|
|
 Log in |
Register
|
|
|
England
Louden Stone CircleStone Circle
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
0 discussions
Show map (inline Google Map)
|
|
|
Sites in this group:
|
3 posts
Louden Hill 2?? Stone Circle |
Images (click to view fullsize) |
 Add an image |
|
Fieldnotes |
Add fieldnotes |
|
Firstly, apologies, as I am including both Louden and Fernacre stone circles in the same Fieldnotes as I visited them on the same day as they are so close, so the route to both will be useful to know. I Will also log them under Fernacre Fieldnotes if Eds have no objection. The original plan was to drive to Middle Moor Cross by Camperdown Farm, park up and walk to Fernacre stone circle via Louden circle, a round trip of about 3 miles, as the road/track from the cross is private. Well that was the plan, but it changed when a friend suggested we take her 4x4 and drive beyond the cross and continue along the private track to both circles. Was this a mistake…read on! We set out on the A30 and took the turning right signposted St Breward opposite the second turning for Temple on the left. It comes at the end of a section of dual carriageway after passing the Jamaica Inn on your left 4 miles prior to this. This moorland road takes you passed the Trippet Stones on your right at the crossroad signposted Treswigga to the left and St Breward straight on. Turn right here if visiting the Trippets which can be seen from this point. Continue on the St Breward road by following the signposts and you’ll pass over Delford Bridge then passed East Rose holiday park/fishing on the right. Straight through the next crossroad which in turn brings you to another to the northern end of St Breward at Churchtown. Church Hay Down is on your right at this crossroad and you turn right here signposted Candra. Follow this road which bears around to the right after half a mile and after another bend, over a cattle grid. You’ll then pass the road to Candra Hill on the right and part of the Treswallock Downs which is littered with huge boulders. No shortage of building materials here! The road then sweeps around to the left but as it does there is a short ‘link’ road to the right that you take and then right again on meeting the ‘main’ road which takes you directly to Middle Moor Cross. Now it was decision time, because you hit a PRIVATE road which is clearly signed. After consideration we decided to take a chance and go for it. We continued and soon met another private road sign at Camperdown Farm, so now had been warned twice. Rightly or wrongly we again decided to continue because there wasn’t a soul about as far as the eye could see. Within five minutes I spotted on the horizon of the slightly rising ground a dark shape on the moor on the right-hand size of the track. Yep, it was the leaning triangular stone of the Louden circle our first port of call. I loved it and gave me a much nicer feel than I got at Stannon stone circle just over the way by the dreadful china clay quarry next to it! These are big circles in this area of Bodmin Moor but surprisingly the majority of the stones are really quite small in comparison to other Cornish circles and it remains a mystery to me why that should be so. Louden, Stannon and Fernacre all have a major triangular stone and this must surely signify something of significance, but what? No set common point on the compass as far as I could tell, but have no knowledge of any celestial alignments that may come into play as that is not my thing! I counted 36 stones in total at Louden but three were just under the turf. The triangular stone was almost due south from the centre of the circle with just a slight shift to the west. Most of the stones are virtually at surface level but not broken, so it surely indicates a build-up of soil over the years. In the gapped areas I probed the turf with a dowsing rod which my friend carried and discovered three more stones where they should have been in the ring setting just covered with an inch or two of turf. I didn’t count those that were lying immediately to the sides of a couple of stones as they were quite small and possibly broken off the main stone. I would imagine that later in the summer (this was the 4th May) that other than the triangular stone, Louden could be difficult to find due to increased grass length, but once you have found it there is no mistaking it. One clue is that just yards to the east of the circle on the edge of the track on the southern side is a stainless steel ‘box’ nearly at ground level with the letters PO on it which I assume means there was a cable laid through here. Hey, maybe our great ancestors had a phone-line put in and the circle is actually a huge telephone dial :-) As at most circles on the moor there are always other stones lying around and it is a hopeless task even considering whether they are part of the site or not. Not shown on my OS map but just across the track from the circle and slightly to the east is a lovely stone ring cairn. Close inspection showed it to have been constructed in three stages I thought with three separate rings of edging stones forming it away from the burial area. It was all a bit ‘interfered’ with but that’s what I gathered by close inspection and one is led to believing it may have had a connection with the circle in some way. Link to photos here:- https://picasaweb.google.com/100525707086862773355/LoudenStoneCircle?authkey=Gv1sRgCJ3b5YqlqK6vBA#5739140100505851778 Next came Fernacre as we continued along the track for about a further ¾ mile. You have to say that it is in the most wonderful setting in a natural bowl sitting between Roughtor to the north, Brown Willy to the east, Garrow Tor to the south and Louden Hill to the north-west. To me it is the jewel in the crown of these large circles and lies on the northern side of the track to the east of Louden circle. Unfortunately this is where we ran into trouble because the moment we arrived and parked up we were approached by a rather irate guy who introduced himself as the farm manager (gulp!). He began lecturing us on the legality and penalties of making use of the private track and started throwing figures of £20,000 fines for doing so. I’m afraid laughing at that figure didn’t go down particularly well so then he started mentioning SSI directives and how you can’t even ride a pushbike on the track. The saving grace came because I’d noticed he was all togged up for lambing with disgustingly stained hands (which I’m familiar with)…and of course he had a collie with him like I had. When he cooled down a bit I asked him how lambing was going then got onto dogs and all was soon forgotten :-). But a lesson learnt so please take note. He was a nice enough guy just doing his job. Incidentally, the owner of the farm/estate is a New Zealander who resides in NZ and hardly sets foot on the place so the guy informed us! As for the circle, well what can you say? Just beautiful springs to mind helped along by its setting between the tors and hills. As with the other local circles I’ve recently visited it has the by now familiar triangular main stone amongst the settings, but this time directly to the east. I was stood just behind what appears to be an off-set centre stone and looking directly at the triangular or ‘A’ stone from this point when I noticed an outlier directly behind it to the east. Significant? Again, in the main, the stones are small in a large slightly irregular circle like at Louden and Stannon. Puzzle puzzle went my brain, why is this? All around the moor are huge boulders yet they used small ones and the circles are not precise. We’ve seen elsewhere that size has not been a problem when it comes to hauling huge stones over long distances if presumably for a special purpose or reason, so is the reasoning or importance different here one has to ask? And three large circles similar in size within a triangulated area of no more than say a square mile must surely mean something important was happening here! I won’t add to the photos as there seems quite enough already but here is the link to some I took at Fernacre:- https://picasaweb.google.com/100525707086862773355/FernacreStoneCircle?authkey=Gv1sRgCN67maC8-6OF-wE#5739143160903486546 |
Posted by Sanctuary 5th May 2012ce Edited 6th May 2012ce |
|
Don't go looking on Louden Hill for this circle..it's to the south of it. The circle lies on a plateau just to the south of the track to Fernacre Fm from Middlemoor Cross. Visiting in August most of the stones are well obscured by the grass..although there are very few to be seen anyway. To be honest it is not worth making the trip just to see this circle...good job Fernacre is just up the track and Stannon just over the hill..oh and Roughtor and Brown Willy looking down on you from above...and all the stuff to hunt for on Loudon Hill..and just the thrill of being out on Bodmin Moor. What more could you want? |
Posted by Mr Hamhead12th September 2006ce |
| The Logan stone here is one of the best I know of, it's easy to spot, looking like a giant smartie sitting on a flat area of the outcrop and rocks easily (you just need to press lightly on the edge to set it going) but feels good and stable as it never rocks too far. A great boulder to sit on and appreciate the view across to Rough Tor while rocking gently. |
Posted by Zedsquared 18th August 2003ce |
|
12 jan 2003 Took the route from stannon circle and thought that the Louden circle would appear before us as we reached the crest of the hill.....wrong! The circle would easily be missed if wasn't for the map we had with us. There seems to be about 4 what you could call standing stones (stumps) and the rest are more or less stones on the ground. Had trouble tracing the shape also. Just to confuse things stones seem to stick out of the ground all over the place many are obviously cairns there are also some stone banks that aren't marked on OS maps. Unfortunately didnt have time to travel down to Fernacre which would have been an circle within easy reach if we had time (maybe another day) |
Posted by phil 12th January 2003ce Edited 12th January 2003ce |
|
Louden Hill Stone Circle - 26.12.2002 After finally finding this it then made me realise how pathetic my 'possible circle remains' looked (see the sub-site I've called 'Louden Hill 2??'). Although this is regarded as a pretty minor circle (it is only mentioned in passing by Aubrey Burl in his 'Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany' (1995) and was not apparently discovered until 1973) at least it is clearly a fallen circle. I counted 31 stones, including one double stone and several only just poking through the moor land, but not including probable overgrown stones (humps in the ground), nor possible stones just inside/outside the circle. This is rather strange because Craig Weatherhill counted 16/17 stone in all (see 'Cornovia: Ancient Sites of Cornwall and Scilly' - Cornwall Books - 1985, revised 1997 & 2000). Several other stones seem to be scattered outside especially to the East and North East. |
Posted by pure joy11th January 2003ce |
| Bollocks! Missed this one! Though I probably ran right past it to check out the Logan Stone here (like a magalithic surfboard left by some forgetful deity) and to see if I could spy Stannon. |
Posted by thebaz 14th July 2002ce |
|
Today there are only 4 stumps, eleven or twelve fallen stones and on upright originally 1.43 metres high but now leaning. Many stones have been removed the original total was said to be about 33-39. The diameter was said to be at one time 45m making it one of the biggest in Cornwall |
Posted by phil 8th December 2001ce |
Latest posts for Louden Stone Circle |
Louden Hill 2?? (Stone Circle) — Fieldnotes |
|
I have to agree with Pure Joy, I couldn't work out which stones were part of the circle and which were just "stones". Not having read up on the area before the walk I was not sure if the circle was large, small, standing, recumbent........ So, did I walk through the circle or not, was it the large one just off the track or the smaller one further down the hill where there are cairns marked on the OS map but look more like a small circle of stones. I will have to do some research next time. It was worth the walk just to rock the stone on Louden Hill whilst a rainbow arced over Roughtor. |
Posted by Mr Hamhead 1st December 2003ce |
Louden Hill 2?? (Stone Circle) — Images (click to view fullsize) |
|
Posted by pure joy 1st March 2003ce |
Louden Hill 2?? (Stone Circle) — Fieldnotes |
|
Louden Hill Stone Circle 2 ?? - 26.12.2002 Whilst coming across the moor from Stannon Stone Circle back to the track that runs past the Louden Hill and Fernacre Stone Circles I got a bit lost finding Louden Hill Stone Circle. I knew that Louden Hill Stone Circle was a ruined circle but I didn't know how many stones were supposed to remain, and didn't know exactly what to look for. So when I came across 5 stones that looked like almost a quarter of quite a substantial circle, plus a few other stones, I presumed it was the Louden Hill Stone Circle. But then I realise that (a) this was not much of a circle even for a ruined circle, and (b) I was only about 300 metres from the end of the Camperdown Farm walls and was probably at about SX128793 (i.e. about 300 metres West of the real Louden Hill Stone Circle). So is this possibly another circle? Or just some stones that happen to form a part of a circle? There are 5 stones, all recumbent. 2 large, 1 small, 1 overgrown and 1 just a tiny speck poking through. There is also another tiny speck poking through but that is a little off line. Towards what could have been the middle of a circle are two medium sized stones, plus an overgrown stone about 5 metres ENE of them. This is all about 30 metres to the South of the track. About 50 metres to the East there are several stones scattered on the South side of the track, and a lone stone to the North of the track. I later discovered the real Louden Hill Stone Circle but this area still has me intrigued. |
Posted by pure joy 11th January 2003ce |
Top of page