine Maidens, also known as the Seventeen Brothers, is a Bronze Age stone circle located near the village of Belstone on Dartmoor in Devon, England. The stone circle functioned as a burial chamber, although the cairn has since been robbed and the cist, known locally as a kistvaen, destroyed.

The Nine Maidens is an incomplete stone circle with sixteen still standing. The circle stands to the west of the village of Belstone in an area of clitter. This additional source of stone may have saved the destruction of the circle by local masons. None of the stones are much higher than three feet (one metre) and the diameter of the circle is approximately twenty-one feet (seven metres).

The missing seventeenth stone may have since fallen down to join several other stones that are no longer upright.