Mên-an-Tol

Mên-an-Tol

Mên-an-Tol in 2006
Shown within Cornwall
Location	Cornwall
Coordinates	50°09′31″N 5°36′16″W / 50.158605°N 5.604441°W / 50.158605; -5.604441
Type	Standing stones
History
Periods	Neolithic / Bronze Age

The Mên-an-Tol (Cornish: Men an Toll) is a small formation of standing stones in Cornwall, United Kingdom (grid reference SW426349). It is about three miles northwest of Madron. It is also known locally as the "Crick Stone".

The Mên-an-Tol stands near the Madron to Morvah road in Cornwall. Other antiquities in the vicinity include the Mên Scryfa inscribed stone about 300 metres to the north, and the Boskednan stone circle less than 1 kilometre to the northeast.

The name Men an Toll in Cornish literally means the hole stone.

The Mên-an-Tol consists of three upright granite stones: a round stone with its middle holed out with two standing stones to each side, in front of and behind the hole. When seen at an angle from one side, the stones form a three-dimensional "101".

The two side stones are both about 1.2 metres high. The westernmost stone was moved and brought into a straight line with the other two stones sometime after 1815. The holed stone is roughly octagonal in outline. It is 1.3 metres wide and 1.1 metres high; the circular hole is 0.5 m in diameter. The only other holed stone in Cornwall of this type is the Tolven Holed Stone which can seen in a garden near Helston.

There is one other standing stone nearby, and six recumbent stones, some of which are buried. A cairn exists as a low stony mound just to the southeast. There are two other early Bronze Age barrows or cairns between 120 and 150 metres to the north.

The Mên-an-Tol is thought to date to either the late Neolithic or early Bronze Age. The holed stone could originally have been a natural occurrence rather than deliberately sculpted.