Waen Bant Standing Stone
Also known asPlanwydd Helyg Standing Stone
DatedEst. 2800–1800 BCE
Photo David Medcalf · CC BY-SA 2.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
What the sources say
Waen Bant Standing Stone is a menhir recorded in Gwynedd, United Kingdom. It is also recorded as Planwydd Helyg Standing Stone. In open records it appears as Wikidata item Q122219680, mapped at 52.7001° N, 3.9967° W.
Built from structured records, not from an articleSources and licences
Where it sits in time
The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.
The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.
The full article
About Waen Bant Standing Stone
This kind of monument hereSources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
Britain and Ireland are rich in standing stones; the Atlas records many hundreds. Together with Brittany they hold about 50,000 examples across the Atlantic fringe of Europe, and many stand singly in fields. In Ireland they are usually in farmers' fields and are heavily worn by weather and by livestock rubbing against them. The stones are usually difficult to date. They were put up in many periods of prehistory as part of the wider megalithic cultures, and any single stone may be Neolithic, Bronze Age or later. Theories about their purpose remain speculative: rituals, territorial markers, or markers in a system of belief. Further down this page, About this kind of monument gives the whole of “British and Irish standing stones”.
DatingSources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
The Atlas shows 2800 BCE to 1800 BCE for this site, but that is a regional estimate for this kind of monument, not a date for this particular menhir. No excavation, radiocarbon sample or other measurement is recorded for it, so the real age could fall anywhere within the range, or outside it.
The range rests on this regional background (source: the Wikipedia article “Menhir”): Standing stones are associated with the Beaker people of the European late Neolithic and early Bronze Age c. 2800-1800 BC.
Landscape and neighbours
Within 10 km lie 148 other catalogued sites (6 within 1 km, 63 within 5 km); 10 of them are also classed as menhir. That puts it inside a dense cluster of monuments. In Gwynedd, United Kingdom, 89 of the 904 catalogued sites are classed as menhir.
The closest catalogued sites are Pont-y-Llan, Cairn (0.3 km north, megalithic mound); Cairn SW of Hafotty Fach (0.4 km east, megalithic mound); Afon Arthog standing stone (0.4 km east, menhir); Arthog Standing Stones (0.7 km north, megalithic mound). The catalogue is assembled from open records and is not complete, so unrecorded monuments may lie closer.
Records and protectionSources for this section
Sources for this section
Wikidata lists the site with the heritage status scheduled monument; National Monument of Wales. The open records for it are Wikidata (Q122219680), where corrections and further identifiers can be added. Sites of this kind often lie on farmland or other private ground, so check local access rules before visiting and leave the monument as you found it.
How this page was madeSources for this section
Sources for this section
This page was built automatically from Wikidata (CC0), the heritage register named above and the regional article “British and Irish standing stones”, written for the Atlas from the Wikipedia articles it cites (CC BY-SA 4.0), plus distances and counts computed from the catalogue coordinates. It contains no AI-written text.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
British and Irish standing stones
Britain and Ireland are rich in standing stones; the Atlas records many hundreds. Together with Brittany they hold about 50,000 examples across the Atlantic fringe of Europe, and many stand singly in fields. In Ireland they are usually in farmers' fields and are heavily worn by weather and by livestock rubbing against them. The stones are usually difficult to date. They were put up in many periods of prehistory as part of the wider megalithic cultures, and any single stone may be Neolithic, Bronze Age or later. Theories about their purpose remain speculative: rituals, territorial markers, or markers in a system of belief.
Some stand in groups. The Calanais Stones on the Isle of Lewis, built around 2750 BCE, form a circle with a tall central monolith and several rows extending outwards in a cross-shaped plan, on a ridge overlooking Loch Roag. The Rollright Stones in Oxfordshire include the King's Men, the King Stone and the Whispering Knights, three monuments built in the Neolithic and Bronze Age.
Folklore: the names of the Rollright Stones come from stories told since the early modern period; legend holds that the King Stone comes alive at the stroke of midnight. At Calanais one tradition says the stones were giants who would not convert to Christianity, and in the seventeenth century the people of Lewis called them fir bhrèige, "false men". Another legend says that on midsummer morning an entity known as the Shining One walks the length of the avenue. These are traditions, not memories of the builders.
The Atlas treats isolated stones as undated unless they have been excavated.
When visiting, look at how a stone stands in relation to the landscape and to any nearby monument.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Menhir, Wikipedia: Callanish Stones, Wikipedia: Rollright Stones, Wikipedia: List of menhirs · CC BY-SA 4.0
See it in 3D
An interpretive reconstruction of the monument, standing on the real ground at its exact point, under the sun for that place and season. Drag to look around it.
The reconstruction is ours, not a survey: it shows what a monument of this type looks like, at the size the record gives for this one.
Photographs
1 photograph, each with its author and licence
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 2800–1800 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for menhirs in United Kingdom; this site has not been dated itself. Standing stones are associated with the Beaker people of the European late Neolithic and early Bronze Age c. 2800-1800 BC.Source for this date
Where it stands
United Kingdom
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 52°42′00″ N, 3°59′48″ WFor a GPS or map app: 52.70011, -3.99666
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Pont-y-Llan, Cairn4000–800 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Cairn SW of Hafotty Fach4000–800 BCE
- Menhir (standing stone)Afon Arthog standing stone2800–1800 BCE
Arthog Standing Stones4000–800 BCE- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Cairn II SE of Hafotty Fach4000–800 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Cairn I NE of Hafotty Fach4000–800 BCE
Llynnau Cregennen Standing Stone2800–1800 BCE- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Cairn E of Hafotty Fach4000–800 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q122219680wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
Report a correctionWrong date, name, photograph or source? Tell us and it will be put right.
Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
- Pont-y-Llan, Cairn0.3 km N
- Cairn SW of Hafotty Fach0.4 km E
- Afon Arthog standing stone0.4 km E
- Arthog Standing Stones0.7 km N
- Cairn II SE of Hafotty Fach0.9 km E
- Cairn I NE of Hafotty Fach1.0 km E
- Llynnau Cregennen Standing Stone1.2 km NE
- Cairn E of Hafotty Fach1.3 km E
- Possible Cairn, E of Hafotty Fach1.3 km E
- Standing Stones, Rhos Hafotty Carneddau1.3 km E
Credit
Text, licence and sources
This page is assembled from open records (Wikidata, CC0; OpenStreetMap, ODbL) and a tradition article paraphrasing Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). No article exists for this site, and nothing here is written by a model.
- Wikidata Q122219680CC0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0