's map of Gloucestershire (1662), showing the "Shire Stones" The Four Shire Stone is not a single stone, but a nine-foot high monument, built from the local
Cotswold stone. It is in the
English midlands at the northern corner of a
T junction on the
A44 road, a mile and a half east of the small town of
Moreton-in-Marsh (which has the closest railway station), at , grid reference SP2301432023. The existing structure was probably built in the 18th century, and is a grade II
listed building. There was an earlier "4 Shire Stone" on or near the site in 1675, almost certainly that illustrated in 1660.
Thomas Habington's
Survey of Worcestershire mentions "the stone which toucheth four sheeres, a thing rarely scene". Five (formerly seven)
civil parishes meet at the stone: •
Moreton-in-Marsh to the west, in Gloucestershire; • Formerly
Batsford to the northwest, also in Gloucestershire, until Batsford/Moreton-in-Marsh boundary change in 1987; • Formerly
Lower Lemington to the north, also in Gloucestershire, and which merged into Batsford in 1935; •
Great Wolford to the north, in Warwickshire; •
Little Compton to the northeast, also in Warwickshire; •
Chastleton to the southeast, in Oxfordshire; •
Evenlode to the south, now also in Gloucestershire;
until 1931 it was a
detached part of Worcestershire. The J. R. R. Tolkien Society claims that the Four Shire Stone inspired the "Three-Farthing Stone" in
J. R. R. Tolkien's book
The Lord of the Rings. In that work,
the Shire, the homeland of the
hobbits is divided into four farthings, three of which meet at the "Three-Farthing Stone". == 2022 restoration ==