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Little Salkeld

Little Salkeld boasts Cumbria's only fully operational Watermill producing stone-ground organic flours by water power. Tours are available daily except on Wednesday and Saturday, and there's a vegetarian tearoom and a mill shop selling a wide range of organic foods.

A lane from the village leads to Long Meg and her Daughters, a most impressive prehistoric site and second only to Stonehenge in size. Local legend claims that Long Meg was a witch who, with her daughters, was turned to stone for profaning the Sabbath as they danced wildly on the moor. There are more than 60 stones in the Circle (actually an oval), which is approximately 300 feet across. The tallest, Long Meg, is a 15-foot column of Penrith sandstone, the corners of which face the four points of the
compass. Cup and ring symbols and spirals are carved on the stone, which is over 3500 years old. The circle is now known to belong to the Bronze Age but no one is certain of its purpose. It may have been used for rituals connected with the changing seasons since the midwinter sun sets in alignment with the centre of the circle and Long Meg herself. The brooding majesty of the site was perfectly evoked by Wordsworth:

A weight of awe, not easy to be borne,
Fell suddenly upon my spirit _ cast
from the dread bosom of the unknown past,
When first I saw that family forlorn.

In 1725, an attempt was made by Colonel Samuel Lacy of Salkeld Hall to use the stones for mileposts. However, as work began, a great storm blew up and the workmen fled in terror believing that the Druids were angry at the desecration of their temple. It was the same Colonel Lacy who gave his name to the Lacy Caves, a mile or so downstream from Little Salkeld. The Colonel had the five chambers carved out of the soft red sandstone, possibly as a copy of St Constantine's Caves further down the river at Wetheral. At that time it was fashionable to have romantic ruins and grottoes on large estates and Colonel Lacy is said to have employed a man to live in his caves acting the part of a hermit.