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England
The GreywethersNatural Rock Feature
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Sites in this group:
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8 posts
6 sites Fyfield Down Natural Rock Feature |
18 posts
Lockeridge Dene Natural Rock Feature |
14 posts
The Mother's Jam Natural Rock Feature |
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3 posts
Overton Down Holed Stone and Beaker Settlement Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork |
14 posts
Piggle Dene Natural Rock Feature |
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Fieldnotes |
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I have walked through the Greywethers drift many times; today I was in the unusual position of leading three 'walking' friends who had never seen them before up to Fyfield Down. The Polisher first; where an ominous mist descended - we were not deterred and descended diagonally across the bumpy stone-strewn downland towards the Herepath. In the distance a pair of brown deer leaped their way across our line of vision. As we made our way across the Herepath and around the sarsen 'greywethers' the mist disolved and the pale January sun made an appearence again. One of my friends was plotting a route for a guided walk so following the OS map we picked up a green track along a field boundary. A word of caution - perhaps because of the recent snow there were many potentially ankle-turning deep crevices and holes in the ground so not a good place to walk alone at this time of year. Most people who experience Fyfield Down for the first time are astonished that somewhere so wild and ancient still existed in Wiltshire. My three friends were no exception. Words used - misty and mystical. |
Posted by tjj19th January 2010ce Edited 20th January 2010ce |
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Fyfield Down and Overton Down Wilshire, near Avebury, the Sanctuary and the Ridgeway. The megalithic trail of limestone blocks from which the ancients tooks stones to nearby Avebury leads from a footpath starting of the A4 near Fyfield up a climb to Overton Hill. Instantly you stumble across grey blocks which lie in the field like the sheep after which they are named. Following the river of blocks through a farm yard and on the far side in the overgrown hedge are two standing stones, about two to two and a half metres tall. Backtrack up past the barn and up the hill to Overton to where sarsen stones stand in a raw, wild landscape. This stands up above Avebury, but travel west across the gallops and you stumble upon the most awesome sight of all as hundreds of massive stones lay in a valley. This is a truly amazing place. It just doesn't seem real. A landscape completely alien to any other I have seen in Wiltshire, perhaps even the UK, and yet to the ancients must have been truly significant beyond merely a source of stone for the nearby rings and avenues. This site was the one I think Julian must have visited, although I didn't, know it by the name he used. Travel west past the massive rocks, south up over the hill through the lane to drop back onto the main A4 at Fyfield. Best in the rain or winter weather, when a sense of the gathering storm adds even more magic to an already impressive landscape. |
Posted by chili 26th June 2000ce |
Folklore |
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I was enquiring for the Sarsen Stones or Grey Wethers, when only about a furlong from them, but an old man and his neice did not know either name; at last they suggested that what I was seeking was what they called the Thousand Stones. The man told me (what I had heard before) that the stones certainly grew; he had seen this, for, when he was a boy, there were not nearly so many, nor were they so large, as now. (June 1901.)Scraps of Folklore Collected by John Philipps Emslie C. S. Burne Folklore, Vol. 26, No. 2. (Jun. 30, 1915), pp. 153-170. |
Posted by Rhiannon1st October 2006ce |
Miscellaneous |
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Two widely spaced letters about the threats to the stones:To the editor of The Times.The stones were bought by the National Trust in 1907. |
Posted by Rhiannon 12th May 2007ce Edited 12th May 2007ce |
From the Diary of Richard Symonds, on Fyfield, 1644.a place so full of grey pibble stone of great bignes as is not usually seene; they breake them and build their houses of them and walls, laying mosse betweene, the inhabitants calling them Saracens' stones, and in this parish [deposit] a mile and a halfe in length, they lie so thick as you may go upon them all the way. They call that place the Grey-weathers, because afar off they look like a flock of Sheepe.Yes he really did say 'Sheepe'. But I do like the image of him hopping from one stone to another, the whole length of the stones. quoted in 'Sarsens' by H C Brentnall in v51 (1945/6) of Wiltshire Archaeology magazine. |
Posted by Rhiannon 22nd June 2005ce Edited 22nd June 2005ce |
| "Grey Wethers or Sarsen Stones" is a cartographic shorthand (some of these stones really do look like sheep from a distance) and crops up on the map all over Fyfield and Overton Down. There may be some confusion caused by the use of this name therefore. It should not be confused with the Greywethers stone circle in Devonshire. |
Posted by RedBrickDream4th September 2002ce Edited 11th May 2007ce |
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Natural EnglandA Fyfield Down NNR leaflet explaining how the sarsens came to be here. |
Posted by Rhiannon 9th July 2009ce |
Latest posts for the Greywethers |
Showing 1-10 of 98 posts. Most recent first | Next 10 
The Polisher — Images (click to view fullsize) |
 
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Posted by thesweetcheat25th May 2011ce |
The Mother's Jam (Natural Rock Feature) — Images |
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Posted by thesweetcheat 25th May 2011ce |
Fyfield 1 and 2 barrows (Round Barrow(s)) — Images |
 
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Posted by thesweetcheat 24th May 2011ce |
Fyfield 1 and 2 barrows (Round Barrow(s)) — Miscellaneous |
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Two round barrows next to the gallops at the southeast of Fyfield Down. Pastscape descriptions as follows: Bronze Age bowl barrow Fyfield 2 and bell or bowl barrow Fyfield 1, the latter still extant as a mound but the former only as a cropmark ring ditch. A. SU 14287064; This barrow is 19m in diameter and 1.6m high. No trace of a berm or ditch remains, and it looks more like a bowl barrow than a bell barrow. B. SU 14267063; An indistinct bowl barrow in rough grassland, 15m diameter and 0.5m high. Surveyed at 1:2500. |
Posted by thesweetcheat 24th May 2011ce |
Fyfield Down (Natural Rock Feature) — Images |
  
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Posted by thesweetcheat 23rd May 2011ce |
The Polisher — Images |
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Posted by megadread30th April 2011ce |
Showing 1-10 of 98 posts. Most recent first | Next 10
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