The shadow of the gorsedd is to me more important than the gorsedd itself. Visiting the site at the correct time is essential to see this phenomena.
Bryn celli ddu is an exact replica of the gorsedd shadow when the sun is behind you as you look towards the monument itself.
Similar to maes howe, new grange and stone henge the ancients have this way of perfecting light trickery..
Do not miss this when visiting it adds another dimension to an already facinating site..????
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11/4/04
You can park in Llanmadoc and walk up the hill to the fort which according to GPS is 350m but seems alot further walking up hill.
Once at the top the fort has astounding views to the North and North West of Broughton Bay and Whitford point and across the delta of Afon Llwchwrthe to the Pembrookshire coastline.
There is also (I assume) a cairn about 100 yards to the west of the fort very similar to the cairn adjacent to Maen Cetty (Arthurs Stone).
The ditches are substantial and the fort is roughly circular in shape.
*NB, one of the road workers at the bottom of the hill said it was an iron age structure.
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I asked the farmer for access to the stone, he was very polite and showed us the way. The stone is tucked away behind his house as you can see in the images provided. The lambs in the field must have been hand reared as they are super human friendly even suckling on my finger - unlike the Alsatian which has evil in its protective bark - I never offered it my hand to check his friendlyness.
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one of a number of barrows in a relatively short distance. situated halfway between croft hill - iron age hill fort - and brinklow mound. this barrow holds the most westerly position. Moving east there is copstone barrow and then wigston parva barrow. all within aprox 1 mile of each other. there is not a lot to see here. just a raised level in the middle of some vegetable crops. I Will get permission off the farmer next time to wander aimlessly around his field.
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I dunno - the mound - the stone - found an old bottle on the footpath. its surely older than that but by how much?
a bronze age smelting pot for medieval charities?
but what do I know read the article below and take the link.
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interesting enough according to the guy in the house at the end of the track and in the corner of the square - Britains first windmill was built a couple of hundred yards North west of the barrow site - recorded and documented by the BBC.
As for the barrows/henge? well I couldn't get near enough to them as the crops were very very young but from 200 hundred metres away you can see a slight dome - well ploughed out now.
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Drove to Gunnerkeld after Shap and managed to gain access to the farm, on my first visit. Excellent. The famer was in the driveway playing with his tractor, he was polite and showed me where to park and the way to the circle. There is a standing stone just in front of the house, (though I didn’t look, as it felt like walking over their front garden) and a few small stones barely sticking out the ground on the way to the circle, (could be old kerb stones?), which all seemed to line up, though there is a wall in the way so I couldn’t get a full view.
I had already read about the close proximity to the M6 but I really wasn’t ready for just how close.
The circle itself has an inner and outer ring with only a handful still standing. On approach It’s hard to get a grip of what’s going on as the stones seemed scattered but a formation soon appears when standing in and around the circle. There is also what appears to be a cairn in the center and one of the entrance stones has a big piece of flint in it. There are a lot of stones remaining and some of fairly good size.
A friendly place - the sheep were mellow and even the motorway drivers were tooting their horns as they drove by.
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Always nice to see a rock with hole in it, makes a break from the norm.....
walking in a south westerly direction away from the site the land sweeps gently down to lake and river with a small number of copse woods islands surrounded by heavily ploughed farmland. after closer inspection the copse cointained a fair amount of good sized stones, some it seems could have been placed here and are possibly in there original position while the majority prosumably dragged into the edge of the field (if indeed that was the case). The nearest copse to the Ring and Finger had the greatest density of what appeared to be standing stones within it and a possible small circle with evidence of more stones running off south south westerly(ish) visible now only in the isolated (fenced off) patches of scrub and copse. A couple of hundered yards away down towards the lake, almost underneath the main house there is a huge mound just away from the shoreline, on the top is a worked stone of a different composite lying on its side. I must also include here 1 (or2) stone(s) lying midway between the mound and the ring and finger (which I have posted in the image section) . There are also a few humps and tumps about on both sides of the river.
Getting here can be tricky without an O.S. map. There are no signs posts.
When you arrive into Norton in Hale from mucklestone drive past the pub and as the road bends right turn left into Forge lane/St/road , find somewhere to park and get onto the footpath (on the left where the houses finish) which eventually leads upto the site (about 5/10 mins walk). All we had was a road atlas which got us within locality of the nearest pub - Once inside asking for Local Knowledge, (where I resisted the question "does norton inhale?") the guy behind the bar repeatedly told us, "In all my 27 years I have never found the need to go up there myself" - "Its just a rock in a field" (which answered my question - obviously he didn't).
But don't be put off by my tale of Norman the barman - in - the only pub - of the prettiest - best looked after - village in Shropshire..
NB* The farmer told us of a Roman road which ran near by and of the stately homes 18th century owners/ground keepers fondness of landscape gardening. That coupled with the many years of heavy farming (in my opinion) its little wonder that what is left here is probably a very tiny fragment of its former self.
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....if you can afford time from your busy schedule,
Park in the RSPB car park on the left then cross the road to a stile signed to the Hut Circles.
There is plenty to look at in the main settlement but a wonder up the dirt track brings you to the huts in the image above, once seen from the right of the track there's a bit of a tricky climb down to them via a barely visable (and at the the time) overgrown footpath.
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On my first journey here the farmer was totally ignorant of this chamber in his back garden pointing us down the road instead.
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This is one of those sites you know you shouldn't miss, its just a pure joy to be here.
Merlin would have definately stopped by here for tea though I doubt he would have been impressed by modern building techniques.
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The site itself is a gem, even with the neighbours and without the stones. Being so close to the village and essentially the church my mind wonders over the history of this place and climbing up on the bank behind the site gives views to hills beyond which makes the neighbouring plots seem (a little) less invading.
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