EARLY MAN Apart from the Ledbury implements there appear to be none recorded from Herefordshire which may not be considered as characteristic of quite a late period in the Neolithic Age. These comprise : — I. A chipped celt of white stone afterwards reduced to smoothness by grinding, found in the River Wye at a point of which no record appears to have been preserved, but as the celt is in Hereford Museum it may be presumed that it was pro- cured in or near that city ; 2. A stone hammer found at Kington ; 3. Two flint arrow-heads with somewhat imperfectly deve- loped barbs and stems, found at Oldcastle, near Hereford ; and 4. A well-shaped stemmed and barbed arrow-head formed of flint, found at Vowchurch. v_^ Oldcastle, near Hereford (^) Vowchurch (|) Megalithic Remains The remains of megalithic structures of the Neolithic Period in Herefordshire are not so important numerically as one might expect, yet one, called Arthur's Stone, is a somewhat damaged, but in many respects remarkable, cromlech ; other megalithic remains, probably fallen cromlechs, are recorded at Sutton St. Nicholas, St. Margaret's Park, and (possibly) Whitchurch. ' The Queen Stone,' shortly to be described, is probably a naturally-shaped and naturally-placed stone, round which certain super- stitious ideas have grown up. Arthur s Stone. — This is an interesting cromlech at Dorstone,^ situated on the summit of Bredwardine Hill, an eminence which has sometimes been known as ' Arthur's Stone Mountain.' Originally this monument consisted of a large, flat, oblong stone, the eastern point being narrow and the breadth increasing towards the west. The capstone is now broken and much decayed, but it has the appearance of having been only one large stone when it was reared into its original position. If so, it must have been a stone of remark- able size. Its length was 19 ft., breadth at the widest part, 12 ft.; and breadth at the eastern end, 3 ft. 4 in. The capstone is broken about the middle, where the breadth is 10 ft., and part has fallen lower than the other. Originally there were ten upright stones ; five of these have also fallen down, and five remain in a more or less perpendicular position ; one or two of them, however, have a slight tendency to lean inwards. Notwithstanding the various explanations as to the purpose of this group of stones which some writers ^ have offered, there seems no sufficient reason to doubt that it was erected for sepulchral uses, and in all probability belongs to the Neolithic Age. The stones are of the kind known geologically as Old Red Sandstone, and, as might be expected in a structure of this ' Trans, of the Woolhope Field Club (1882), 175-80 ; (1901-2), 194-9.
- See Arch. Cambr. (Ser. 2), v, 94-6.
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