the stones to have been two giants playing stone-throwing games, but they are the result of conditions at the end of the last ice age, when freezing and thawing caused sandstone on surrounding hilltops to break up and slump downhill. They form one of the best British examples of a sarsen stone boulder train. The stones and the surrounding dry chalk valley provide habitats for a variety of flora and fauna—including clustered bellflower, autumn gentian, lichens, bryophytes and the adonis blue butterfly—and the area is designated a National Nature Reserve. Demography In the 2011 census Littlebredy civil parish had 53 dwellings, 45 households and a population of 121. The population of the parish in the censuses between 1921 and 2001 is shown in the table below: In the 1861 census the parish had 41 inhabited dwellings and a population of 199. Notes External links Villages in Dorset