Cockpit Stone Circle

When scouring maps for new places to visit, I always look out for towers, monuments and of course stone circles. While having an excursion in Penrith I was delighted to find a place called the Cockpit Stone Circle around the corner from where we were staying.

The Cockpit Stone Circle lives on Askham Fell in between the village of Askham and Pooley Bridge. Checking the map we thought that the easiest route was to park at Askham and to just follow the permissive path all the way to the stone circle.

Unfortunately there was a little bit of climbing involved which my glamorous assistant was not too pleased about. However we had parked near a pub in the village so with the promise of a glass of wine dangling in front of her like a liquid carrot, we set off.

Having reached the top of the hill we could see the Cockpit Stone Circle in at the bottom of the slope, and not having the legs to go down and then back up again, my glamourous assistant sat on a rock with her Kindle while I went down to investigate.

Even from the ground the stone circle was pretty cool containing over 70 stones. However some are just tiddlers and there are around 27 standing and recumbent stones which area set largely into the internal face of the surrounding bank. If we're being pedantic, then there are only 20 stones that are over 1 metre tall.

The best way to view a stone circle is definitely from above and so strapping my long stilts on, I got some more snaps from above.

We know you're dying for some more facts so here goes.

- The stone circle is 27 meters in diameter. I'm not telling you what that is in feet as it's 2025! :)
- It sits 300 meters above sea level
- It's estimated to be between 3,500 and 5,000 years old so dating from the Bronze Age.

We did a bit more digging and some people believed the Cockpit Stone Circle once served as a meeting place or held religious significance for the local Bronze Age population. There isn't much info about where its name derives from, some think Cockpit a more recent name which is possibly from its brief use as a cock-fighting ring.

Askham Fell is a mint place for an explore with over 100 Bronze Age sites dotted around with loads of clear paths to follow. There are lots of cairns, mini stone circles and standing stones.

Just along from the Cockpit Stone Circle heading towards Helton is a huge standing stone called the Cop Stone. It looked close on the map, but was probs around 800m in the end.

It was at this point I knew I had messed up. Just beyond the Cop Stone was a road with loads of cars parked. We need not have climbed the hill as we could have just parked here and visited both the Cop Stone and Cockpit Stone Circle on a nice short flat walk.

I kept this little nugget to myself until my glamorous assistant had a glass of wine in her hand!