Le Mans

peaceful street in Le Mans old town

The menhir at Le Mans stands near St Julien's Cathedral in the old town, and exerts it influence still today. Like most people the name Le Mans brings up for me   thoughts of high-adrenaline motor racing. I chose to forego the heady elixir of petrol fumes and found a charming old part of the city, on the large mound which is where the old city stands. I had first heard of this stone from a drawing in John Mitchell's Megalithomania, which seemed to show the stone in the cathedral wall. It was in a chapter describing the tendency for Christian churches to be closely aligned to earlier prehistoric sites.

The mound is a very steep climb from the nearby Sarthe river, and this high point was the focus for human settlement before Roman times. St Julien's Cathedral stands on the mound near the market square, and at the north-western corner there stands a menhir, last vestige of a much larger seven-thousand year-old prehistoric site according to the city guidebook.

This weathered menhir still draws many people - I spent half an hour at a small cafe in front of the stone and observed several groups of people  - even the odd few locals, coming up, and nearly everyone observed and many touched the stone. The sedimentary rock is layered and the effect of the water erosion has given it a remarkably tactile surface of curves and interesting surfaces.

Various stories are associated with the stone - one is that no-one can say they have really been to le Mans unless they have inserted a finger into the depression in the surface of the stone, so I have the edge on many Formula-1 drivers in at least this respect!

the menhir of Le Mans showing the unusual layered texture