# The 24 Best Stone Circles in Britain and Ireland

> A few of these rings draw coach parties all summer, and others sit in sheep fields at the end of a single-track road.

*By YPB Team · Published September 29, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-24-best-stone-circles-in-britain-and-ireland*

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## Current results (2 votes)

1. **Stonehenge** — score 1000/1000
   Wiltshire's lintelled sarsen circle, raised around 2500 BC with bluestones brought from west Wales.
2. **Easter Aquhorthies** — score 676/1000
   Aberdeenshire recumbent stone circle with a great slab laid flat between two tall flankers.
3. **Ring of Brodgar** — score 479/1000
   Huge Orkney ring, once about 60 stones, set inside a rock-cut ditch between two lochs.
4. **Beaghmore** — score 479/1000
   Seven Bronze Age circles and stone rows uncovered from the peat in County Tyrone.
5. **Avebury** — score 405/1000
   Wiltshire henge enclosing the largest prehistoric stone circle in the world, with a village built inside it.
6. **Machrie Moor** — score 405/1000
   Six circles of granite boulders and red sandstone pillars on the Isle of Arran.
7. **Castlerigg** — score 405/1000
   Neolithic circle near Keswick ringed by the fells of the Lake District, one of the earliest in Britain.
8. **Stanton Drew** — score 315/1000
   Somerset site whose Great Circle is the second largest in Britain after Avebury.
9. **Grange Stone Circle** — score 315/1000
   Ireland's largest stone circle, beside Lough Gur in County Limerick.
10. **Clava Cairns** — score 315/1000
   Bronze Age cairns ringed by standing stones in a wooded valley near Inverness.
11. **Mitchell's Fold** — score 315/1000
   Bronze Age circle on a Shropshire ridge, tied to a legend about a magic cow.
12. **The Hurlers** — score 315/1000
   Three circles in a row on Bodmin Moor, said to be men petrified for playing hurling on a Sunday.
13. **Ballynoe** — score 315/1000
   Late Neolithic circle of closely spaced stones near the village of Ballynoe in County Down.
14. **Calanais Stones** — score 0/1000
   Cross-shaped setting of tall gneiss stones on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.
15. **Stones of Stenness** — score 0/1000
   Four towering slabs on Orkney, part of one of the oldest henge monuments in Britain.
16. **Boscawen-Un** — score 0/1000
   Cornish circle of 19 stones around a leaning central pillar near Land's End.
17. **Beltany** — score 0/1000
   Donegal hilltop ring of more than 60 stones near Raphoe.
18. **Long Meg and Her Daughters** — score 0/1000
   Large Cumbrian circle with Long Meg, a red sandstone outlier carved with rock art, standing beside it.
19. **Rollright Stones** — score 0/1000
   Oxfordshire trio of the King's Men circle, the King Stone and the Whispering Knights, thick with folklore.
20. **Swinside** — score 0/1000
   Near-complete circle of 55 stones in a quiet Cumbrian field below Black Combe.
21. **Merry Maidens** — score 0/1000
   Cornish ring of 19 granite stones, said to be girls turned to stone for dancing on a Sunday.
22. **Drombeg** — score 0/1000
   West Cork circle aligned on the midwinter sunset, with 13 of its original 17 stones still standing.
23. **Arbor Low** — score 0/1000
   Peak District henge high on the moors, where nearly all the stones lie flat.
24. **Nine Ladies** — score 0/1000
   Small Bronze Age circle hidden in the birch woods of Stanton Moor in the Peak District.

Tags: travel, england, scotland, ireland, stone circles, archaeology