Here are some notes I made after a few visits that were included in the Booklet for the Skylark album of 2017. My visits to this place are over a longer time scale than some other places because I usually go to the stone row Menhirs on the way to Fox tor as well.
There are Lots of bogs and streams. Many people have written about this one. The walk in and the setting adds to the other worldly, out of time feel but that might just be me. My first vist here in about 2011 ( no photos available unfortunately) was one of the first times I really thought about the relationship animals had with these places: The time scale. The behaviour ecology of “belief” systems as survival strategy. A collective conscious as an evolving survival psychology that existed in all life. We have common ancestors. There is more physical site information at the bottom of these notes.

Last February ( 2014), I found the bones and hide of a pony. The hide lay on bone. Still whole, complete apart from the eyes and internals. Lying on her side, thirty yards south of Nine stones. Next to low Gorse. Low profile plants, smaller. Keeping below the wind blast exposure and close crop teeth of hunger. The Pony had fallen that winter within reach of the circle.
Later in July, there was no trace of the Pony’s hide or bone. Thirty yards, to the north, gleaming white, fresh, sharp, an almost complete skeleton of a Ram.
Three ponies, a family unit waited to the north. Mother, foal and an older, lame stallion. Waiting to reclaim the Circle. Neglected ponies on the moor. A symptom of the distance we have moved from the earth. Nine stones circle is “highly Vulnerable”. Neglected. The stones and their attendants.
My family Trio, Sam and Maddie took photographs of the skeleton Ram. Low. pointing to the circle to the south. The mother walked from the west directly through the centre of the circle to the east.
As we walked away from Nine stones over North hill, we turned to see ten further ponies had joined the original three, congregating within the circle. It seems to us that they had waited until we left. Not through fear just an awareness of place.
Ponies must have their own landscape heritage that makes stone meeting places part of their being. These places have significance through time. All moorland life congregates at these places: uses them as part of their routine. These places offer shelter, a place to scratch, a perch, an opportunity to beg for food. A place to watch, bath or seek comfort in death.
Up here, the moor is deceptive. It is easy to become disorientated by the similarity of the landscape and the colours, subtle and dependent on the light conditions. The scale of geography fools the mind with distances different to how you perceive them. Subdued dub colours merge land and sky. Tight and confined by hill fog blurring direction and state. Shadow land. Where you end is where you begin. We are of the earth and sky. As the cloud base rises, light drains in, and Nine Stones appears and disappears.
I wrote this nearly 10 years ago in December 2015. I can remember it well.
I have been back on a few occasions since, A particularly wet Easter in ……. And a few solo missions around the area to Fox tor Stone row. I will go again soon. It’s a really nice place.
More physical information
National Grid Reference: SX 23611 78143
Scheduled Monument
The circle was partly reconstructed by the local land- owner and antiquary, F R Rodd, in 1889. It is critically endangered mainly due to stock erosion. Let’s face it its really old! The non-permanence of these places is quiet comforting to me too. The thought that this was put together as a community exercise by a small group of people in party mode who had a amateur skill set and did the best they could is timeless. Sort of punk if it wasn’t for the Bronze age being the start of hierarchy, deforestation and …you know the rest.
Nine stones circle also has the puritanical rumours common around Stone circles that the stones are in fact people “stonified” for dancing on a Sunday ( or in fact just doing something fun rather than giving their money and time to the church). In this case young girls. Wicked women sinners.
It is one of the smallest circles in Cornwall at 15 metres. Its location at the head of a stream on a “broad natural shelf surrounded by higher land typifies the setting of many stone circles”. 8 visible stones between 1-1.3 metres. The centre stone is a more recent boundary stone (a line of which runs from East.North.East – West.South.West )
Alignment wise. Deep breath. Alexander Thom thought the moon. The earth mysteries thought summer solstice sunset. Julian Cope was on a mission. John Barnatt though that the extensive reconstruction work made it impossible to tell. The circle is near other Bronze age activity and Fox tor/North hill. Big hill and rock relationship then. Its all about the romance with this one. Take your pick.

Sources
Prehistoric Cornwall – Paul Barnatt
Megalithic sites in Britain - A Thom
https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1008631?section=official-list-entry
The Earth Mysteries guide to Bodmin moor - Cheryl Straffon
The modern Antiquarian - Julian Cope
Bodmin moor An archaeological survey vol 1 - Nicholas Johnson and peter rose
From Granite to sea - Alex Langstone