Sacred Geography The Nine Ladies Stone Circle
Introduction
The Nine Ladies is a small early Bronze Age stone circle
located on Stanton Moor in Derbyshire, in the English East Midlands.
It is part of a complex of prehistoric circles
and standing stones on Stanton Moor.
And is within the jurisdiction of the Peak District [Light Peak]
National Park Authority. It is owned and managed by English Heritage
Originally thought to consist of only nine stones,
a drought in 1976 brought to light a tenth stone
which had lain unnoticed for generations beneath the soil.
Furthermore it was found to have been surrounded by an embankment
and had once had a ‘mound’ at its centre.
The entire monument is not that big.
The stones are set on the inner edge of a slight bank,
and form a ring which measures only 11.5 x 10.5 metres (38 x 34 feet).
Giving the impression it is of relatively minor importance.
Until one realises it represents the holy centre of a giant Cosmic Egg,
mapped out onto the landscape.
And represents the Aether level,
containing the Seven symbolic Planets and the Symbolic Trinity,
with the other Elements Earth, Water Air and Fire,
now lost to development and quarrying.
And symbolically 7 + 3 = 10 Perfection
Professor Joscelyn Godwin Music Mysticism and magic
Ten is the number of perfection; the number of the Tetrakys of the Pythagoreans;
the number of the Sephiroth of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.
The Tenth string is the One from which in all these systems,
the other nine hypostases emanate, or alternatively,
the One in which they all seek and find their perfection.
Psalm 33:2 (New International Version)
Praise the LORD with the harp; make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre.
The sacredness and history of the site
The Nine Ladies Site was first officially recorded by Major Hayman Rooke in 1782.
He noted even then that there appeared to be stones in the centre of the ring,
which formed a small cairn.
And during the 18th and 19th centuries, the Nine Ladies
attracted the attentions of antiquarian Thomas Bateman.
General Pitt-Rivers’ Schedule to the first Ancient Monuments Protection Act
became law in 1882 and The Nine Ladies Site was among
the 28 monuments in England and Wales to be included.
And since the late 20th century, the Nine Ladies has been regarded
as a major sacred site by ‘modern Pagan groups’, in fact anyone
who deeply respects the great spiritual significance of the site.
But after the War, when it was given to English Heritage to maintain,
it went into catastrophic decline.
Without the ‘pagan’ groups, the Nine Ladies would have been lost,
as a quarry was proposed only 200 metres (660 ft) from Nine Ladies,
on land owned by Haddon Hall estate and leased to Stancliffe Stone,
and neither the Peak Park nor English Heritage
seemed interested in protecting the site.
But thanks to the Nine Ladies Anti-Quarry Campaign
who campaigned tirelessly from 1999 to 2010.
Living in tree houses on the site.
The site was saved. But only just.
In 2004 the High Court classified the invading quarries as dormant.
But unbelievably, there was an appeal against the decision.
In response, the protesters defied the court eviction order in February 2004,
and continued to occupy the site until the winter of 2008 - 2009.
The continued occupation forced the Peak Park into stating
that the quarries could not re-open until
the Peak District National Park Authority agreed on
a set of working conditions for them.”
That the Peak Park Authorities even considered this at all
is unbelievable given their remit.
In 2008, permission to quarry near the circle was finally revoked.
But we have the protesters to thank not the Peak Park or English Heritage
whose failure on this is shameful.
Surroundings
The importance of this site is best appreciated by looking at
a standard 1:25 Ordnance Survey map of the area around Stanton Moor.
The map has been marked by a member of the Nine Ladies
Anti-Quarry Campaign in a perhaps vain attempt at the time to show
just how important it was in the overall geographical context.
Only a brief glance highlights a remarkable profusion of both monuments
and natural sites of veneration this is the Doll Stone Circle.
And there are numerous cup marked rocks, springs, mounds
and smaller circles, for example, all in a mighty egg shaped bowl,
with the Nine Ladies at its centre.
Most of these additional monuments are thought to date
from the Bronze Age, about 3,000 to 4,000 years ago.
And more than 70 stone cairns and barrows are known.
The shape of the site
Stanton Moor is situated on elevated ground to the west of the River Derwent,
near Bakewell. Meaning the River Derwent and a Tributory are the Water level.
The ground then rises in an Egg shaped hill - Air
Surrounding this great central hill is a ring of Hills the Earth
There are now too many buildings and trees to detect where the Fire level may have been,
but the trees may themselves be the evidence that once a great ring of wood bonfires
surrounded this central mound on days of importance.
The Spiritual Path and Ten
Initiates to the Great Mystery religions symbolically descended
as Dante did into the Inferno.
Then after crossing the symbolic Outward Court,
ascended through the symbolic levels of the Planets the Moon,
Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn [the Inward court].
Then crossing another ‘Abyss’ and the narrow bridge over it,
they reached the top and the equivalent of Dante’s Paradiso
the Inner court.
And the ascension plus the final steps into Paradise
meant a series of ten steps.
This means that this site was reserved for only those Initiates
who had attained Perfection.
In mystic terms ‘annihilation’ and the end of reincarnation
... number ten the completed cycle or return to unity.
The small "King Stone" lies forty metres from the circle
to the west-south-west and is clearly visible from it.
And I am sure queens used it too.
THE DREAM OF SCIPIO (Cicero, 'On the Republic,' VI, 14-26)
'Yes, you must use your best efforts,' he replied,
'and be sure that it is not you who are mortal, but only your body,
nor is it you whom your outward form represents.
Your spirit is your true self,
not that bodily form that can be pointed out with the finger.
Know yourself, therefore, to be a god - if indeed a god is a being that lives,
feels, remembers, and foresees, that rules, governs, and moves the body
over which it is set, just as the supreme Intelligence above us rules this world.
And just as that eternal Intelligence moves the universe,
which is partly mortal, so an eternal spirit moves the fragile body.