Twelve Apostles

    Dumfries, Dumfries and Galloway

The Twelve Apostles in Nithsdale near Dumfries is the largest stone circle on the Scottish mainland. The site is split by a hedge and contains eleven stones (the twelfth one having gone missing sometime in the 19th century---local custom has it that Judas Iscariot was responsible for its loss).

According to Burl's gazeteer A Guide to the Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany, it is probably an oval measuring 284 feet by 260 feet and probably originally consisted of 18 stones with a regular spacing of 48 feet. Only four of the stones are local, the others having been quarried from hills some miles away.