Latest Fieldnotes

The picture taken by Mr Hogan, where has he gone (his fieldnotes, tho long, were always informative and brilliant) is of a pile of field clearence near the radar station. The long cairn is on the other side of the road. His mistake can be forgiven as Canmore admit to making a mistake and originally thought the site an enclosure.

All that is left is basically the shell of the cairn which I estimated with the casual eye to be around 40 meters long, 20 meters wide northern end, 10 meters wide southern end. The height at the northern end would be about 1.5 meters whilst at the other end 0.5. One or two bits of cairn material remain with possibly a couple of kerbs. It must have been an impressive site and it has truly magnificent views. I’m beginning to love the Mearns, it is full of interesting stuff with loads more to visit.

Sweetcheat’s sheep were all well behaved. Leave the A90 just north east of the RAC monument taking the first minor road south east stopping at Ferniebrae farm, plenty room to park. Opposite there is a dead straight road going up Bruxie Hill, radars and things to left, long cairn to the right. Lots of cattle grills and gates so keep the farmer happy and keep them closed.

Visited 3/08/2011.

Visited 28 August 2010. A week after the misty trek across the Radnor Forest peaks, a day trip in the eastern Brecon Beacons was a much sunnier and hotter affair.

The walk up here from Talybont-on-Usk proves to be a tiring one, with the sun beating down on the back of my neck as I take the broad and grassy bridleway leading up from the blue waters of the Talybont Reservoir. It’s a steep and steady climb up to the first of the two forts, slightly below the 400m OD mark. It’s worth pausing occasionally to look at the view back across the reservoir, to see the slopes of Tor-y-Foel rising beyond. As height is gained, the Black Mountains appear over to the ENE, from Mynydd Troed at the north to Pen Cerrig-Calch further south. Ahead, the bulk of Waun Rydd fills the head of the Nant Tarthwynni valley.

The eastern fort is the larger and better preserved of the two. Unfortunately, the majority of the site is now covered by the forest to the south, and the thick vegetation of August does not encourage further investigation. In truth, I am very hot and out of breath by the time I get here and grateful for the shade of the tree line. The northern curve of the low rampart is readily visible, but not particularly impressive of itself. But the positioning, with the marvellous views, makes a visit a worthwhile experience.

The western fort is even less impressive, but the additional height (now just above the 400m contour) adds to the views further, particularly up to Waun Rydd.

From here I continue on up the hill, intent on a visit to the three Talybont peaks: Allt Lwyd, Waun Rydd and Bwlch y Ddwyallt. Carn Pica will be a bonus site on the return journey.

Cothillock when you see it on the OS or Phillips maps appears to an easy cairn, near the road in a small wood. Nae probs, says me.

Heading east after Arthurhouse on the B967 stop after the Lewis Grassic Gibbon centre at the road end to Pitcharles. The cairn is in the small wood. For me it took ages to find, up and down I looked, crawled and jumped until eventually I flung myself thru a gap in the trees to land on the cairn edge. If I’d approached from the south there is a gap but I didn’t spy it, handy for getting out tho.

The cairn is 14 meters wide and just over a meter high. There is damage to the edges with eastern side jumping down at least 3 meters. One or two bits of cairn material can be seen amongst the turf. It is well protected and hidden by the trees. Still if the mist had been here, like at Montgoldrum, it would have been ‘well scary’.

Visited 3/08/2011.

For this visit I went past Millplough and up to Cluseburn, parking at the end of the track. On the nearby hill is supposed to some cairns but they, sadly, seem to have vanished. It was clear at this time, on the way back it certainly wasn’t. So I decided to head cross country in a north east direction to Montgoldrum Cairn, something I’d missed the previous week. Cluseburn has water, not to deep as I discovered by mistiming my jump to land in but not over. Fortunately not as much water as my recent Loch Of The Clans adventures. So on I went over several fences and gates until I flukily walked straight into the cairn.

At one time this cairn had been protected by a fence but it appeared to an ancient relic as well going by it’s condition. As for the cairn, it is some 16 meters wide and 1 meter tall. For some reason it reminded me of the Trancie cairn, bowled out with ditch, minus the ditch. Damage to the cairn shows the constuction of earth and boulders. From the there it was up the hill, behind the wood to the east, to visit the RSC again (I like that place).

The way back was a bit of a nightmare as the sea mist had come in, visibility was poor and it was freezing. However a change of boots and socks lifted spirits as indeed did a visit to the Bervie chipper.

Visited 3/08/2011.

This place I’ve wanted to visit for a long long time. So yesterday provided the chance and I took it. The cairn is 46 meters in length. At the North East end it is 14 meters wide and 1.7 meters high by the time it reaches the South West it is only 8 meters wide and 1 meter tall. It has been extensively robbed for it’s materials. Large rocks can still be felt underfoot as the cairn is mostly covered in turf and grass. The stunning thing about this place is it’s location. To north Gourdon/Inverbervie and their bays, to the south Point Of Bard (Haugh Bay). At times the view was superb then a north sea mist rolled in, the temperature dropped and the atmosphere became very eerie. So back down the hill I went.

The best access to this site is by the following route. South on the A92, thru Inverbervie, past Gourdon and take the first track heading west. This leads up a very steep hill. Keep going until the first crossroads and take the road heading north east. Keep going towards the crest of the hill, the cairn is in the field to east with tremendous views in all directions. Great place.

Visited 3/08/2011.

The Cairn of Arthurhouse is set in the tranquil woods overlooking the Bridge Of Kair underneath flows the Bervie Water. Supposedly massive at some stage it remains an excellent site being 21 by 19 meters in length/width and 3.5 meters tall. The north side has been partially dug away and a small pit remains on top of the cairn. But the setting is wonderful, the Mearns countryside once again breathtaking.

Easiest directions, road wise. Leave the A90 at Fordoun and head east. Turn onto the Waterlair track, south, just before the Bridge Of Kair. From here I walked thru a field to a wood up the hill to the south. Keep heading south until the wood narrows then widens again. In a large clearing the cairn sits proudly in the middle.

Visited 3/08/2011.

It was good to visit Duloe again this July, 2011.
Last time we found Duloe by accident, just driving along and then saw a sign for the circle. That hardly ever happens so it was a very nice surprise.

This time we were staying in Lanreath, just a short drive away.

Duloe, although small is a very special place. it almost feels like it is in someones back garden, as the track to it is in between domestic properties, but with farmland all around as well. On this occasion there were a lot of sheep present which came bleating and running towards us, they were clearly the current guardians of the circle. My two year old daughter ran towards them with great excitement, “funny sheep” apparently.

It’s interesting to see the level of excitement that stone circles, and other ancient sites bring out in children. I often feel very different within circles, and especially in Fogous but with children I think there is a very natural and immediate response. I sense that they intrinsically know what we may have forgotten about these places.

Visited this site about two years ago when on my way to the Thunder Stone. As reported elsewhere, not much to see just a grass covered mound in a field. Easy to spot from the road so worth a look when in the area.

I liked it here.
Someone was playing an electric guitar somewhere and the music filled the air. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from and wondered as I looked for the burial chamber if I would find some crazy old rock star sitting on it being all rock star-y.

There is an easier route and with places to park. If you follow the Brnsiencyn road signposted for the sea zoo. Take the first proper right hand lane. It’s quite windy and you will see a public footpath on the right. This leads to the chamber but there is no where to park here.
Follow the road along and take the next right hand turn. There is a sharp right hand bend with a driveway opposite. Not far passed this is a big white house on the right. Then a small residential area.
Park up here, there is plenty of room. Next to the big white house, on the right hand side of it, is the other end of the public footpath, although it is unmarked at this end. Walk down passed the white house then through a kissing gate.
Continue a really short distance through this field to a gate on the left.
Then diagonally over this really small field to another kissing gate next to a white farm house.
The chamber is in the field next to the side of the house.

It is really hard to imagine what this would have been like. Maybe it was always very low to the ground?
But it is still charming.

What a wonderful standing stone to start the day with complete with Ogham markings. This is a very fine example. Great all round views especially over to Raedykes home to several sites.

Take The Slug (A957 Banchory road) and leave at the first minor road heading north. Take the first left and stop at the first track heading east after Nether Auquhollie. The stone is only a short walk up the track, with a step in fence to help get a closer inspection. Locally this stone is far better known as The Lang Stane.

Visited 3/08/2011.

Two court tombs, back to back but 5 metres apart, unlike Aghanaglack, a dual court tomb with only a stone separating the galleries. This place is all about place. Yes there’s the tombs, the northern one of which is like no other, but it’s where they’re at is where it’s at.

From Manorhamilton, a 5 minute drive to a gate, and a further minute along a track at the side of some forestry and it all opens up. The track remains drivable past the tombs but I parked just before and above them. Wild Irish peatland, in places eroded down to the limestone pavement, and views for miles all around. Benbo to the west is dominant, north-west into Sligo you can see Truskmore and Tievebaun. The plateau that you’re on rises to the south and it looks bleak in that direction forever.

I had to come here after reading Anthony Weir’s description of the tombs. It was their situation that captivated me however. The wrecks of both tombs take patience to work out. Weir says 2 chambers in the main gallery with 6 subsidiary chambers set into the cairn at the back of the northern tomb.
The southern tomb is less complex with a 2-chambered gallery. Both tombs have some remains of their courts.

I spent most of my time here just wandering about the area, over towards the old farmhouse, marvelling at the formations of the limestone, parts of which are crowned with half a metre of peat. At the end of it all I didn’t want to leave. A great spot to camp out in I’d say, though pegging the tent down might be difficult in this terrain. Wonderful place.

A stone pair, looking like a classic male/female combination, the male of which is now falling over like some aul-fella, held up by a small group of trees. The female is a blocky obelisk. I couldn’t get closer due to the river but both stones are close to 2 metres high.

I was in the area and had to stop by to one of my favourite sites in Ireland. I’d been using Anthony Weir’s Early Ireland – A Field Guide and Estyn Evans’s Prehistoric and Early Christian Ireland – A Guide and both mention that the site is important and may well date back to the mesolithic. Leaving that to one side, this much later stone deserves some sort of care and attention. I hadn’t planned on coming here and wished I’d brought some secateurs. No-one in authority seems to care for these stones. There were offerings in each of the bullauns under the cursing stones. Fair enough – maybe it’s left to us to clean up the site, those who believe that these places are worth looking after. Alas, these stones are on private land and I’m not qualified to caretake them. I wish I lived closer to here.

Torbreck’s a site that every person with a passion for the heritage of the landscape that we – nowadays, anyway – call ‘Scotland’ will want to visit sooner or later. So it is written, so it must pass.

The inhabitants of the town of Torbreck would appear to be doing their utmost to link up with their neighbours in metropolitan Inverness to the immediate north, judging by the profusion of new housing in the vicinity. This takes me somewhat by surprise following a fortnight or so in a predominately rural environment... and to my mind such a state of affairs is a pity... but I guess people have to live somewhere and we cannot reside in the past with an ever expanding population. Somewhat disorientated, I therefore ask a passing jogger if he knows where the stone circle is... need I relate the answer? The what? So, back to the map it is, then. I guess most visitors will approach from the B862, so, after passing initial woodland (Cullaird Wood), look for a track leaving the road on the right, itself to the right of stables (said buildings currently featuring a large representation of a male appendage... whether equestrian or homo-sapien, I couldn’t say), just past power lines. Anyway, follow the track beyond buildings towards a further treeline and the stone circle will be readily apparent, set beside a timber yard away to the left as you approach.

I’m reminded in no small measure of the wonderful South Ythsie (Aberdeenshire), set upon a small mound within a field under crop. OK, perhaps the setting is not as fine as that beauty, but the Torbreck monument is arguably an even more exquisite example of a stone circle... yeah, I don’t think there can be any credible doubt regarding classification. Burl reckons the nine substantial uprights – the tallest rising a few inches above the mightily impressed traveller – form a stone circle ‘with clava affinities’. Aubrey makes this sound a bit like some pervy affliction, but hey, I like to think I’m open minded. The local collie comes to check me out and – perhaps – to make sure I’m not up to any ‘clava related debauchery’. Apparently not, since the dog appeared quite satisfied to hang out with me at this excellent artificial amphitheatre of ancient stones. The wind is up, the clouds consequently race across the heavens. Yeah, I guess there are worse pastimes than watching their inexorable passage within the exquisite sculpture that is Torbreck stone circle.

The Donegal inventory has this as unclassifed, gives the wrong co-ordinates and has a description that I can’t recognise from what I saw. So maybe I was at the wrong place – well, not according to the OS map, Sheet 17.
There are 3 remaining stones that have the character of stones used in portal tombs but they could be the remains of one of the other classifications. I was on my way somewhere else when I stopped by here.

There are 5 megalithic tombs marked on OS sheet 16 in this part of north county Leitrim, all within a distance of 300 metres of each other, so I believe this merits the megalithic cemetery tag. I don’t have the Leitrim Inventory so I’m guessing on 2 of the tombs, one I couldn’t get close to, the other having very scant remains. By my estimation there are 3 wedges and 2 courts.
(It’s worth mentioning that a local archaeologist told me that there may be more tombs in the vicinity and that I could see other tomb-like structures from a distance but didn’t brave the bullocks in the fields)
Tomb 1 is the best preserved, a Burren-esque wedge tomb. Tomb 2 is what I believe to be a very ruined and overgrown court tomb. 3 is a collapsed Burren-esque wedge, 4 a reasonably preserved court (I couldn’t get close but its gallery seems to be extant) and 5 a very ruined wedge.
I didn’t stick around very long as the usual unfriendly Beware of the Bull(shit) sign was up.

I was driving along here on my way to look for the court tomb up the road when I spotted this. Now I like a good rath so I do, but this deserves more than the regular small red circle that marks it on OS sheet 16. Given that they are the most common Irish monument (there are probably about 300 on sheet 16 alone), you could tend to ignore them – they’re everywhere. This might be a costly mistake however – places like this what I presume to be a multivallate, iron-age ringfort/cashel/rath, are well worth stopping for and are quite spectacular.
The presence of Benwiskin can’t be ignored here. It rises up to a not huge height of 514 metres, but does so in rapid time – no gentle rolling hills here – you get vertigo just looking up at the sheep on the 450 metre line.
The fort is a mixture of earthen embankments and dry-stone walls, quite crude in comparison to say Staigue, but much disturbance has occurred here over time. There is a ramp-like approach on the south-west side that circles around the circular fort, visible from the road, but it was hard to make out the entrance in the short time I spent here. Inside the fort itself are many collections of rubble, but as I said I didn’t give this place as much time as it deserves. Will I ever return? I’d love to.

At the base of a belltower, in a modern churchyard in Ballaghnatrillick (Béal Átha an Trí Liag). If it were a cube, it would be approx a metre cubed, if you know what I mean. The bullaun is centrally placed, 15cms diameter and I don’t know how deep as it was filled with rubble, seemingly deliberately.

Marked as a cashel and bullaun stone on archaeology.ie, I could find very little here due to the summer vegetation. Was this occupied by the people who smelted their iron in the court of the tomb up the road? We’ll probably never know. :-)

What an amazing place! Promonotory forts are places I’d usually bypass, and I hadn’t planned on going this direction until I was recommended both here, and Cloghcor portal tomb where I’d been earlier, by Martin and Joyce Enright.

Inside the fortifications in a mild gale I couldn’t help but wonder at the competition and violence that forced the inhabitants to build this godforsaken fort to make their last stand.

The smallish fort itself is protected to its east by the 57 metre high hill of Knocklane. There is a narrow strip on its north side that allows easy access to the fort. South of the hill would be inaccessible to invaders except by sea and the peak of the hill itself must have been used as a lookout post.

The first (or second last) line of defence is a double ditch, split nearly in half by a causeway. The inner, deeper ditch, is about 4 metres from bottom to top. Either side of the fort are cliffs, though as with the hill, the south would have been much harder to penetrate, hence the building of a bank/wall on the north side.
Between here and the last line of defence there are many signs of habitation structures. And then come the mounds of the final last stand. After here there’s nothing save a few metres of ground and then death.

A site that really caught my imagination.

Arriving at Four Stones provides an emotional punch in the guts. The last visit here was with my Dad, on one of our last days out together in 1999. Coming back here is nearly overwhelming and I find myself in tears, thinking of all the things we never said and all the things we never had time to do. I will experience something similar at Mitchell’s Fold the following spring, showing that the healing we think time brings isn’t either as complete or as secure as it seems. These sites bring such thoughts into sharp relief.

But although Four Stones has the power to open me up, it also has the power to bring a stupid grin. The four boulders, so closely spaced as to enclose the visitor in a tight embrace, exert a strong pull on the senses. The proximity of a nearby house and occasional passing car, the recently cut hay in the field, all fade out of mind as I sit here. The views of the now-revealed Radnor mountains, that I was so recently stumbling across in the mist, add to the overall feeling that this circle is a small part of a grand landscape. And we sit in it, briefly, then we’re gone and it endures, for the next visitors. Long may that continue.

I’m thinking about it all and I’m sorry and I’m not sorry – our time was made up of confused emotions and little whirlwinds and all those things we couldn’t really talk about but, most of all, it was sealed in sacred moments like these and then it was gone.

Heading south along quiet lanes, the Crossfield Lane round barrow can be seen over a field gate. Although once a large barrow, over 30m across, it’s now been ploughed down to little more than a rise in the field.

I have been to Kinnerton once before and visited the round stone in its field, but didn’t know about the second stone tucked into the verge to the north of the field gate. I only find this now thanks to Postie’s pictures – it’s very overgrown and nettles sting me in my efforts to clear it sufficiently to photograph.

As has been commented by others, the stone in the field mirrors the conical top of The Whimble, visible to the west from here.

To my south, barrows appear on the top the Whimble and the western summit of Bache Hill. By now I’m too tired to leave my main route and visit them, so they’ll have to wait for another day. But the summit of Bache Hill itself now looms ahead, just a matter of climbing the grassy field and I’m there. The barrow here is magnificent. Much larger than the Black Mixen barrow, although similarly topped with a trig pillar, this is as fine a specimen of a round barrow as you could hope to find, especially on top of a Welsh mountain.

I collapse at the barrow, wring my socks again, have some lunch. As I sit, the surrounding gloom begins to lift properly, revealing an astonishing view to the south. First of all, patchwork fields emerge across the farmland below, finally acknowledging the elevation attained up here. Then, much further south, a black ridge of hills becomes visible: the Black Mountains escarpment. As the sharp profile of Mynydd Troed clears, I have an warming sense of place, with another piece slotted home into my Welsh jigsaw. I must come here again, when the views are clearer and my feet are drier. But in some ways the all-covering mists, giving way to a tease and a slow reveal, has heightened the satisfaction of making it up here.

There is a further barrow to the east of the main one, less impressive in itself but perfectly situated on the edge of the summit ridge overlooking the farmland below.

Instead, I squelch southeast, heading towards Black Mixen (OE: Black Dunghill), the second summit of the day. At least this section follows a clearly defined track. On a normal day, the enormous radio mast that tops the summit of the mountain would provide a foolproof landmark, but I can’t even see that today. Like the summit of Great Rhos, this a flat, boggy area, characterised by spongy peat and tussocky heather. The radio mast finally emerges, and close by I can just make out the trig pillar. This one stands on a confirmed round barrow, although in truth it looks almost identical to the mound that the Great Rhos trig rests on. The top of the barrow is flattened, presumably by the usual digging and erosion rather than just from the incorporation of the trig pillar. Not a spot to linger on a day like this, with wet feet and a long way to go still. I head off and the barrow vanishes behind, real or imagined I cannot truthfully say.