CoralJackz – That History Couple

Grid Reference: SR9810095060

The Devil’s Quoit is a prehistoric standing stone, 1.7m tall, located in the Stackpole Warren Nature Reserve in Pembrokeshire, Wales. The landscape of Stackpole is rich in prehistoric history, and in the 1970s was subject to extensive excavations which revealed occupation from the Mesolithic Period through to the Romano-British Period and beyond.

The standing stone was shown to have been erected on the site of a circular timber structure which burnt down around 3,400 years ago and was part of a complex setting of small stones. Human cremation was inserted into the complex around 940BC and a later Iron Age and Romano-British settlement (or ‘ritual’) site was also found and recorded.

The stone is also one of the ‘Dancing Stone of Stackpole’.. One of three prehistoric standing stones which are said to meet at Saxon’s Ford on a certain day of each year, where they dance until dawn to a tune played by the Devil on his flute.

To get to the standing stone, we parked at the parking for Bosherton Lily Ponds, which is a beautiful walk. Unfortunately, when we visited, the water was so high that the lilies were underwater. But that the bridges over the water were very interesting to walk over!

Sources: Excavations at Stackpole Warren, Dyfed- D. G. Benson, J. G. Evans, G. H. Williams, T. Darvill, A. David, D. Brennan, A. E. Caseldine, R. Cole, Q. Dresser, L. M.
Hyde, T. O’connor and J. L. Wilkinson