Nine Stones, Winterbourne Abbas

The circle is located at the bottom of a narrow valley.[32] Though this is unusual for a monument of this type,[32] the Dorset Rempstone stone circle was also erected within a valley.[33]

The antiquarian John Aubrey recorded a further stone circle, located about a kilometre (half a mile) to the west of the Nine Stones, which was of similar dimensions to it.[33] It was later destroyed, although as of the 1930s three stones were recorded as remaining at the site.[33] Gale later suggested that this site may not have even been a stone circle at all, but might instead have been the remains of an Early Neolithic chambered tomb. He noted, however, that "as nothing remains it is at the moment impossible to resolve".[34]

There is also a fallen standing stone known as the Broad Stone which measures 2 metres (6.6 feet) in length and which lies beside the road about 1.5 kilometres (0.93 miles) to the west of the Nine Stones.[34][35] As it was recorded in the nineteenth century it measured 3 metres (9.8 feet) in length, 2 metres (6 and a half feet) in breadth, and 0.6 metres (2.0 feet) in thickness.[34] The monument was protected from passing cars by several bollards which were later removed by the highways authority, prompting statements of concern that the stone was unprotected in 2008.[36]

Stukeley's 1724 illustration of the monument, entitled "A Celtic Temple at Winterburn",[29] according to Burl, this image "shows the ring more completely than is possible today"[37]

The circle was recorded by Aubrey in the seventeenth century, and then by William Stukeley in the eighteenth century.[26] Aubrey recorded the presence of nine megaliths at the site, as did Stukeley's 1723 drawing of it.[29] In the nineteenth century the site was visited by the antiquarian Charles Warne, who wrote about it in his 1872 book Ancient Dorset. He claimed that he could discern the existence of a tenth stone, although on visiting the site in 1936, the Piggotts noted that they could find no evidence of this.[38] Gale later stated that this claim "has never been substantiated".[2] Warne had consulted Aubrey's manuscript, but confused Aubrey's illustration of the Devil's Quoits at Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, for a monument that he believed had once been located near to the Nine Stones.[33]

In 1888, the local council decreed that—along with the Grey Mare and her Colts and the Tenant Hill stone circle—the site would be registered as an "ancient monument" under the Ancient Monuments Protection Act 1882.[39] In August 1916, the site was then designated as a scheduled monument.[40] The circle was included in the archaeologist O. G. S. Crawford's Map of Neolithic Wessex, printed by the Ordnance Survey in 1932.[16] As of 2003, the site had not been excavated.[41]

In 1908, the stone circle was known as the "Nine Ladies" and the "Devil's Nine Stones",[42] and in 1941 they were associated with both the Devil and human sacrifice in local folklore.[42] As of 1968, the stone circle was still known as the "Devil's Nine Stones".[43] In 1966, a man from Winterborne St Martin claimed that the stones were the Devil, his wife, and his children.[44] There are many ancient sites across Britain with names that associate them with the Devil.[45] Examining such place-names, the folklorist Jeremy Harte argued that they did not develop during the Christianisation of England in the early Middle Ages, but rather they were applied to such sites in later centuries, often supplanting the name of an earlier folkloric or legendary figure.[46]

The circle during clearances, 2007

In 1965 a woman from the Isle of Portland stated that her own father had always raised his cap when passing the circle.[47] At the same time local folklore was recorded as holding that the stones in the ring could not be counted.[47] This "countless stones" motif is not unique to this particular site, and can be found at various other megalithic monuments in Britain. The earliest textual evidence for it is found in an early sixteenth-century document, where it applies to the stone circle of Stonehenge in Wiltshire, although in an early seventeenth-century document it was being applied to The Hurlers, a set of three stone circles in Cornwall.[48] Later records reveal that it had gained widespread distribution in England, as well as a single occurrence each in Wales and Ireland.[49] The folklorist S. P. Menefee suggested that it could be attributed to an animistic understanding that these megaliths had lives of their own.[50]

The archaeologist Leslie Grinsell reported that in the mid-1970s, he learned of a folk tale that the stones had once been children who were turned to stones as punishment for playing Five-Stones on a Sunday.[51] This folk motif of humans turned to stone for revelling on a Sunday had been attached to a range of prehistoric monuments across southwestern Britain by the early eighteenth century, although it had been first recorded in Cornwall in 1602.[52] It is likely connected to Sabbatarianism, and may have been spread by Protestant preachers.[53]

In 1984, Harte talked to various individuals who lived in the local area, finding that the monument was also known as "Lady Williams and her Dog" or "Lady Williams and her Little Dog Fido", a reference to a family who lived at Bridehead House, Littlebredy.[54] He also related a story that on 23 January 1985, a breakdown van was towing a car past the Nine Stones when, at 9:15pm, its engine cut out and the lights on both vehicles failed. Press coverage speculated that the event was linked to both a ley line passing through the site and to unidentified flying objects that have been reported above the nearby Eggardon Hill.[54]

The site is in the care of English Heritage,[26] and can be visited at any time.[1] The circle is considered a place of religious importance to a modern Druidic group called the Dolmen Grove Druids.[55] They have described having to confront individuals shouting abuse at them while they have performed their rituals at the stone circle.[56]

In October 2007, the sides of the stones facing the road were daubed in white paint with the slogans "Read family court hell" and "F4J". "F4J" was also painted on to the side of Dorset's Hardy Monument. The activist group Fathers4Justice—whose acronym is "F4J"—denied any responsibility, condemned the action, and suggested that the slogans had been painted on by unknown individuals in an attempt to discredit the group.[57] Concern about the vandalism was expressed by the National Trust, the local landowner, and the Dolmen Grove Druids.[55]