A dowser is using his divine powers to pinpoint the exact whereabouts of forgotten Lake District stone circles.
Surveyor Paul Daw came to Cumbria with his divining rods and visited various Lake District locations at the end of April in search of the buried Neolithic sites.
Using a Y-shaped twig or two L-shaped brass rods, diviners claim to be able to locate unseen objects by detecting small changes in magnetic fields or ‘earth energies’.
Mr Daw plans to come back in June to use his mysterious powers to find even more stone circles.
The 56-year-old from Cambridge, said: “The idea of looking for stone circles came to me after visiting an Oxfordshire site where they did just that.
“The technique is quite powerful and it means we can locate the circles without damaging them.
“I use historical maps from county archives to get an idea of where to look.
“Cumbria is a fantastic location for using this technique for the sheer number of stone circles it has.
“The rods went crazy when we were at Bleaberry Haws near Torver so I think that site will be soon verified as a stone circle.
“It’s an amazing feeling when you discover a stone circle, but don’t know how exactly how big it is until you walk across the site with the rods.
“Sometimes the stones are buried in the earth, get moved by animals or are stolen.”
While in the Lake District Mr Daw believes he found seven stone circles which were completely destroyed.
English Heritage and the National Park Authority are reluctant to allow potentially damaging archaeological digs in Lakeland, so Mr Daw’s skills could be called upon even more in future.
Mr Daw discovered his divining powers by accident during his days playing football for Saffron Walden Football Club.
He said: “Developers at the club wanted to know where an underground water pipe was without digging for it.
“I had a go with the rods and stumbled across it myself.”
(Original headline: Dowser hunts for Lakes stone circles )
