Latest Fieldnotes

Visited as part of a walk along Shire Ditch. These two barrows are in a sorry state, having been excavated a little too hard, but their spectacular location more than makes up for it.

They are visible from other parts of the Malverns ridge, especially from the north, but cannot be seen from the lower land either side, making them well situated for ceremony.

One of the barrows was damaged when Shire Ditch was constructed, which is perhaps strange when you consider that the latest thinking dates Shire Ditch to the same period as the barrows, rather than the Middle Ages as was previously thought.

Visited on 4.7.09 and walked the length of Shire Ditch from Hangman’s Hill in the south (it actually continues further south to Midsummer Hill ) to the northern end between Worcestershire Beacon and North Hill. In between are the British Camp hillfort, Colwall round barrows and some wonderful views.

What a great way to spend an afternoon!

An ancient well that provided water for nearby British Camp, which has no internal water supply (bad news if there’s a siege!).

This well lies in the woods on the western slopes of the Malverns, a little below Hangmans Hill. Unfortunately the well has been tanked to provide a supply of water to Eastnor. It now resembles some kind of cross between an underground bunker and a steam locomotive.

Got off the train at Colwall (4.7.09) had a quick look at Colwall Stone – humph.

This amazing hilltop towers above the village. When I first saw it from the station, I must admit to being rather overawed.

After a fair walk south, coming up on to the Malverns at Hangmans Hill and approaching along Shire Ditch, this is a terrific structure. Certainly one of the most impressive hillforts I have visited. It stands, devoid of any covering vegetation (except grass) with amazing views in all directions, only the continuing ridge of the Malverns to the north being any match in height. It was a warm sunny day, but this must be a cold, exposed place in the winter months.

The original site was the central core of the fort as it is today, which has been further altered by having a motte built on it (sometimes referred to as “The Citadel”). The ramparts to the south and off at an angle to the north-east were added later to increase the interior area to about 12 hectares. That such a vast structure was constructed using primitive picks and moving the earth by hand is staggering. The rock of the Malverns is an iron-hard, igneous type, which would present a challenge even to modern digging equipment.

An interesting cave sits slightly to the south of the fort, supposedly the cave lived in by the giant associated with Colwall Stone. Just as the stone is not that impressive, he must have been a pretty small giant to live in this cave!

Visited 4.7.09, as part of a walk along the Malverns. The stone is pictured in “Stone Spotting In Herefordshire” (Jonathan Sant) and looked like a big old thing – it’s tiny! If anyone was paying rent for it they were being conned...

The last place on our summer solstice sojourn, parking can be had further down the road in the proper carpark then a short walk back down the road to the footpath. Once on the footpath, I’m affraid we walked in a circular motion looking at all the field walls (and there were many) for I knew only of this chamber that it was in a wall, worked a treat too.
The whole burial chamber has collapsed, except perhaps the large capstone which is still propped up at one side by the wall, the wall only cuts the place in two on a visual level. the place felt unaffected by the wall

Park by the two modern stones, head north about 100m then go to the wall on your left the stones are on the other side, it’s easily crossed.
Two tall nicely shaped stones sitting quietly beneath the hills and mountains.

My daughter and I left the car at the entrance to Pantithel farm (there’s plenty of room), and headed north on the footpath. The path slowly but steadily goes up to the main path across the Presellis, when the paths T junction turn right, east, head for Carn Bica and the stones are visible and down hill from here.
Judging from the other notes on here it seems the place is a bit questionable, what is it exactly?
The place felt ancient to me, if that means anything, at least in keeping with other places I’d seen.
It was the day of the summer solstice that I’d chosen for a visit and we’d been on the road since 1am, but it wasn’t time enough to get here and we missed the sunrise by at least an hour.
But the early visit did reveal a possible alignment, though the sun was already quite high, in my minds eye I could track the sun going back down and stopping at the end of the stone rectangle.
A perfect sunrise on the summer solstice when viewed along its axis, might have the suns globe acting for a minute as the missing stone .
Or maybe the suns magic energy was somehow caught in the net made by the stones.
I hope that makes sense, it does to me.

Set at an altitude of c2,460ft and crowning the majestic cliff line of Bannau Sir Gaer – which tower above the dark waters of Llyn y Fan Fach – lie the scant remnants of a round barrow which, in all probability, was the last resting place of a Bronze Age chieftain.

As is often the case, the magnificent location, the sheer ‘sense of place’ of the site, is out of all proportion to the physical remains of the monument. Why, even the modern walker’s cairn which surmounts the barrow is a pretty feeble attempt for a major summit such as this. Then again perhaps this is to miss the point… perhaps only a relatively minor structure was deemed necessary because of the location, which in itself said all that was needed about the power and importance of the individual interred. Perhaps.

To get to the technical bit, Coflein states that the cairn is “..circular, measuring 19.5m in diameter and 1.0m high. It has been disturbed and has a hummocky appearance, with a small modern cairn set upon it. The cairn is composed of mainly small stones, generally turf covered. At the centre can be seen the edge of an apparently upright slab, broken in three, with a total length of 1.3m and orientated roughly east-west. This is perhaps the vestiges of a cist. This is probably a prehistoric funerary monument and can be compared to the excavated example on Fan Foel to the east.”

The most notable aspect of the Picws Du burial site is the frankly awesome view of the aforementioned Llyn y Fan Fach, sometimes referred to locally as the ‘Fairy Lake’ because of long standing associations with the Tylwyth Teg [the ‘fair folk’, hence ‘fairies’]. The lake is overflowing (sorry) with folklore and legend, the most famous being that of the ‘Lady of the Lake’, generally considered a reference to a Celtic goddess. Well, the water association certainly fits with known prehistoric ritual practice. Whatever the truth, it is clear that this small corner of Wales has afforded mankind with a righteous experience for millennia, and continues to do so.

Best approached via a minor road from Llanddeusant to free car parking at SN 797238. Here a well maintained track leads in about a mile or so to the lake, from where a substantial climb will bring you to the summit if you so desire.

After a quick visit to nearby Ballyglass – severe barbed wire unfortunately restricting me to a roadside view, seeing as I was with company (ahem) – I donned my ‘tourist hat’ (although I’d like to see a tourist wearing my grotty old thing) to take a look at Dún Brist (’the broken fort’ in Gaelic). Sounded promising... a fabulous sea stack just off the prow of Downpatrick Head, some 3 miles or so north of Ballycastle.

This headland is teeming with legend and folklore. The prominent secular ruins replaced an earlier church founded by St. Patrick, the statue – not to mention name of the place – kinda giving a clue or two in this direction. It is said that yer man effected the death of Crom Dubh, a local warlord, by causing Dún Brist to detach itself from the mainland, marooning the poor sod on it, no doubt to starve. Apparently Crom Dubh’s ‘crime’ was to refuse to convert to Christianity… need I say more? Thought not, your caring, sharing Christian icon being attributed morals any budding SS officer would have aspired to. For those who might doubt such an occurrence (shame on you!), history records a 1393 CE date for the formation of the sea stack due to… heavy seas. Probably a bit of an understatement there, so there is.

Downpatrick Head also featured in the 1798 rebellion, when 25 men lost their lives within the channel below Poll na Seantainne, a prominent blowhole.

But what has all this got to do with TMA? Well, forgot to mention that the promontory is enclosed by a pretty substantial cross-wall, making this a promontory fort – as I understand, dating from the Bronze Age. There was certainly a Bronze Age presence here since at least one – possibly two – round barrows are also readily identifiable on the headland. Right on!

If historical records are correct this stretch of the Mayo coastline has therefore undergone fundamental changes in the last two millennia, producing an environment of exhilarating, windswept beauty backed with a profoundly rich tapestry of historic and pre-historic heritage. Needless to say the views are superb, and experiencing the cliff line plunging to the sea is not something for those prone to vertigo … so make sure children don’t go running on ahead!

Follow directions from maen cam. From the top of Fanfed hill you can see a slight something on a hilltop to the northwest, this is Darren(524m).
Keep heading for the something on the hilltop that begins to look like a stone as you get nearer. Its not till your right at the top that you can see its the cairn (called No.2 by Coflein) well , its the recently built hilltop cairn favoured by the aimless hill walkers of Wales. South west or left of cairn2 is cairn1 now only a slight smattering of fist sized stones. Back up the hill twenty metres is the....and I say this with all the jest in the world ‘stars of the day’. Two little stones, at least they were easy to find, they seemed to be miniature replicas of big standing stones, I lay down on the grass nose pressed up close to the stone, it could have been ten feet tall.
This was all back at the beginning of june when it was hot, never have I yet been to some stones and wanted to run naked in the hills,but I came really close this time and made do with dunking my head in the river on the way back.

2nd june

Parking a plenty east of the stones on the road below a hill called Y Garth (433m). Go west over the river and uuuuuup the steep hill, when the ground levels out head for nearest hilltop this is Fanfed(475m) slightly to its south west is what I presumed to be maen cam, a large bouldery type stone about three and a half feet tall. Its axactly where mappy said it was, but Coflein gives a different story saying its actuallly two fallen stones on a wide ridge one possibly natural, this isnt at all what I found. Perhaps there was mix up with a discription of the nearby Darren stones. (Or perhaps I was just wrong)
God it’s hot !!!

Not the easiest of stones to get to, approach from the north following the rough track south through the forest. Hopefully you’ll get to the track that only has foerst on your right hand side and heather to your left, park by a wooden stake by the side of the road, possibly an old footpath sign. The stone is hiding amongst the heather and it’s very good at it too. Barely two feet tall it’s no wonder no-one had been there till me. From the stone look west through a corridor in the trees and straddling the fence is a cairn, not wide or tall but nice to sit upon above all the heather which has fairly taken over the whole area. The cairn was really easy to find but the stone took ages, round and round I went scratching through trees, sweat pouring from me, I probably passed it three or four times.
But that’s all par for the course sometimes, golf is a good walk spoiled but stone hunting is a treasure at the end of an adventure.

Videod the site yesterday, first round the whole site then circling the indivisual elements. and observed that most components had an orientation to the Bigswell area (where there used to be a Johnsmas fire on the hillside) – do the alignments we recognise for such places hold primacy or does survival and/or our perception of significance affect our judgement ?

This cairn is over 10 meters wide and stands at 11/2 meters in height. It must also be about 50 meters in length facing towards the nearby Mormond Hill. Some stones surround the perimeter. These might be kerbs or the remains of cairn material. This cairn has been badly robbed and has been weathered thru time by the ravages of the North Sea winds and sand. The surrounding fields are covered in it.

Travel south from Fraserburgh, the Broch up here, and take the second minor road east. Stop at the Fortmartine and Buchan Way for access. A small climb follows to the easily visible cairn.

Visited 17/07/09.

Stupidly I trusted the OS map to be correct and expected a clear climb to cairn which sits near the top of Mormand Hill, behind Mormand farm at Strichen. After walking the first field I was met with an unpassable amount of whins (more like jabby things). Walking back towards the west I eventually found the remains of a path going uphill. This I followed until I chanced a sheep path leading thru the whins, just. More like wading into a ocean of little needles.

This lands onto an old road beside the White Horse, there is a stag on other side plus a former NATO early warning station, beneath the house at the top. This house has the title of Witches Lodge. There is also a smallish cairn beside it.

The cairn is a short distance ,a further 1/4 mile east, being beside the road being almost 50 feet wide. Most of the north eastern kerbs, quartz and granite, are there although some have been disturbed at some point. In the middle the cairn, at 4 feet in height, is covered with some stones, the bottom half being covered in whins. The southern arc has four massive boulders for kerbs. These are hard to locate because of the density of the undergrowth. However the scenery towards east, west and south is staggering, Bennachie and the highlands can be seen in the distance.

It is also called the resting cairn as “mourners used the cairn as a coffin rest stop.” Why up here? Then again why not!

To get back down I followed the road until the whins stopped, almost jumped a ditch and walked/limped another 2 miles to the car. At least it didn’t rain.

(A walk from the center of Strichen also leads to the stag and Witches Lodge. Damn!!)

Visited 30/07/09.

Just to add to my previous fieldnotes, the round houses are even more overgrown in midsummer now. The most easterly (nearest the path) is quite clear and easy to see, but as you go west along the line they are harder and harder to get to. One for the winter!

Directions are pretty much as Mr Hamhead indicates – the easiest route is from the road to the north, taking the track that used to be the drive up to The Carne, which runs SW from the road. A smaller path forks off to the left (SE), which will take you to the ruins of an old cottage. From here the rocky Sperris outcrop is to your left, a narrow path runs up to it. From there it’s just a short way down to the quoit itself. There are a couple of bushes either side which help with guidance. The large fallen stone is an upright, the capstone (long) gone. Amongst the vegetation there are traces of a low kerb, but on our most recent visit (26.6.09) it was a bit overgrown to see how far this extends. It is intervisible with Zennor Quoit.

Running SE from the quoit is an old stone hedge, which consists of an ancient looking row of low granite stones, with gaps between, poking up through the gorse and heather. It looks rather more like a boundary marker than anything of value as a means of controlling stock, etc.

Across the ridge to the SE you come to Sperris Croft, then further east are the two excellent barrows on Trendrine Hill.

Not sure you were in the right field Sweetcheat, it’s obvious when you find it. Still quite tall, runs parallel to the road with an obvious forecourt. It’s in a great spot, unusually on the side of the hill, in a sort of natural amphitheatre, with great views across the valley towards Frampton Mansell. A savage spot, as holy and enchanted as ere beneath a waning moon was haunted by woman wailing for her daemon lover....

Sad to say that the circle is still overgrown and needs some looking after. When I was there a rainbow appeared and a watery sun lit the place up. Quite magical! (“like a Sparkle in the Rain”, as Jim Kerr would sing) Nipped down the road to see the Greater and the Nine Stanes on the way, eventually, to Cairnshee.

Visited 28/07/09.

Directly opposite the end of B974, at Strachan, a farm track leads uphill to the farm of Upper Shampher. The cairn is another 200 meters up the hill. Either climb the dykes or take the long way by following a, today at least, very muddy farm track. Nobody was in at the farm when I asked permission to park.

The cairn is about 25 meters wide and 3 meters high. It looks like it sits on a terrace or platform which is about 30 meters wide and over 1/2 meter tall. There are also some larger stones at the cairns base which are earthfast and suggest a kerb. Other larger stones seem to have fallen which hints at an outer ring but Canmore doesn’t mention these so I’m probably wrong.

Bucharn is a short distance away being situated on the southern slopes of the same hill, Goauch.

Visited 28/07/09.

Compared to Bucharn this place is a nightmare to find. Head east from the two Eslie’s and turn north at the next tarred road. Travel for about a mile and stop at the first track on the eastern side.

From here I walked until the road ended at the forestry work site. This is where it gets interesting. The first part is fairly steep but mainly ok underfoot if the digger tracks are followed. Once they end keep going until another forestry road is reached. Almost directly in front is a path of sorts that has been battered thru the trees. These are terrible underfoot conditions. Even this ends and for the last few yards it’s basically on your hands and knees. If lucky you’ll have ended up in a clearing with the cairn sitting in it’s midst.

The cairn, which is round in appearance, is about 23 meters wide and over 31/2 meters tall. On it’s southern side there is an enclosure. It is an impressive site. Originally there would have been all round views but these have been replaced by mainly fir trees.

On leaving the site I looked for an easier route down, which was in a north westerly direction. This leads to the main forestry works road, today the road was a river, which eventually leads back to the tarred road.

Visited 28/07/09.

Gladman is correct about the owners of the cottage of this site. They have cut a path, fitted several stiles and a gate to gain access to the site. That was just as well as the relentless rain of this summer started to pour down to give yet another drenching. Glorious views looking down the Dee valley even on a stormy day.

Visited 28/07/09.

Coming from Porth Hellick Down along the delightfully inaptly described “main road”, we got into Hugh Town at the end of our walk around the “showpiece” sites.

A quick climb up Buzza Hill before getting on the ferry. It’s a bit of an anticlimax after the better preserved chambered tombs elsewhere on the island, which is a shame as if it was anywhere else I’d have been raving about it! Another massively thick capstone, plus views over the beaches and harbours of Hugh Town. A couple sitting on the seats at the nearby windmill (which itself tops the remains of a cairn) looked rather bemused that I was interested in a few old stones. No change there!

A good place to contemplate the day’s walk and feel a sense of achievement that we had at least managed to visit all of the sites on St Mary’s mentioned in “Cornovia” during the day trip. Next time we come we’ll have to look for the less well known ones.

Cutting inland after leaving Innisidgen, we went south to Maypole, then took the path through Holy Vale, which leads through a lovely little nature trail, between trees and over brooks. As we were getting pressed for time, this route was direct, but was well worth taking anyway, just for the pleasure of the tropical flowers and the lush vegetation that St Mary’s supports.

We came out on Higher Moors, where a duckboarded path skirts a lake that is obviously a haven for birdwatchers, with hides all around. Out into Porth Hellick, passing a curious quartz standing stone monument erected to the memory of Admiral Sir Cloudseley Shovell (I kid you not) whose ship was wrecked nearby in 1707.

We cut straight up the hill to the north east, sadly missing the majority of the tombs here (we’ll be back), but passing Ocifant’s IKEA rock.

Out onto the top, and there, surrounded by bracken, is the most fantastic tomb of the lot! What an amazing thing! Its restoration is less faithful than it might be, but this is an awesome site. To make the visit perfect, the whole of the top of the tomb was carpeted with blue and yellow wild flowers and the sun was out in force. We had the inevitable scramble inside, finished the last of our food and headed back down the hill.

Last stop Hugh Town (and Buzza Hill)!