Local Landmark, New Discovery: The Devil’s Arrows: Boroughbridge’s Ancient Stones Have a New Story to Tell

For generations, the three enormous standing stones on the western edge of Boroughbridge have been one of the town’s most recognisable landmarks, and one of its greatest mysteries.

Known locally as the Devil’s Arrows, the prehistoric stones stand beside Roecliffe Lane, just outside the town. They have fascinated visitors, historians, and archaeologists for centuries, with questions surrounding their age, purpose, original number, and perhaps most intriguingly, where the enormous blocks of stone came from.

Now, new scientific research has answered one of those questions — and it has changed the story that many visitors will have read on the information board beside the stones.

From Plumpton Rocks to Brimham Rocks

Until recently, the accepted explanation was that the Devil’s Arrows had been quarried from Plumpton Rocks near Knaresborough, around nine miles from Boroughbridge.

That explanation can still be found on existing heritage information, including Historic England‘s listing for the scheduled monument, which records Plumpton Rocks as the stones’ source. But research published in September 2026 has now provided much stronger evidence.

Scientists from the University of York and Curtin University in Australia used geological and isotopic analysis to compare tiny mineral grains within the stones with potential sources across Yorkshire. Their conclusion was striking: the stones came from Brimham Rocks, around 18km (11 miles) west of Boroughbridge. And that changes the scale of the story considerably.

The Devil’s Arrows aren’t simply enormous pieces of rock that happened to end up near Boroughbridge. The evidence suggests that Neolithic communities deliberately sourced and transported three stones weighing around 25 tonnes each, bypassing considerably closer sources of suitable stone. In other words, the people who created this monument went looking for these rocks. They then had to get them across the Yorkshire landscape. Without roads, machinery, or modern lifting equipment.

How did they move 25-tonne stones?

That’s perhaps the question that makes the Devil’s Arrows even more remarkable. The new research cannot tell us exactly how the stones were transported, but it does rule out one important possibility: the stones were not simply carried here by glacial activity.

The researchers’ geological evidence links them specifically to the distinctive Millstone Grit at Brimham Rocks, while regional ice-flow evidence does not support a glacial journey from Brimham to Boroughbridge (source: Pure York). That leaves us with an extraordinary feat of prehistoric engineering. Exactly how Neolithic people managed it remains unknown, but the sheer scale of the stones gives today’s visitors a sense of just how ambitious the monument must have been.

As University of York archaeologist Dr Jim Leary told the BBC Mirror, the research has shown that Neolithic communities moved several 25-tonne stones across Yorkshire in what he described as an “epic quest” to create a sacred landscape.

And there may once have been more than three

The three stones we see today may not represent the complete original monument. Historical accounts indicate that there were once at least four, and possibly more, standing stones. The new research has also helped solve another long-running Boroughbridge mystery. A stone once believed to have disappeared may actually still be standing, but in a very different form.

The missing Devil’s Arrow is in Aldborough

Just a short distance from Boroughbridge, the Battle Cross in Aldborough has long been suggested as a possible remnant of a lost Devil’s Arrow. The theory dates back to the 19th century, when antiquarian J.R. Walbran proposed that a fallen prehistoric monolith had been reused in the medieval monument commemorating the 1322 Battle of Boroughbridge.

Modern mineral fingerprinting has now supported that theory, as researchers from the University of York and Curtin University in Australia have identified the Battle Cross as a carved section of one of the lost Devil’s Arrows. So the story of the stones doesn’t end with the three monuments beside Roecliffe Lane. Part of a fourth Arrow can still be seen in nearby Aldborough.

For anyone exploring Boroughbridge and the surrounding villages, this creates an interesting little prehistoric-to-medieval trail between two of the area’s historic landmarks.

Why are they called the Devil’s Arrows?

The science might be new, but the folklore is considerably older. One of the best-known local legends says that the Devil stood on How Hill and hurled enormous stones towards Aldborough. He missed, and the stones supposedly fell short, landing around Boroughbridge instead.

It’s a wonderfully Yorkshire explanation for three enormous stones appearing in the landscape, and although the scientific story is now considerably more complicated, the legend remains part of the stones’ identity.

As Justin Scully of Fountains Abbey and Brimham Rocks told the BBC Mirror, the folklore remains a much-loved part of their story, while the real journey of the stones is “every bit as extraordinary.”

Boroughbridge’s stones are part of something much bigger

The Devil’s Arrows aren’t an isolated curiosity. The area around Boroughbridge and the River Ure contains an unusually rich collection of prehistoric monuments. Archaeological evidence west of the stones indicates an extensive prehistoric landscape, while further along the Ure-Swale area is a series of Neolithic henges and other monuments.

English Heritage notes that the Devil’s Arrows form part of a wider concentration of prehistoric monuments along the Ure, including the Thornborough Henges, with the stones sharing a broad alignment with the henge complex. This fact makes Boroughbridge’s ancient stones particularly interesting as they were apparently part of a much larger ceremonial landscape rather than simply three isolated standing stones.

Britain’s prehistoric stone landscape

The Devil’s Arrows also belong to a much wider tradition of prehistoric communities creating monumental landscapes from enormous stones. Perhaps the most famous examples are Stonehenge and Avebury, where standing stones form circles, avenues, and wider ceremonial complexes. At Avebury, for example, avenues of stones extend out from the main henge. (source: English Heritage)

English Heritage also mentions other fascinating examples, such as the Rollright Stones in Oxfordshire, which is a collection of prehistoric monuments comprising a stone circle, a burial chamber, and a single standing stone. And Yorkshire has its own impressive examples, including the Rudston Monolith in the East Riding, which is taller than any of the Devil’s Arrows. In addition, the wider Yorkshire landscape contains numerous prehistoric standing stones, henges, and ceremonial sites.

What makes the Devil’s Arrows particularly intriguing is the new evidence that the stones were deliberately brought from a distinctive landscape 11 miles away. That suggests the landscape they came from and came to may have mattered just as much as the stones themselves.

A new chapter for a very old Boroughbridge landmark

For local people, the Devil’s Arrows may be something we’ve driven, walked, or cycled past countless times. But the latest research gives us another reason to stop and look.

These aren’t simply three enormous stones beside Roecliffe Lane. They’re the surviving remains of a prehistoric monument built thousands of years ago from stones deliberately brought across the Yorkshire landscape, with new evidence that connects them directly with the dramatic rock formations at Brimham Rocks. And while we may know considerably more about where the stones came from, plenty of questions remain:

• How did they move the stones?
• Why were they placed here?
• Why this particular location?
• What did the alignment mean to the people who created it?
• And what happened to the other stones?

Those mysteries are still waiting to be solved.

Visit the Devil’s Arrows in Boroughbridge

If you’ve lived around Boroughbridge for years, perhaps it’s time to look at them with fresh eyes. And if you’re visiting Boroughbridge for the first time, they’re an extraordinary piece of prehistoric history sitting right on the town’s doorstep.

The Devil’s Arrows are located just outside Boroughbridge on Roecliffe Lane, with the three surviving stones forming what the University of York named Britain’s tallest surviving standing-stone alignment.

Make the Devil’s Arrows part of your Boroughbridge visit before heading into town to discover more of the area’s history, independent businesses, cafés, and attractions.

Explore the Boroughbridge attractions guide on Ure Life for more things to see and do locally.

---

Sources:

• BBC News – Mystery of where ancient stones came from solved — Olivia Richwald, 9 September 2026.
• University of York – Neolithic ‘Devil’s Arrow’ stones travelled 11 miles across Yorkshire — 9 September 2026.
• Historic England – Devil’s Arrows scheduled monument listing
• University of York Research Database – published scientific study