Murder probe launched after body found at Peak District stone circle

Derbyshire Constabulary launched a murder investigation after a body was found at Nine Ladies Stone Circle in Stanton Lees, a Bronze Age site in the Peak District. Officers were called at 1.38pm on Monday 22 June 2026, and emergency services pronounced a 26-year-old man dead at the scene.

The victim was later named as Isaac Clare-Watts, from Nottingham. Derbyshire Police said his family are being supported by specialist officers as inquiries continue. A 41-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder and later released on bail.

Investigators have also appealed for witnesses linked to a summer solstice gathering at the site. Police asked anyone who attended between Friday 19 June and Tuesday 23 June 2026, or who noticed anything suspicious in the area, to come forward with information that might help reconstruct Clare-Watts’s final movements.

Nine Ladies Stone Circle is one of Stanton Moor’s best-known prehistoric landmarks, and the setting has made the case especially visible in the local area. English Heritage says the monument dates to roughly 3,000 to 4,000 years ago, and despite the name there are actually 10 stones in the circle. Historic England describes a wider prehistoric landscape on Stanton Moor that includes the King Stone, about 40 metres west-south-west of the circle.

That mix of ancient monument and active homicide inquiry now sits at the centre of the police investigation. Officers are working to build the evidence trail from the remote moorland site, where witnesses may be limited and any physical trace from the weekend gathering could be crucial. For detectives, the task is no longer just to understand how a young man came to be found dead at Nine Ladies Stone Circle, but who was there, what they saw, and what was left behind in the stones.