Second visit (23.8.09) walking up from Nailsworth to follow the southern section of the earthwork. Today a herd of cows grazing on the common were competing with a herd of golfers and the ever-present traffic to cause the greatest degree of hazard to the innocent stone-spotter.
The bank and ditch has been incorporated into the golf course and forms a backdrop to a number of tees and greens. Still, it’s all ritual of a sort...
I’m astounded by this place. I know it’s not a monument as such, but by The Lord Harry it’s a remarkable spot. No wonder it was chosen for cup and ring stuff. It has a sense of place that just oozes from the rocks, from the soil, from the vegetation, from the gaps in between the rocks even.
The re-working done by the modern folk hasn’t detracted anything from the Genius Loci. If anything it’s just added to it.
I had originally planned to visit after dark, but was advised by a wise fella that this might be a good way to injure myself. Having seen the holes in the ground and the precipitous drops, grasping brambles and slidey mud bits, I can now see why. Having said that, I’m going back after dark at some point. It would be rude not to.
The cup and ring marks are faint, and the quarrying evident all over the place does make you wonder what may have been lost (despite what I wrote there about the genius loci). The main ones are on the SW side of the outcrop, below the carved armchair. If you take the path up from the pub, this puts them at the other end of the outcrop, past the carved steps leading to the armchair, and down to your left as you’re looking at the chair. A nice unique little motif with flower petal things, iirc, the boulder with the smaller concentric motifs is just below this.
In the 1930’s the grave field south of Ströböhög was examined. The barrow is about 35 metres in diametre, and was originally higher.
Today the height is about 10 metres.
The scientist Rickard Dybeck acted together with an earlier owner of the Strö farm for saving the barrow from total obliteration, when there was a gravel mining pit on the barrow’s east and south side.
How to get there:
Drive on highway E18 to the city of Köping.
The site is immediately north of the crossing with road 250.
The site can be seen in GE
Info board on site in Swedish.
Kung Ranes hög (King Rane’s barrow)
On the cemetery of Flistad church lies Kung Ranes hög.
The barrow has a diametre of 25 metres, and i 5 metres high.
The top is flattened and has a diametre of about 5 metres.
No King Rane is known in the Swedish history,
but Rane is a noa word for the norse god Woden.
The barrow can be seen in GE
Info board on site in Swedish, English and German.
How to get there:
Follow the directions for Askeberga, but after the right-turn in the town Tidan, drive 1,8 kilometres instead of 350 metres, and turn right
at the white sign “Ranes hög 2”. Continue to Flistad village and
turn left at a second sign that says “Ranes hög”. Parking spot at the church.
Askeberga is the site of Sweden’s second largest skibssaetning, after Ales stenar in Skåne.
The 24 stones are between 1.5 and 3 metres high, the weight of the biggest one is estimated to weigh about 30 tonnes. The size of the ship is 55 x 18 metres, and the fore and aft stones are missing in this ship (like Nässja domarring), as opposed to most other skibssaetnings. This makes the shape of the stones look more like a longhouse, a common building during the iron age.
Info board on site in Swedish, English and German.
How to get there:
At highway E20 at the city of Mariestad, turn southeastwards onto road 201.
Turn right in the roundabout that you arrive to after 13.5 kilometres.
Drive 4 kilometres to Tidan town and look out for a right-pointing white sign “Skeppssättning”. turn right, and after 350 metres turn right again and after 1.2 kilometres the site and parking spot is to your right.
The site can be seen in GE
The site has been a gathering place since it was built in the younger iron age, in the south part of the ship there is a foundation for a flag pole, made 19 june 1942.
The ship is pointing in north-south direction, and is almost directly north of Ales stenar.
The best site on the Burren, bar none. I arrived there at 6.30pm on the 2nd last day of August, a miserable, misty, gloam-laden Clare evening. There wasn’t a sinner in sight, the last of the tourists back in their ranches long ago, so having the place to myself was a treat.
The 1km walk from the road is relatively easy going until the final push to surmount the plateau where the fort is situated. You’ve already descended into the ravine that protects the southern side of the fort only to have to ascend what is probably the easy approach, now and back when the fort was in use.
It’s handy to have a look at Hencken’s plans of the place before getting there. I think if I ever go back, which I’d like to do, soon, I’ll photocopy and laminate these as they really are detailed and expansive. Standing on the viewing platform, having traversed the decking that follows the outer wall from south to east, I could have done with a bit of a guide. But then my attention was pulled to the ravine, the yawning maw that made this place particularly defensible.
Hencken found 2 souterrains, both of which led down to exits in the wall of the cliff here. Without his plan to hand I couldn’t make out where these are.
The rain started to teem down so I gave the inner enclosure only a very cursory scout. The walls are still impressive and don’t seem to be overy restored. What with all the summer growth, it’s not so easy to make out the remains of the outer structures of this tri-vallate fort. By now I was soaked to the skin, one of those ‘from the outside in and the inside out’, so I beat a retreat to the car, defeated by Cahercommaun and its splendour.
This is well worth the short diversion off the Galway road. I was in the vicinity looking for Toorclogher megalithic tomb (again, without any luck, again) and pulled over to have a look at the modern christian cross. Just behind this is the souterrain entrance. What a pleasant surprise! It’s quite well preserved, the opening in the mound leading into a corbelled chamber. From there a tunnel leads down. Where that leads to is anyone’s guess, I hadn’t got the bottle, or a torch, to check.
So, a souterrain in a mound, that’s at one end of a hill in a parish called Seefin. Hmmm.
With a cold and flu symptons affecting schools I had plenty time to investigate this Iron Age fort.
Leave the main road just south of Boddam at the Cadet signpost. Pull into the right at the gateway 200 meters away. Follow the path for 500 meters, past the ruins of Boddam Castle, heading towards the coast. This path, in parts boggy, leads to Dundonnie, a north eastern stack.
The fort is reached by crossing on a narrow pathway/coll. Be careful when climbing up and down the paths are slippy and muddy. A rampart covers most of the western side of the stack curving round and continues along the northern flank. Turf banks have been added. This fort must have been quite considerable in size as the stack is a 160 meters in length by 60 meters wide. At least two buildings stood in the forts centre, it’s highest point, one of which has had a seat built on top of it. Three sides north, south and east are protected by sheer cliff face. The nearest natural harbour being north at Peterhead bay.
Visited 2/09/09.
At Anundshög there are 5 skibssaetnings. No other site in Sweden has such a number of big skibssaetnings in a small area.
According to written sources, the stones were lying down in the 17th century. Probably the stones were understanded as pagan objects, and were destroyed when christianity grew.
The stones remained lying until 1932, when the restoration of 4 of the skibssaetnings began. The ground around the area were examined.
Close to the nearest stone to Anundshög some burned bones and a pottery shard was found, maybe a grave.
In the middle of the ships there is a round stone, perhaps symbolizing the mast of the ship.
The skibssaetning closest to Anundshög measures 53 metres lon and 16 wide. The other one is 51 metres long and 25 wide. The 3 smaller ones are 35, 28 and 23 metres long respectively. The fifth skibssaetning is still waiting to be restored.
Sorry for the pictures, some moron thought this was a good place to erect a stage… I’ll try to supply better pictures the next time i visit the area.
Info board on site in Swedish, English, German and French.
A round enclosure, probably Iron Age (according to Keys to the Past) approximately 70m across.
On the ground the some of the inner rampart and parts of the ditch can be seen. On Google earth the camp shows up well in the surrounding farmland.
Easy to reach, about 2 mins drive from the A1 the best access is from the road to the south. This enclosure sits at the highest point on a finger of high ground pointing towards the NE.
Bronze age axes have been found nearby (exact location not clear) and two Bronze age cists were found near Swarland old town hall (Keys to the Past) so the area was obviously in use for some time.
Back down the hill (25 metres?) from the church. As you approach the tight bend you traversed on the way up with its attendant layby (in which you may well have parked), on the inside of the bend at ground level just at the foot of the hill is a smallish stone with a cross carved in it. From here,a path leads (a few metres – tis nothing, really) to the confined space. Of course, this being hill country, you’ll be surrounded by the friendly slurp and gurgle of running water. Oh..(and of course) once you find it, you’ll see the faded tat (some of which will be evident in the piccie)
Peace
The big ship, made of 24 stones, whereof 10 is standing, is one of the largest in Sweden.
One peculiar thing with this skibsaetning is that the usually larger bow- and aft stones are missing, just like in the Askeberga skibssaetning. The size of the skibsaetning is 44 x 18 metres, the lying stones is 1.5-2.8 metres long, 1.1-2.4 metres wide and 0.6-1.6 metres thick. The standing stones are 1.5-2.4 metres high, 1.25-2.25 metres wide and
0.9-1.6 metres thick. The stones are connected by a wall, 2-3 metres wide and 0.1-0.2 metres high. The skibssaetning was examined in 1953.
The other 23 graves are round, flat barrows, except for one quadratic one, with standing stones in the corners.
The biggest one of the flat barrows has been reworked in later times, to be used as a fundament for a windmill.
GE has too bad resolution in the area
Info board on site in Swedish and English.
How to get there:
On Highway E4, about 58 kilometres north of Jönköping, take the exit to road 50 towards Motala and drive for 27.6 kilometres (take care – a lot of speed cameras on this road) then turn left and continue for 4.6 kilometres.
There is no parking directly at the site, so park at the church 200 metres south of the site.
Hill fort, placed on a steep moraine hill with double walls, both walls has several entrances, whereof the south one is probably the original one. The inner wall is about 150 metres long and 2-3 metres high. The width is about 10 metres. On the inside you can see traces of dry masonry on several places. The outer wall is about 250 metres long, 3 metres wide and 0.5 – 1.5 metres high.
The major part of the fort was built between 200 to 600CE
Info board on site in Swedish.
How to get there:
From highway E18, take the exit to road 53 about 12 kilometres west of Västerås. Drive 2,7 kilometres, then turn right onto road 558 towards Kolbäck and drive for 4.2 kilometres where there is a crossing.
Continue through the crossing, and after 150 metres there is a parking slot on your left, and the fort is on the hill to the left of the road.
This site comprises of almost 50 standing stones, some of which are positioned to form stone circles. There are 4 stone circles here, two of which are missing one stone each. This burial ground dates back to 400-1050CE
Info board on site in Swedish, English and German
The site can be seen in GE
How to get there:
From highway E20, take the exit to road 50 towards Askersund, after 2.6 kilometres turn left towards Hallsberg and drive through the town.
When you have exit Hallsberg, continue for about 1.5 kilometres, and you see the site to your right.
Look out for a yellow sign with crossed black lines that says “Water protection area” on the left side of the road. 10 metres after this sign there is a small parking spot on the left.
The Anundshög barrow is Sweden’s biggest, with a diametre of 64-68 metres and 9 metres high. It’s dated to younger iron age (500-900CE). In 1788 the barrow was digged by grave robbers. No info exists about if they found anything, and they never managed to dig down to the tomb.
The first arcaeological examination was made in 1998. Test drillings were made and shafts were dug in the barrow’s north and south part.
It was discovered that the barrow was placed on an older settlement. The bottom layer of the barrow consists of mud. On this layer the funeral pyre was set.
This has been covered with a cairn, 37 metres in diametre and 4.5 metres high. The cairn has then been covered by earth.
Info board on site in Swedish, English, German and French.
How to get there:
Driving westwards towards Västerås, take the second exit when you enter the city (the first exit leads to the airport) and drive northwards. Drive for 1.5 kilometres and turn right. The site is on the left side of the road after 2.5 kilometres.
Note: Look out for white signs with the text “Anundshög”, and they will guide you.
The hill fort Viksberget has not been dated, but dated hill forts in the area are mainly from 400-600CE. The size is about 75 x 50 metres, with a 150 metres long wall. In the south part steps has been built in later times. The round wall on the top, 6 metres in diameter is also built in later times.
It was useful once again in WW2, when the Swedish army built the terrace found about 30 metres east of the fort, with the size 8 x 7 metres, using it for looking for foreign aircrafts. This task was often executed by women, who was called ‘swifts’ (the bird)
Info board on site in Swedish and a little English.
How to get there:
The site is on the east side of the crossing between road 56 and road 214, about 19 kilometres north of Katrineholm. Drive 150 metres east on road 214, and you’ll find the site and a parking spot on your right.
Here on Boeryds gravfält (Grave field of Boeryd), you can find 2 tri-radial cairns, 4 standing stones and 17 stone circles. The tri-radial cairns is 13-20 metres long, and 0,4 high, with the ends pointing at E-SSW-NNW and NE-SSE-WNW. The stone rings are 4-10 metres in diametre, consisting of 5 to 9 stones each. The site was restored in the 1930’s.
Swedish national heritage board site code: Månsarp 25:1. Info board on site with Swedish, English and German. Some of the stone rings can be seen in GE (between the trees).
How to get there:
From highway E4, take the exit at Torsvik N (about 7 kilometres south of Jönköping) and drive westwards to the town Taberg.
In Taberg, turn right in the T-shaped roundabout, drive 300 metres and then turn left and go under the railroad bridge. After 3 kilometres on this road there is a sign “Boerydsgravfältet” pointing to the right, and a few metres into the forest there is a parking sign. Park there and the site is in front of you.
Here’s a novelty: at just two metres above sea level, the lowest hillfort in Britain.
If you’re in the area, I recommend you go and take a look. You wont see massive earthworks, but you will find well-defined banks and ditches within the flat, Fenland landscape.
Drive along the B1093 between Wimblington and Manea and you’ll see a signpost pointing down a farm track, passing Stitches Farm, to Stonea Camp.
There are information boards to read scattered amongst the defences as you wonder if Boudicca walked on this site 2,000 years ago.
This is situated about 100 meters to the north of the RSC nearer to the farm, on the Northern slopes of the Hill Of Fiddes. Another complete mess greeted me here as well. One stone bravely stands, 1 meters high 11/2 meters wide, whilst others have been toppled. Some have been covered in field clearance and some are overgrown. It’s a shame!
Visited 1/09/09.
I hadn’t looked behind this RSC the last time I was here. How I wished I hadn’t done this time! It’s hard to slag most farmers but this is a complete shambles. Circle stones have been flung on top of field/cairn clearance. Even a wind turbine, I did see that first time, must have required the moving of some stones although they had probably been already moved. It doesn’t even work!! Parts of farm machinery and waste heaps are close by.
Surely there must be laws against the vandalism of this nature. Angry now!
Re-visited 1/09/09.
This cairn is about 11 1/2 meters wide by 31/2 meters in height. Built on top of a natural mound several scattered kerbs can be seen with only two still in place. Quite a bit of erosion has happened rabbits and hares have ably assisted in this. It is encircled by a rather ruined dry stane dyke. Some trees also grow on the cairn. However it was built in a very tranquil place with nice views across to Balmedie and south to Aberdeen.
I parked at the small wood inbetween Balmedie and Belhelvie on the B977. (Beside and opposite the mobile phone masts) The cairn can be seen quite clearly from the road. Three fences, one stream, Eigie Burn, needs to be jumped and a 1/2 mile walk over rural Aberdeenshire. On a nice day like today, lovely.
Visited 1/09/09.
The Norfolk Archaeological Trust bought this hillfort in 2003 to save it from any further damage by the plough.
Nowadays it is grazed by sheep and has a dedicated carpark.
Apart from that, I agree with the previous visitors; sadly, it has been almost completely flattened.
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.
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.
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.
