Out for a walk on Mother's Day we were a potentially short dash across a seedlinged field away from this round barrow. The footpath we were on isn't marked as a public one, but the plantation it skirts is the Longleat Estate, and people seem to walk about pretty freely there. The barrow is crowned by a selection of well-grown trees and shrubs: it looked a shady haven in the bright sunshine, a kind of island in the middle of the flat field. Curiously next to the footpath was a sofa and two armchairs pointing in the barrow's direction. I wondered if there would be a fitted kitchen or a bathroom suite round the next corner. Mr Rh (a local lad) said he had heard 'from several people' that it was called Hangman's Copse but only had a very vague story about it being haunted by a swinging corpse. Maybe the name's even 'Hanged Man's Copse'. I'd be interested if anyone knows any more.
The site probably doesn't look like much but I liked it; it looked like a friendly oasis, not a spooky place. If you could cut down the plantation you could probably see Cley Hill easily, and the hillforts of Battlesbury and Scratchbury are probably in view in any case.
(The next week we passed it in the car, and Mr Rh's brother said, quite unprompted, that he wanted to live "on that island". For a round barrow in a field with trees sprouting out its top it's really quite nice).
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Fair enough, this isn't exactly megalithic. But especially for those of a romantic turn of mind this is an important site for those interested in prehistoric Dartmoor.
Dartmoor - like the rest of the country - used to be covered in forest, apart from the topmost tors which were moor as they are today. At the end of the Mesolithic and during the Neolithic, people opened up these forests: first for hunting, then for farming. A combination of the climate and grazing kept the area open and like the Dartmoor we know today.
But in some places, very very few places, there is still oak woodland on Dartmoor. Wistman's Wood is one of these. It clings on to the bottom of the valley side and looks most peculiar as you approach it (it's a walk of a few miles, there's no road). When you arrive you see the wood is made up of tiny twisted oak trees, literally dripping in lichens and mosses. In between the trees is a muddle of boulders, also covered in mosses. You can go in if you like, but we didn't - it's a very important nature reserve and there are some lichens in here that are found in maybe one or two other places in Dartmoor and literally nowhere else. The place is weird and fantastic and like nothing else. I'm not promising it's actually a remnant from the primal forest, but if it isn't it certainly does a good impression. It's been saved from exploitation and grazing by the boulders (originally from the tor above), but such a place is so easily damaged that it's frightening. It makes you feel a bit guilty to be there breathing on it at all but to know such a place exists does your head the world of good.
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Back at Merrivale, and in glorious sunshine. It's funny how when you revisit sites something totally different can catch your eye. This time I was just so taken by the outlines of the roundhouses (there are some as you climb up from the car park). There's quite a cluster of them, a little settlement. It felt very human. It suddenly struck me that the amount of space inside the roundhouse I was stood in seemed about the same as our little flat at home. Instead of the familiar feeling of disenchantment about our compact living arrangements I suddenly felt cheered up. If it was enough space for a Bronze Age family it was good enough for me.
Wandering further up to the stone rows it felt like they were almost in the back garden. They're certainly very close by. I wonder if this sheds any light on their use or the way they were perceived by their constructors. In my mind, perhaps it tells us how integral to their lives whatever the rows represent was. Perhaps you don't put something you only use and think about occasionally out the back of your house where you have to step over it all the time!
I still thought the stone rows were fantastic, and had a power in their landscape - they're very sculptural. But arriving at the stone circle and standing stone - they left me a bit flat. The stones in the circle are tiny, the menhir tall but somehow too man-made looking.
When the Bronze Age village was here, the climate on Dartmoor was much warmer, and the people would have grown crops and farmed livestock. It was only when it became wetter and more miserable that the villages were probably abandoned. As you can sympathise with if you've ever been out on Dartmoor in the rain.
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Didn't make it to the cist itself, but I did visit the slab in its new home at the museum. IronMan's photo really captures the lighting where it's displayed, which highlights the surface texture of the slab and its carvings rather well. I couldn't help surreptitiously dabbing at the stone with my hand (I felt quite guilty but if it was in a field rather than a museum you'd feel quite differently - must be years of museums instilling Do Not Touch).
The accompanying label states that the slab formed the south side of the cist, and that the cremated bones of an adult and a child were found by the large and small foot carvings near its base. There is something quite affecting about the strange long-toed/fingered carvings.
It also mentioned that parallels are known mainly from Scandinavia, although The Calderstones and a roundbarrow near Alwinton in Northumberland apparently have similar carvings.
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It was utterly freezing this weekend but at this lovely circle you feel enclosed and sheltered by the wall and gorse bushes around it. I was really pleased that it's not advertised on the road. It's so close to the tourist Mecca of Land's End, but so unspoilt. I was truly amazed and pleased by the fact that I saw not one little bit of litter at the whole site, from the layby with the triangular stone, right down the green lane to the circle. Ah. It does restore some of your faith in people.
I really enjoyed the anticipation of walking along the overgrown path, not knowing what to expect from the site. My other half is getting so sympathetic to the cause and even seems to enjoy these muddy expeditions now. Once we'd sat down on a prone stone at the edge of the circle we were able to enjoy the peace despite the cold. Although it's nice to just drink in the atmosphere sometimes it's quite nice to visit sites with people full of questions because it really makes you think twice about your motivation for visiting, and your ideas about what really happened here. The stones are twinkly with quartz, and covered with all colours and forms of lichen - amazing. I thought it was excellent.
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Don't dismiss this as a purely Roman experience (though that's fascinating in itself - heretic) - it really gets your imagination fired up and you can conjure up something of the place before the Romans arrived.
The 'Sacred Spring' bubbles away in its blue-green pool, and mist floats eerily over the surface. How amazing this place would have been without the stone round it, probably surrounded by dark alder trees, the odd willow the wisp? The Romans knew it was already revered, and although they built a huge temple and bath complex around it, they at least took on board the beliefs of the native peoples by calling it Sulis Minerva - combining the resident goddess's name with a similar deity of their own.
So many tourists come through here, but the place is remarkably quiet - everyone has a hand-held guide and they're listening to that, so if you just sit by the main baths it's really very peaceful and relaxing. You're not supposed to touch the water but you really must to appreciate how hot it is. When you lean over the drain (in one of the photos above) it's quite a sauna! and the bright orange of the iron is dazzling.
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I've been waiting so long to get out here. I felt desperate to get a huge dose of air and view and space (you must surely know what I mean especially in these horrible dark wet days) and we were going whether it poured with rain or not. Which in the event it did, of course. As we were driving along the bottom of the Pewsey Downs there was a fantastic bright rainbow reaching down to it, and then we rounded the corner and saw the white horse. It's quite new (1930s), a replacement for an older one that was close by. It's a funny looking animal, could be anything with four legs really - maybe the maker wanted to be a bit ambiguous?
We drove onto the downs and I was horrified to see that the little car park was full of cars - what could all these people be doing out on such a dingy afternoon? and I really didn't want to share the place with them. But when we started walking we didn't see anyone. I guess there's room for a lot of people up here.
Climbing up towards Adam's Grave you are suddenly surprised by the view stretching out in front of you, it suddenly appears all at once. It was quite misty but we could see for miles. You seem to be on the edge of a huge shallow basin - the lip seems to go all around the horizon. I could pick out where the Westbury white horse is (by the thoughtfully positioned cement works chimney plume) and realised that I'd glimpsed the Pewsey horse from the hill fort there. It starts you realising how the landscape fits together, and how different groups of people lived in proximity to one another. We climbed up onto the longbarrow and stared out at the dark clouds relentlessly coming towards us. Then it started pouring with rain. You feel on top of everything - I would have felt very exposed in a thunderstorm. We stood there in the rain a little while but even with umbrellas it was very cold so we reluctantly trudged through the mud back to the car.
The other half had been in a terrible mood with nicotine withdrawal, but admitted he felt a bit better. Anyone would feel relaxed visiting this fantastic place. I felt a weight off my shoulders. I just have to have peace and quiet sometimes - this place is peaceful. I would love to come back in the sun and stay a long while but will it be full of children and picnics?
It should be even more fantastic in the summer because the Pewsey Downs are a nationally important nature reserve - the rare chalk grassland has been grazed for countless generations and is full of rare plant species, and the butterflies they attract.
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Stumped for somewhere to go at the weekend, someone suggested Hengistbury Head. Should have known it was going to be swarming with people considering it's surrounded by Christchurch and Bournemouth (and the sea). But go on a cold day and I expect you could have most of the paths to yourself, and the beach. It's a sandy promontory, falling into the sea. The site's been occupied for 12,500 years! and some important mesolithic evidence has been found there. Neolithic tools have been found, though they don't think there was a settlement. Also there are Bronze Age barrows, and some pretty enormous Iron Age double dykes cutting the point off from the mainland.
All the people almost spoiled it, but I should have expected them and it was a lovely day anyway. There are some massive concrete paths for the masses, but if you wanted to stray down the smaller tracks I think you'd get some peace. Most people were as usual 100m or less from the car park and the caff.
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Bless. My boyfriend chose this spot off the OS map himself as somewhere to take me.
Although you seem to travel for miles down a dead-end road to get to it it's not exactly one of those isolated sites - in fact it's part of a country park so it's got quite a big car park, but you can get away from other visitors nonetheless, and it was really peaceful. It's so easy to get to and would be ideal for anyone with mobility problems / prams etc - you can drive up onto the ridge (the edge of the Marlborough downs), park your car, and walk along the level Ridgeway to the hillfort.
Barbury Castle is surrounded by two impressive banks and ditches (more in some places) and has 360 degree views. The castle's iron age, but there are bronze age bowl barrows and even a disc barrow nearby, which maybe I'll get back to some time. The site is on chalk grassland so there are lots of chalk loving plants and the butterflies they're associated with. Sarsens were used around the two entrances, and you can see some of them poking through the soil.
A farm near the carpark has a little outdoor cafe selling food and drinks which I was very grateful for at the time - all this is the opposite end of the ridge to the hillfort and it's fine, don't be put off by thinking the place has been 'countryparkified'.
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I visited this fantastic site a couple of summers ago - it's beautiful with all the chalk downland flowers. The views are pretty much 360 degrees. It's a pretty steep climb to the top and once we were up there we almost thought we'd get blown away by the wind. Hid in one of the flower-lined ditches while it rained, and then sat overlooking a field being rippled in all directions by the wind, very strange to watch.
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I walked up here from Bath. It's further than you'd think and of course I picked the hottest day this year. But if you ask me (where possible) walking is half the point, part of the pilgrimage!
Bath is surrounded by flat-topped hills (one of them being Bathampton Down). You can see the abbey, it's right in the middle of the valley - and that's where the unique hot springs are. What a fantastic landscape this must have been in prehistory. Even the sprawl of Bath and the vile bypass can't ruin it today.
The hillfort is triangular - I walked round the top. The first corner's a triangulation pillar (lovely) but at the next corner a turf maze (a 'labyrinth' if you want to be pedantic as it's just one long path without branches) has been cut into the step of the hill. The horrid roar of the A46 floats up through the beautiful valleys - but it looks like the maze is here to combat that {found out today that it was cut by road protesters a few years back - perhaps they did site it there just for that reason!}. It's an ancient design. I traced it inward and outward. It made me think about a journey of introspection you have to take before you can bring that knowledge back out to use in the world (I was in that kind of mood, ahem). The maze twists so you think you aren't getting there, but suddenly there you are.
At the final corner a small fire was burning. Though it was the hottest day for months I wanted to stay by the fire. I could happily go back there now. In fact I could cheerfully sit up here all day. I had no idea of the time. There must always have been fires up here. Whatever we don't know about our ancestors, we can be pretty sure they must have sat up here looking at the view with their fire burning. It just seems like a thread of sanity in the world.
Coming to a place like this sorts your mind out; it gives you peace and space to think/not to think.
On a more mundane note, on the way home I completely lost the footpath and ended up avoiding muddy cowpats and nettles. Typical.
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This is a reconstruction of a burial chamber, apparently done in 1736. It's the spot where the historic boundaries of Somerset, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire meet - perhaps those boundaries really were centred on whatever these stones used to be: presumably a longbarrow. Now there are 3 blocks of limestone supporting a huge (well, relatively) capstone, but overall the feeling is small and cosy. The monument sits right next to the road - the roman Fosse Way - but it was only on my third drive-by that I actually spotted the thing. It sits nestled back, next to a wall. I sat underneath it for ages, it's very quiet and protective feeling - perhaps the only original stones are the ones underneath that you can sit on. As usual at such places there was litter everywhere - this despite it being apparently miles out, and not all of it could have blown in from the road. Rather fortunately some of the rubbish was plastic bags, so I collected two whole bagfuls and took them back to the car. People eh. It is bound to be the haunt of pissed teenagers but I wonder what they think they're sitting under. It's a strange spot because it doesn't feel quite authentic and you can't really tell whether anything is original or not. But it's different.
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You're quite right Mr I, I'm sure it would be very ill-advised to clamber about on the scree slope - and of course utterly illegal to remove anything archaeological you found there. But it's very nice to be in such a quiet, spectacular and seemingly remote place and know that people were there so long ago making such important things. Well worth a visit to the valley and a pint in the pub afterwards.
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Pottery shows that people were here in Neolithic and Bronze Age times, but the defences are probably Iron Age. Now the site is quite wooded and encloses a country house. In the summer it's quite busy with be-ice creamed visitors, but it's really quite nice for a stroll.
Lethbridge was positive he'd found a chalk hill figure of a goddess on the side of the slope here. His explorations are described in: The Wandlebury Giants, in Folklore, Vol. 67, No. 4. (Dec., 1956), pp. 193-203.
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Alderley Edge is a truly mystical spot. It's full of boundaries - dangerous places :) You can walk out to Stormy Point and stand on the pink stone to look out at the valley below. Beneath you is a huge network of Bronze age mines.
There's a big NT carpark which I discovered more recently, but it's much nicer to park in the layby where the big sign with the finger points " TO THE EDGE" and walk from there.
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This is also known as Luckington Long Barrow. It's refreshingly dilapidated and covered in trees, but the stones of the side chambers still poke out of the earth, and around there is a typical cotswold drystone wall of little flat stones. Apparently the ends of the barrow were ripped out for road making stone in victorian times and there used to be an old boy in the village who kept a skull 'for a momento' (Exploring Ancient Wiltshire - George Osborn). It was such a calm place when I visited, only the sound of the rain dripping through the leaves. It did have a real atmosphere and you feel like you're exploring as you climb up onto the mound.
My twenty year old book suggests you ask the farmer at Allengrove Farm to the north before you hop over the gate (but I didn't know this at the time honest guv).
There are detailed plans of the long barrow in Wiltshire Arch Mag v65 (1970).
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Cley Hill is frankly like a huge breast on the landscape (complete with barrow nipple plonked right on top - don't tell me they didn't think of that at the time). It's owned by the National Trust and is an important nature reserve because of the early gentian and other rare chalk grassland plants that grow there. You will also find mountaineering cows and should check out the musk thistles bristling with bees. It's so bloody draughty you'll wish you were a bee stuck down in the flowers off your face on nectar too. It certainly clears your mind.
In all the books the site is mentioned as an Iron Age Hillfort, but frankly a place as obvious as this would hardly have been ignored by previous people - as proved by the older barrow on the top in any case.
JC mentions the site in passing in tma in a similar vein, commenting that perhaps Neolithic peoples had too much respect for the Mother to go altering sacred landscapes. It's certainly been altered since though - the side where the car park is has been extensively quarried.
If you're driving past , the best view is coming along the Frome road. And if you're stopping, there's an NT carpark conveniently located at the road, near the bottom of the hill.
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This is such a special spot. The polissoir is one of only two in England, and it's apparently by far the better one*. It's a sarsen stone worn smooth / into six gashes by people sharpening stone axes and arrows. We sat there for ages. It's amazing to think you are sitting in exactly the same spot as those people thousands of years ago, and it's amazing to run your hand over the marks in the stone. It's not easy to find, for which I'm not sorry. If some people don't mind daubing paint all over Avebury or Glastonbury tor or breaking the stones at Stoney Littleton (ooh it makes me SO MAD thinking about that even now) well I don't want them anywhere near this, or I would be forced to practice sharpening their faces on it. Basically you walk along the Ridgeway from the Sanctuary, turn right and hunt for it amongst the 'Grey Wethers'. Helpful eh. But half the point is to find it yourself.
*sheer hearsay, from George Osborn's 'Ancient Wiltshire' (1982). I have no idea where the 'other' he talks of is. And besides, people were polishing their axes somewhere weren't they. Maybe he means this is only one of two really obvious 'multi channelled' polishing stones. Who knows.
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Raining as usual when I visited this - and just couldn't find a satisfactory place to park, ended up perched on the edge of the main road hazards flashing.. The field was FULL of enormous horses, who looked happy enough to see a visitor (until it transpired I had no food at which point they turned their bottoms to me to face out of the rain). But I felt rather small in comparison and didn't dare go in with them. One was even stood on the barrow.
If you are more prepared than I was and can find a safe place to park, there is a legitimate footpath through the field and you will be able to see the chamber on the far side from the road.
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Julian mentions this barrow in passing in TMA as reminding him of the recumbent stones of the north: there are two uprights either side of huge slab; they stand at one end of the mound.
I made a little pilgrimage to this alone and in the rain, parking on the lane which is the Fosse Way and squelching through the field towards the stones. You feel quite remote but humming along in the distance is the wretched M4 - but that doesn't seem to matter, this place is so old and the motorway is just a transient upstart.
The stones are interestingly patterned and one has a strange bite out of it.
In more clement weather conditions I think you could sit here for even longer.
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This hill, it has a meaning that is very important for me, but it's not rational. It's beautiful, but when you look, there's nothing there. But I'd be a fool if I didn't listen to it.
-- Alan Garner.
...I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn...
-- William Wordsworth.
Some interesting websites with landscape and fairy folklore:
http://earthworks-m.blogspot.co.uk
http://faeryfolklorist.blogspot.co.uk
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