The Hell Stone is a badly-restored

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

dolmen A dolmen, () or portal tomb, is a type of single-chamber Megalith#Tombs, megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more upright megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the Late Neolithic period (4000 ...

on Portesham Hill in

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

, England. It is around north of the village of

Portesham Portesham, sometimes also spelt Portisham, is a village and civil parish in the county of Dorset in southwest England, situated in the Dorset Council administrative area approximately northwest of Weymouth, southwest of the county town Dor ...

, and approximately southeast of the Valley of Stones.

Description

The Hell Stone is situated at the head of a dry valley system in the parish of

. The burial chamber is at the southeast end of a rectangular mound. The mound is long and orientated northwest to southeast. The mound tapers from in width from the southeast end to the northwest end, and it is high. The site has been designated as a

scheduled monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage, visu ...

The chamber was badly restored in 1866 when eight men re-erected the stones, arranging them radially "rather like the slices of a cake" and supporting a large capstone.Glyn E. Daniel (1950), ''The Prehistoric Chamber Tombs of England and Wales'', page 93. Cambridge University Press. The chamber may have been, originally, a long rectangular one. A drystone wall runs across the mound, and a pond for watering livestock was dug close to the southeast end of the mound in modern times. The remains of another tomb,

The Grey Mare and her Colts The Grey Mare and her Colts is a megalithic chambered long barrow located near Abbotsbury in Dorset, England. It was built during the Early and Middle Neolithic periods (3400-2400 BC). The tomb was partially excavated in the early nineteenth cent ...

, is to the west.

Notes

Dolmens in England Buildings and structures in Dorset {{UK-archaeology-stub