Nine Ladies Stone Circle, Stanton Moor, Peak District National Park, Derbyshire, England. Another historic site I used to manage.

Nine Ladies Stone Circle is a small early Bronze Age stone circle traditionally believed to depict nine ladies turned to stone as a penalty for dancing on Sunday. It is part of a complex of prehistoric circles and standing stones on Stanton Moor.

More than 70 stone cairns and barrows are known, and excavations over the past 100 years have demonstrated that many served as places of burial. The most evocative and well-known of these monuments is the Nine Ladies Stone Circle and the King Stone, set 40 metres (131 feet) to the west-south-west of the circle.

Despite the name, there are 10 stones within the circle, the tenth stone is not visible as it has fallen and now lies flat.

The names of the monument derive from their associations with folk traditions, in which it is said that nine women were dancing on the Sabbath to a fiddler; the King Stone; and were turned to stone. The graffiti carved on the King Stone, which includes the name Bill Stumps, is also mentioned in The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens.

They are open to the public and managed by the Peak District National Parkand English Heritage.