 Previous 20 | Showing 41-57 of 57 fieldnotes. Most recent first
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Bit controversial this one. The stones that make up the base of the fountain on The Old Steine in Brighton allegedly once stood in a circle in close proximity to the Goldstone. Some of these same stones now surround The Goldstone in Hove Park, though it was always believed to have been a large solitary stone in its original position. They're certainly of the same material as The Goldstone and its attendant circle, a sandstone and flint conglomerate, except one or two which are genuine sarsens. However, according to other sources, the fountain stones were part of a circle near the Wellsbourne (or Whalesborn, the now hidden river) in the valley which constitutes The Old Steine and which gives the area it's name (Steine – Stone). Yet another source states that they were simply stones scattered along the banks of the river and that they were gradually tidied up over the centuries until they came to their present resting place and had no sacred or special significance whatsoever. Whatever the truth is, it's testimony to the gradual destruction of ancient relics in the area over a long period, but I guess that it still acts as a central meeting place, albeit one where most of those gathered the day I was there were clutching cans of lager.
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Very easy to find as the B3180 passes straight through the middle of this handsome Iron Age fort. We happened to be staying about half a mile from here while working in Honiton and were vaguely aware of it's presence the first night of our stay as we drove through. The next morning gave us more tantalising glimpses as we made the return drive to Honiton with perfect low sunlight filtering through the copper coloured leaves of the beech trees on and within the banks of the fort. The fort itself sits just slightly atop a wild and open area of common land and the OS map shows evidence of a number of tumuli in the surrounding area but sadly, we never had time to investigate these. The banks which are quite substantial in places are made up largely of smooth rounded pebbles from an ancient river bed and a little further down the road from here is a company extracting the same material for aggregate. This area must once have been a large alluvial plain stretching between the River Exe in the West and the River Otter to the East. A great place to wonder around on a sunny autumn day with stunning views across the common in all directions
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This is a lone barrow just off the South Downs Way track, but perhaps more interesting are the earthworks alongside it. On MAGIC it merely states 'field system'. Not sure if they are contemporary with the barrow but could be medieval as a few miles further on just beyond Millbarrows, also on the track, is Lomer Medieval Village (remains of) which has a similar feel and look.
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This is not just your usual wimpish 'cross dyke' that you find over most of the South Downs but quite a sizeable beast more in line with Rackham Banks near Amberley. The easiest approach is from the mindless racetrack of the A27 between Worthing and Lancing. Take either the Sompting Abbotts Church turn off for Steyning or the Dankton Lane turn just after, then it's just a short walk along tracks from either of these roads. The main dyke runs for almost half a mile up the hill and consists of a ditch which is mainly overgrown, and probably served as a track in the past, and the dyke itself which in places is about 4 feet above the level of the surrounding fields. From the top are spectacular views across the South Downs to Cissbury Ring to the west and the chapel of Lancing College in the east. Oh, and if anyone finds a 77mm lens cap around there it's mine.
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We don't really do big stones much down here in Sussex so it felt quite an honour to photograph this monster. I'd seen old photos of the Goldstone and didn't quite appreciate just how bloody huge this stone is. This could stand proudly with anything at Avebury or a number of any other megalithic sites, it's just the surroundings which make it all a bit surreal, the twee fencing, the rumble of traffic on the Shoreham Road only fifty metres away and the Burger King, DFS and Comet showrooms on the other side of the road! The Goldstone and the nine smaller stones surrounding it (from a different location, as is the Goldstone itself) is very similar to the stones I recently saw at Winterbourne Abbas, a conglomeration of flint and sandstone. The smaller stones also seem to have suffered more from erosion over the last hundred years or so judging by the older photos or maybe they've just been laid on their sides. The other thing that struck me, and I have to say I usually find this sort of thing extremely cheesey, was the face thing on the western side which looked like it was in a deep sleep. It must have looked very impressive before being buried, resurrected and re-sited here in the corner of Hove Park facing passively out to sea.
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This was my first visit to Badbury Rings. Despite the fact that I'd been to college in Bournemouth some 25 years before, and was now here for the day taking my eldest son to an interview at my old college, I'd never made it out here. It was one of those bitterly cold days when you're not sure quite what the weather is going to do - one minute snow showers, the next bright sunlight. The approach to the Rings is quite spectacular in itself as you come along the Blandford road through an amazing avenue of tall, mature beech trees bereft of their leaves at this time of year and then swing into the carpark past three of the large Bronze Age barrows to your right. It's only a short walk from the carpark to the Rings and as you progress up this fairly low hill you'll notice a fourth barrow on your right and beyond the ramparts away from the other three. It reminded me very much of Danebury in Hampshire which is also on a fairly low hill, multivallate and with a small wood planted within its enclosure. The entrance differs to that at Danebury, and to its enormous neighbour at Maiden Castle nearby at Dorchester, in that it goes straight in towards the centre instead of zigzagging, so you can imagine they must have had some formidable gates here to prevent an easy ingress. Having walked anti-clockwise around the inner rampart to the Northern side you can see a couple of hundred yards off what looks like a low bank running roughly SW/NE which I guessed to be either a fourth defence or boundary marker. This is infact the Ackling Dyke, a Roman Road which takes a turn to the left just North of the Rings and continues towards the Dorset Cursus. Another interesting thing on Google Maps is the cropmark of what looks like an echo of the Rings reflected in the line of the road. Does anyone else have a theory about this?
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Bell barrows are ten-a-penny in this neck of the woods and even the odd long barrow isn't too much of a surprise so I thought my eyes were deceiving me when I noticed these two disc barrows. They're right next to the footpath of the SDW near the carpark and disused and quaintly named 'Bo Peep' chalk pit. There are also fantastic views over the Downs here and the tiny village of Alciston.
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I must have wandered past this several times in the past and never noticed it, but because of a lot of recent clearance of thick gorse and dead yew trees it suddenly revealed itself and quite a find it is too. Possibly contemporary with the Devil's Humps at Kingley Vale just a stones throw away, it's described on the Pastscape section of the English Heritage site as 'A rectangular earthwork of about an acre possibly as early as Late Bronze Age. Scheduled.' It also says that it's similar to enclosures in Germany from the last century BC. Most of the banks and ditches are in a reasonable state and the southerly bank extends beyond the enclosure further west as a cross dyke. There seems to be only one discernible entrance on the Eastern side next to the track.
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This is an intriguing little strip of land which extends some 3 miles from Freshwater Bay in the East to The Needles in the West. At the Freshwater Bay end you'll encounter a cross dyke and then, interestingly, a 'Neolithic Mortuary Enclosure'. This is quite faint but just about discernible although there's nothing at this end to tell you what it is, you get the information if you walk to the end of the 'Tennyson Trail'. The trail is named for Alfred Lord Tennyson, the poet, who lived in the bay and stolled daily on the Down. About a mile from the bay stands a monument to him which replaced a landmark for channel shipping called 'The Nodes', a replica of which now stands forlornly in some bushes a few hundred yards further West. Near this are also a couple of barrows largely worn down with age and the feet of countless hordes of tourists.
As you get closer to the Needles there are more and more barrows and a lot of unidentified earthworks, some of which may be attributable to the defences built over the centuries up to the time of the Cold War in the aftermath of WW2. Here, unbelievably, was a 'rocket testing station', where 'Blue Streak' and 'Black Knight' rockets built for the British government in East Cowes were tested, but not launched, before being sent to Woomera in Australia for launching. There's also an interesting and free museum there to tell you all about it.
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This site is of note simply because most of the barrows here seemed to consist of shards of flint rather than the more common chalk and turf barrows which proliferate throughout the rest of the island. I did wonder if there had perhaps been flint mining around here also but can't find any evidence for it other than what's visible. The other thing which strikes you is the lack of enclosures and hill forts on the island when, judging by the number of barrows, there must have been a considerable population. Possibly because it is a relatively small island and had good lookout positions scattered across it, it felt less vulnerable than other areas on the mainland and people could live in safety almost anywhere, though sadly today there's not much trace of habitations.
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Afton Down is a strange site as it's often difficult to tell what's old and what's been added. What looks like a Bronze-age barrow from one angle turns out to be a sand trap from another. It's obviously a barrow cemetery consisting of two groups of 3 and 8 barrows and a dyke or two, but has been severely messed about by the morons that are the Freshwater Bay Golf club. How do these people manage to get away with it? You would think that this historically interesting area which is wonderfully beautiful and relatively unspoilt for the Isle of Wight would have had some sort of preservation order placed on it, but they've simply carved it up for the benefit of a few garishly-clad plonkers who tut at you when you stop to take a few photos because it's interrupting their 'game'. It might be quite interesting to have a closer look at some of the barrows in the evening after the golfers have gone home as you can't get near some of them because you're restricted to the footpath. On a nicer note, you can visit Dimbola Lodge, the home of Julia Margaret Cameron, pioneer Victorian photographer in Freshwater Bay which is a real treat.
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Long barrows in Sussex are few and far between but I thought it worth mentioning them as they form part of the abundant collection of earthworks within the Kingley Vale Nature Reserve north of Chichester. The other notable relics being the enormous round barrows on top of Bow Hill and Goose Hill Camp Iron Age Hill Fort. You can find them quite easily by following the trail next to the dyke that runs alongside the round barrows north-east for about half a mile. You'll come to an opening in the woods to your left and the first long barrow sits in a field beneath you. The other lies in an adjacent field and the pair of them are bisected by a footpath leading down to the village of Stoughton itself.
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I find it a little surprising that nobody has written any fieldnotes for Kingley Vale before. These are probably the largest barrows in the whole of Sussex, the highest being about four metres high, bigger even than the probably more famous 'Devil's Jumps' directly due north from here. Not the easiest place to get to and few signs to aid your navigation it's well worth a visit whether you're into lumps and bumps, walking or just being plain spaced-out. The views are also something else as you look south towards the cities of Chichester, with it's landmark cathedral spire, and Portsmouth further west. You can also quite clearly see the Isle of Wight in the distance. To the north are superb views of the spine of the South Downs. There's an absolute wealth of material to look at here within an area of about two square miles including the various ditches and banks around the four main barrows, two very moderate long barrows on Stoughton Down, an un-named rectangular enclosure slightly further north-east and about a mile further from there is the almost hidden and slightly inaccessible small Iron age hill fort of Goose Hill Camp. Nearest parking if you're coming from the south is near the village of West Stoke.
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I recall trying to find this fort a few years ago on a previous visit to the Kingley Vale Nature reserve but it had been difficult to make out due to the excessive undergrowth. This time around it proved much easier as there has been a lot of clearance throughout the reserve recently and after stumbling over a few dead vikings we found it once again. It's an interesting site as the outer and inner banks and ditches are unusually far apart and the whole thing is filled with a profusion of ancient yews. The day we were here was splendidly sunny and warm and peaceful but having been here at other times when the weather was less clement the whole reserve has a rather sullen and slightly oppressive feel to it which I think is largely due to the dense yews. The fort sits on a hillside, not quite at the top, looking east over the downlands and is roughly oval in shape. Interestingly there's another earthwork about half a mile from here as you walk back to the huge barrows on Bow Hill, but it's not named and is distinctly rectangular in shape. Can't seem to find any information about this.
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Castle Hill is situated in a stretch of downland between Brighton and Lewes in an area of outstanding beauty owned by the National Trust. The easiest way to get to it is to leave your vehicle near the houses on the northern edge of Woodingdean (off the Falmer Road, B2123) and then make your way round the hideous radio mast towards the valley at Standean Bottom. You can either follow the valley all the way round until you come round to the northern edge and then up the hill towards the enclosure or you can take a short cut down to the bottom of the valley and straight up the hill. The enclosure is at the top of the hill, roughly rectangular in shape and has splendid views back across the majestic valley and south towards the cliffs and sea between Brighton and Newhaven. The banks are only a couple of feet high now but still quite distinct with a few depressions visible inside them, possibly from huts. There's a bank and ditch which extends from the western side of the enclosure for a short distance down towards the valley. It feels like an outpost from the slightly more busy South Downs Way but you're really not that far from other major earthworks at Whitehawk and Hollingbury on the outskirts of Brighton and indeed it's not difficult to come across something on almost any hilltop in this area. Obviously a very populace place even thousands of years ago.
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Quite by chance we stumbled upon this barrow cemetery while walking a section of the South Downs Way last weekend. Its not as large and impressive as 'The Devil's Jumps' which is a few miles further west from here and the largest barrows are only a couple of metres high at the most, but there are actually two more barrows and a couple of cross dykes intersecting the group. They're aligned roughly East/West unlike The Devils Jumps which are apparently aligned to the setting sun at the summer solstice. The best access point is probably from Cocking and a brief walk east along the SDW footpath. It's not signposted but appears on the OS explorer map 121 (Arundel and Pulborough) and you have to look hard through the hedgerows to spot it. It's also interesting to note that along this section of the SDW there are few solitary barrows and that they always seem to be in linear groups. There is another example near Westburton Hill near Bignor of a group of four barrows which lie in a valley(!), but sadly are no longer visible having been ploughed out over time.
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The barrow, although not so interesting in itself, stands on a promontory of the South Downs which leads down to Southwick and Shoreham. However, from this elevated position you get breath-taking views of the whole coastline from the east of Brighton to the west of Worthing, the River Adur as it snakes past Lancing College and the stretch of the South Downs to the North with Trueleigh Hill directly behind you. There was a settlement here also, but I don't know if this dated from the neolithic or from more recent medieval times. It was getting too dark to actually get a look at this aspect of the site so another visit will ensue. It's worth visiting just for it's isolation, peacefulness (apart from the roar of the A27 which passes just beneath it) and the abundance of natural flora all around it.
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Previous 20 | Showing 41-57 of 57 fieldnotes. Most recent first |
I'm a professional photographer living in West Sussex and have been interested in ancient sites since childhood. I was brought up near Barbury Castle in Wiltshire so visits to hill forts, stone circles and various lumps and bumps were routine. The grip of these fantastic places still has a hold on me and I still get a feeling of total wellbeing whenever I come across a new place or revisit familiar places. Much of that is to do with the magnificent or interesting locations in which they're found and equally the mystery attached to them - we know so little and can imagine so much.
http://www.landtraces.com
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