Harp Stone

Tucked away on the edge of fields, in a dense hawthorn/shrub thicket and adjacent to what looks like a heavily overgrown sunken track of maybe a seasonal stream as there's water slowly flowing down through it towards the Corfe river 50m away, is the Harp Stone or Hurpstone.  The Harp Stone is a standing stone or Menhir, late Neolithic to Bronze Age in date, one of only a few known in the county. The stone is local rough limestone 2m (about) high, 1m by .8m, deeply cut vertical grooves created  by rain and weathering run down the east and west faces (the narrower faces), these faces are also holed like Swiss cheese. It would've been a prehistoric ritual/ceremonial site and is still used today, a crystal could be spied set in one of the many holes and a piece of ribbon/cloth is tied through 2 joining holes. I too sat a while in tranquil contemplation and lovely it was. The practices or beliefs of those who erected these monuments maybe lost to us, what I find more important in a site like this is the continuity of use. Through the millennia all manner of folk will have visited this site and/or used it, say 4500 years of use; that's impressive. It maybe off the beaten track, but the Harp Stone is well worth a visit.