How the UK's ancient stones are drawing renewed awareness of the sacred

PENZANCE, England (RNS) — On a gray afternoon in November, a group of 19 people gathered outside the Church of St. Buryan, an iconic medieval parish with a 92-foot granite tower that dominates the skyline.

Clad in raincoats, reflective vests, waterproof boots with some holding wooden staffs, these residents of Cornwall, England’s coastal southwestern county, were ready for a different kind of spiritual experience — not in the church, but a stone circle.

Carolyn Kennett, an astronomer leading a 3.2-mile hike to the stone circle Boscawen-Ûn, explained why she organized the trip for Nov. 5, the full moon. She was curious to see whether the moon rising opposite the sun cast a particular light on the taller inclining stone — the only one made of quartz.

“It would have been a really nice thing to have seen,” she told the group, motioning to the overcast sky. “We’re just going to hopefully have to imagine it, but you never know, we might get a small gap.”

The group assembled before her was undeterred. With one or two exceptions, they had trekked to Boscawen-Ûn multiple times.

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