Long Meg — The 1894 Rawlinson Survey

In the summer of 1894, the Institution commissioned William Rawlinson to conduct a detailed survey of Long Meg and Her Daughters, the stone circle located approximately 6 miles north of Penrith in Cumbria. Rawlinson was a surveyor with no prior connection to the Institution. He was recommended by a Fellow whose identity is not recorded in the public index.

Rawlinson spent seventeen days at the site, producing detailed measurements of the 69 remaining stones (the original count is disputed), the outlying menhir known as Long Meg herself, and the relationships between them. His measurements used standard imperial units and, at the Institution’s specific request, the Appleby Measure.

The Count

Using the Appleby Measure, Rawlinson counted the distance from the centre of Long Meg to the centre of the stone circle. His field notes record the measurement process in detail. The notes end mid-sentence at the point where the count reached 1,706 — the year of the Institution’s founding.

The field notes are in the Institution’s archive. The final sentence, incomplete, reads: By the Appleby Measure, the distance from stone to centre is one thousand seven hundred and six, being also the year of the

The sentence does not continue. There is no indication of why it stopped. Rawlinson’s subsequent correspondence with the Institution does not mention the survey. Three years later, in 1897, he returned to Long Meg without informing the Institution. A TERRESTRIAL monitor who happened to be present noted his arrival and departure. Rawlinson was at the site for approximately two hours. He left, returned to his lodgings, and wrote a letter to the Warden. The letter contained two words. The two words are accessible from the Third Degree.