 Previous 20 | Showing 41-51 of 51 fieldnotes. Most recent first
This recent visit was on Whit Saturday, 2005. Typical bank holiday weather. The news said it was 33 deg C in London yesterday, 6 deg C on the Lakeland fells today - worlds apart. It was a day of gales, with storm force gusts, blowing me over several times. Add to that the horizontal rain, which arrived just as I reached the circle, and the photos don't do justice to the grimness of the scene.
Set in a valley head, with the Roman road of High Street on the ridge to the east, and the Moor Divock circles and cairns to the NNE, the only open aspect is to the N. The stones are recumbant now, but possibly once stood. The western sector has no stones, or they are burried under grass tussocks. To the SW of the circle two pairs of stones seem to form an avenue.
The circle is hard to spot, lost in acres of grass and marsh. It doesn't help that the stones aren't standing. If you don't know the area it will be hard to find, and the O.S. map shows it slightly further N and W.
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Kemp Howe stone circle would have been a beautiful monument today, but some prat built a railway over the top of the eastern half of it. The other stones are supposed to be still in-situ under the railway banks.
When approaching Shap from the south on the A6, the circle is situated in a narrow field between the railway and the road, just short of the first buildings of Shap, on the right hand side. A gate gives access, but please close it after you to keep in the farmer's good books. It is easily seen on the approach, and at first appears to be a stone avenue.
Six large stones remain, along with a number of smaller ones. In the middle, at the western edge, a number of small stones form what appears to be a small cove.
The rough, pink Shap granite, used to construct the circle, has to be seen, as no pictures do justice to the striking quality and appearance of this rock, especially after rain.
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A univallate Iron Age hillfort, set above what was once the valley of Mardale. In the first half of the 20th C the valley was damned at Burnbanks, and flooded to quench the thirst of Manchester.
It occupies extensive views down the valley eastwards, towards Shap, and up to the dramatic valley head, thronged by mountains rising steeply.
It was excavated in the 1920s.
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Also known as Scale How, this is a low mound in a field, just over a drystone wall. There are stone "steps" built into the wall for access.
It is a Bronze Age bowl barrow, constructed of earth and stones, 17m in diameter and 1.5m in height. Human remains were found during 19th C excavations.
It is part of the huge Shap complex of circles and avenues, most of which have sadly been destroyed.
When approaching on the road from Haweswater (from the NW and W as it winds) the barrow can be seen outlined against the sky.
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The only visible remains of this supposed Iron Age univallate hillfort are the low bank and part of a shallow ditch. What a spectacular site for a hillfort. I doubt anywhere compares to this. To the S a 19th Century quarry bites into the site.
The summit area is small, and the population must have numbered few.
"Earthwork remains of a slight Iron Age? univallate hillfort; antiquarian work recovered Roman pottery and evidence for iron working on the site." (Quote from PastScape).
I've visited this site many times and in many different weathers. It's a windswept site, with mountains rising all around, but it commands views down to all points of the compass.
The old track through the valley and over Sty Head Pass to the S, finally to the sea, passes below.
It is an impregnable place, the ground falling away precipitously to the N, E and W. To the S there is access, though very steep, making the hillfort well defended. The bank and ditch are unnecessary to the N, E and W. Here there are vertical drops.
A modern aspect is the war memorial, on the summit, a slate slab inscribed to the the men of Borrowdale who gave the ultimate sacrifice during the Second World War, mounted on the crowning rock. What finer memorial could they have?
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Years ago, as a young lad (aged about 8 in 1972), my dad took me down the Pike of Stickle scree run, and being used to steep places I revelled in it. The man-made cave was exciting to someone my age, and we explored inside. We also looked for axes, but found none. Further quick descents were made this way in the 70s, just to get off the mountains quickly.
In the late 80s onwards I used the scree run as a very fast descent from a days rock climbing - from the top, around 2,100 feet, to the bottom in less than ten minutes. It felt as fast as the speed of light when surfing down on a wave of stones. Little did we (or many others like us) think of the damage we were doing.
Now I resist the quick way, and hammer my knees on the steep tracks.
I will return soon to check out the cave again, but will take great care not to dislodge any stones - it will be the longest descent of the scree on record.
What a spectacular place.
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The first time I visited Avebury was incredible. We had been down from the northlands, visiting friends in Bath. One day they drove us to Avebury. After passing Devizes the landscape changed into beautiful, gentle, rolling downland, with barrows pimpling the skylines. Antiquarian heaven. Every turn in the road disclosed more evidence of prehistory.
North Down and Bishop's Canning Down closed in over the road, and a special atmosphere was all-pervading.
The only jarring note was the buildings inside Avebury, but we knew about these. We spent hours wandering the banks and the internal site, trying to piece together what it must have looked like.
In the distance we saw a crop circle - the perfect ending. We left, and I felt we left sadly, knowing it would be quite some time before we could return.
A special site with a special atmosphere. Oh yes, and great archaeology.......but first impressions count in fieldnotes.
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Back around 1989, a load of us went to a mates wedding in Southampton. On the long trek back north we called at Stonehenge. It was shrouded in fog, and there were few visitors. We jumped over the wall and down to the underpass, which was possible then, and got in for free. We reckoned it was obscene having to pay what they were asking to enter the greatest stone circle ever.
It didn't disappoint, although the clinical surroundings did. I just looked at the stones in awe. I wished I had come sooner. My mum and dad visited when you just walked over grass and entered the chalk floor of the circle at will. Impossible to allow that today, even though I moan about the regulations, I begrudgingly agree to them.
Up to that point I read all about stone circles, but hadn't read much about Stonehenge, due to focusing on sites closer to home. That day I bought my first Stonehenge book, and since then have been fascinated by the Neolithic and Bronze Ages in Wessex.
The Cumbrian sites still take some beating with their savage surroundings.
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My mate used to rent a flat on the farm about 100 yards down the lane from Castlerigg, and said there was a constant stream of visitors, by night as well during summer.
I've been there countless times, and I've rarely had it to myself, except during a storm, when it comes into its own. Mind you, the mountains disappear behind the clouds then.
I love looking at it from the surrounding peaks, trying to pick it out, finding the rough area, then resorting to binoculars, from which you can see it clearly.
The setting is perfection, raised above the valleys to the south, east and west, only blocked in to the far north. The far north? That's where the sun and moon don't appear, isn't it?
Is there a more perfect setting for a stone circle?
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Excavated in 1910 by W.G. Collingwood (ref. Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, Original Series, 1910, vol. 10, p 342). Included in "The Stone Circles of Cumbria" by John Waterhouse (ISBN 0858335663).
Described as an embanked circle, the stones are only 2 feet high at best. It is hard to find, due to its lack of presence. From a distance it is hard to believe there is anything there other than grass and bog.
The first time I visited was many years ago, when great, grey curtains of cloud were sweeping across the site. A steady drizzle added to the misery, but the site held a presence all of its own under those conditions. In my mind I peopled it, and tried to imagine the rites enacted there.
Today it was spring-like,and a totally different atmosphere pervaded.
Pottery found there dates it to the early Bronze Age, and it held several cremations. Also found were fragments of calcined bone, charcoal, urns, a flint scraper and a bead of white-ish-grey porcelain. Fragments of skull found are thought to be female. Also, attached to one of the urns was a fragment of finely-woven woollen cloth.
Some of the finds can be seen in the Ruskin Museum in Coniston (see link).
Roughly 100 yards ENE (ish) of the circle, I found an old cairn, very overgrown, and composed of boulders. I couldn't help wondering if it was related to the circle in some way.
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To visit this site, marked on the OS maps as "Cairns", we parked at the lay-by on the Kirkstone Pass road, opposite Limefitt Park camp site. A long walk through the camp site and along the valley took us to the south end of Troutbeck Tongue. A steep ascent to the top was well worth it for the views. Walking north along the ridge and descending gently, we arrived, unmistakabley at the first cairns.
These first two were small, but obviously old, a small collection of boulders in a desert of grass.
The next three(?) cairns were large, and obviously very old. Two appear to have small chambers under a flat slate roof.
The most northerly cairn is difficult to spot, being covered in moss, grass and reeds. Again it is composed of round boulders, piled up. This is a substantial cairn.
It's a beautiful, quiet site, deep in a lonely valley, with the fells towering overhead. The High Street Roman road rises to the ridge on the east.
We continued steeply up the ridge to Caudale Moor. I checked all rocks we passed for rock art, but found none.
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Previous 20 | Showing 41-51 of 51 fieldnotes. Most recent first |
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
T.S.Eliot "The Hollow Men"
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