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The Four shire stone is a boundary marker that marks the place where the four historic English counties of Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire once met. Since 1931, with a change to the boundaries of Worcestershire, only three counties have met at the stone. ==Boundary marker== It is not a stone, but a nine-foot high monument, built from the local Cotswold stone. It is in the English midlands, a mile and a half east of the small town of Moreton-in-Marsh, at , grid reference SP231301. The existing structure was probably built in the 18th century, and is a grade II listed building.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-305989-four-shire-stone-evenlode-gloucestershir )〕 There was an earlier "4 Shire Stone" on or near the site in 1675. From the stone, you could go west into Gloucestershire, east into Warwickshire, south-east into Oxfordshire, or south into a small exclave of Worcestershire. Most of Worcestershire is to the north-west of the stone. Thus the order of the four counties around the stone was different from what one might expect from a map of England. The stone ceased to be the meeting-point of four shires in 1931, when the exclave of Worcestershire to its south was transferred to Gloucestershire, so since that date only three counties meet at the stone.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.hunimex.com/warwick/four_shire_stone.html )〕 It is claimed that the Four shire stone inspired the "Three-Farthing Stone" in J. R. R. Tolkien's books ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. In those books, The Shire is divided into four farthings, three of which meet at the "Three-Farthing Stone".〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.cotswolds.info/places/moreton-in-marsh.shtml )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Four shire stone」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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