Walk to Mayborough Henge & Penrith

Todays walk was a 10 mile circular starting at the village of Stainton and taking in The Mayborough Henge and then on to Penrith and back to Stainton. This is a brand new walkers bridge over the River Eamount. Although it was still very cold the weather was quite dry with only one short flurry of snow. Most of last weekends snow had disapeared from the fields but the sheltered areas at the sides of many fields still held deep snow drifts.

Shortly after leaving Stainton we came upon this line of trees with all this attached to them and someone had trimmed it to allow shelter for the animals. There was actually 6 trees in the line. I dont know what this is called but maybe Mr. Tootlepedal can help me with this.

The first part of the walk was along this lovely lane with dry stane dykes on either side and it certainly protected us from the wind.

Near Penrith we came upon this large raised circle called Mayborough Henge and I enclose details from the web site about it.  The vallum or enclosure is entirely composed of small water-worn stones taken from the beds of the Eamount or Eden rivers. The stones are wonderfully uniform in size, and just about what any man could carry without inconvenience. We are told there are 5 million stones in the building of it and it is about 2000 years old.

The standing stone in the middle of the Henge

In a park in Penrith is this statue called The Black Angel in memory of locals who lost their lives in the Boer War

Near the end of our walk we passed through a farm where there were a number of newborn lambs and this one came running towards the four of us. Must have been the Black Sheep in the family looking for the Black Sheep in our group, but on seeing Tom it soon ran off again.