Latest Fieldnotes

From the hill above the Mill of Ireland this and Cummi Howe broch and The Cairns ‘Danish fort’/castle look equidistant – though it is 8m from the cliff edge the other sites could have suffered more erosion, one tideswept and the other ? subject to undercutting – and there were three brochs on the other side of the water too. From the road the hollow appears less central. Short of Outbrecks I followed the track down to the north end of Cumminess Bay. There is a gate into the NW corner of the field containing Corn Hillock but my main purpose was to see the known broch, so as yet I have only viewed it from the coastal fence. At this end of the bay there is a rather lage area covered by loose large stone blocks of fairly regular shape that have all the appearance of being artificial, which made me think of the the stones dumped into the sea from the Work Broch in St.Ola (and from whatever lay by/under St.Nicholas Church in Holm). Though I then walked along the low clifftop it is a little intermittent and I would suggest going along the shore mostly. It simply has not the feel of a broch in my mind. Only a few stones can be seen in the coastal side until you approach the north end, where I noticed what seems to be an overgrown trench (either excavated or for sheltering stock I think) with various sorts of stone around the likely sides. These are mostly horizontal slabs, perhaps evidence of drystane walling – but I wish I had gone in to inspect as my images show up on the southern end a large ? orthostat and low down on the northern end a rectangular sandstone block that may have an incised line around the face of it. The orthostat’s position is an unlikely one in a broch (my hazard would be pre or post “Broch Age”) and the block resembles ones I connect with early kirks (there is one in a wall by Long Howe that has to come from St.Ninian’s Chapel and another in the Sands of Wideford bridge I take to have come from Essonquoy). Best guess from me is that Corn Hillock is the result of two periods of construction.

Don’t really see how a defensive structure this size could escape mention in the sagas or later, more historical, chronicles. Strangely the most obvious defensive feature isn’t mentioned in EASE survey (at least in the NMRS description from this) – as I approached from Corn Hillock at the north edge there runs a long deep trench like a burn that has been made into a rather rough slipway, some stones apparent in the sides. At two places I managed to scramble up the cliff. Nothing doing. At a third looking back from the south The Cairns only had a few stones visible but there is a rather small peak near the centre of the profile.

A small, low bowl barrow in Powerstock Common nature reserve. The common is about a mile and a half north of Eggardon hillifort. Also in view are the barrows north of the hillfort.

Cairnfauld is another ruined circle that is probably better known for the legend that surrounds it. (see Rhiannon’s folklore note, as well as cattle dying, stones seem to vanish as well) Travel south from Crathes on the A957 known in the North East as the Slug Road, crossing the River Dee, turning left at the Crossroads primary school. The circle, of which four stones (Burl says 4) are mean’t to remain (I could find only three), is at the top of the hill immediately behind the school. Some commentators describe this as an RSC but even in Coles (who said 5 stones) time this would surely have been a guess.

Cheered me up on a bad day! 24/5/09.

Raich can be found opposite the Glendronach Distillery (what luck and recently re-opened!!) on the west side of the B9001. There are a lot of stone circles in this area, this being one of better known ones. At the bottom of the farm lane the farmer has put a signpost indicating the direction to the circle.

Cars can be left at the farm and a gate near the circle has also been provided. A type of four poster sits here and it has been invaded by field clearance as well as centuries of cattle.

Visited July 08.

This circle is far better known as Bowman Hillock. I could find ten stones, maybe there are more, in amongst the boggy ground and fallen trees.

Leave Huntly and take the A920 towards Dufftown. Take the road to Edinglassie signposted just before the River Deveron, after 1/4 mile turn south and stop at the first farm entrance. This is Bowman Hillock. The circle is in the field opposite only a few metres from the road. Best to go when its dry.

Visited July 08.

This is a hard place to find as all that is left are the low stones of a kerb cairn in amongst chopped down trees. Some have suggested that this was a RSC, the Ark Stone sits about 50 meters to the north.

Enter Inverurie by going thru Port Elphinstone cross the River Don and head west on the Burnhervie road. Follow the directions to hamlet of the same name, go thru it and keep going until Denhead farm. Take the road going up the hill, west, and turn left again at the top. The second track to the right, west, leads to Newton farm. The circle is some 50 meters behind the bungalow at the tracks end. Some photos on other sites/maps place the circle in a wood but the trees, formerly the Boghead Wood, have been cut down making underfoot conditions well dodgy. (in Aug 08 there might have been trees planted recently) To find the Ark stone head towards the fence turn right and follow the fence until the stone is reached. Nowadays it is reflective and peaceful place to visit.

Visited August 08.

I was accompanied down to these stones by Richard Moody, the son of the landowner, an enthusiastic youngfella with a pride about the antiquities on his dad’s land. Thanks Richard!
Seeing them elsewhere on the net hadn’t prepared me for the size of the stones. The 3 basin bullaun is huge and the single at the back of the copse is bulky. Richard said that his dad plants a tree down here every once in a while and that the site used to be a monastery. I’d been over at Brittas earlier where mother nature is beginning to swallow the important bullauns there – it was good to see that these are in good hands in their own protected little area.

Set just slightly south-west of the peak of a ridged hill this artificial mound is well worth checking out. From the top of the mound there are extensive views to the west, north-east to Saggart Hill and Slievethoul, Seefin, Seefingan and Seahan, east over the Wicklow mountains and Poulaphouca reservoir and south towards Carlow.
The main focus seem to be towards the west but that could be because the eastern views are partially blocked by the modern hedgerow. The mound rises to about 2 and a half metres. It’s been dug out at the top. There is a lone stone embedded into the north side of the mound, a peculiarity that gets you wondering.
Access is easy up the public footpath from the Rathmore to Blessington road.

This massive cairn must have been quite something in its day. I can only estimate it at maybe 30 metres diameter. There are quite a few large kerbstones still in situ but it’s almost impossible to get a good idea of what goes where. The south side of the cairn is now part of a field wall, much of which has been built using the cairn material itself.
South-west of the main cairn is a large bundle of field clearance and then what looks like a stone circle or a ring cairn. I wanted to stay a bit longer and explore but the farmer that owns the land was moving horses about and I didn’t feel like intruding any more than I already had.

This holy well is right in the centre of Perfugas, next to the church. It was discovered in 1923, and named after the owner of the garden it occupies.

The area around has been partly excavated, but it’s the well itself that’s the shining star in white limestone. There’s a passageway and then steps down into the well chamber with its perfectly circular cross section.

It’s fenced off and locked! I enquired at the library on the corner about a key, and was directed to the museum and tourist information .... right at the far end of town on a scorching hot day. When we got there – shut!

We’d been to the village of Rebeccu 18 months previously, just after visiting the nearby domus de janas Sant’ Andrea Priu and not found this, but we had better instructions this time ...

Drive into the village and park in the main square. Exit the main square on foot opposite the way you came in, and follow the path which bends to the right, leaving the village, and Snow White and the 7 Dwarves (no kidding, a full set of gnomes adorn the house on the way) to your right, with open fields falling away to the left. Another path from the village joins from the right, and less than 100m later, there’s a track to the left with a signpost “Fonte”.

The path was being cleared for the summer, and we exchanged greetings with 4 groups of men, scythes in hand but all taking breaks, on the way. About 150m along, there’s a tiny wooden bridge, and the font is up on the right.

An incredibly verdant setting! If not for the grass cutters, we’d have had to wade through chest high greenery to get here!

The Nuraghic font itself is a tholos style chamber; water flows along a groove through the entrance hatch (about 60cm square) in the basalt block frontage and zigzags along the entrance hallway (about 5m long) and drains away under a paving slab at the end.

Field Notes

Silver Barrow – SU04554723 – December 2007

This barrow sits on the top of a hill just south of Westdown Camp, outside the village of Tilshead. For a view of the area Silver Barrow lies in, see the SMR site – https://history.wiltshire.gov.uk/smr/getsmr.php?id=6734

Came here December 2007, via the back lane from Tilshead which cuts around Westdown Camp and onto the MOD training area. It was a Sunday and there were no red warning flags, indicating there was no military activity.
The barrow is easy to spot as it now has a flag pole beside it and a well made track running alongside it. Had been over the other side of the A360, looking at Old Ditch Longbarrow , Tilshead Lodge Longbarrow and White Barrow .

Silver Barrow’s position just inside the MOD training area has led to problems with military tracked vehicles, such as tanks and all terrain vehicles driving over it. To prevent further damage, the site is protected by a ring of wooden posts and is clearly marked with “No Digging” signs.
Although these measures have prevented damage by the humans, badgers can’t read, but are pretty good at digging, and decided the barrow, it’s ditch and the surrounding area, would be pretty cool for their setts. Wessex Archaeology indicated that the setts had severely disturbed a large spread of flint knapping waste which lay on the old ground surface beneath the mound. As a consequence of this, Silver Barrow now lives up to it’s name and the animal proof wire netting that surrounds the area, shimmers in the winter sun.

The only known “excavation” was made in 1801 by the school master of Tilshead, Mr. Tucker, assisted by his neighbour Mr. Bartlett. They report finding the bones of about 7 people, an iron knife, a bone handle, and a small urn which was broken in two.
The account of this incident is the only known record and it appears in Sir R.C. Hoare’s’ 1812 “The Ancient History of Wiltshire Vol. 1” under the Heytesbury section, Station III on page 93.

Sir R.C. makes comment upon the diversity of his study into the different types of barrow he is investigating. Of the round barrows he encounters, they..“display such a variety in their external design, and internal deposits, as to confound all system, provided we were inclined to form one ; but the long barrows are so uniform in their construction, and uninteresting in their contents, that we have at length given up all researches in them, having for many years in vain looked for that information, which might tend to throw some satisfactory light on the history of these singular mounds of earth.”

It would appear Sir R.C. not only visited the barrow but viewed the finds from it. This must have been a puzzle for looking at the barrow he says.. “It is not circular, but resembles an egg cut lengthways, with the convex side upwards, the widest base being sixty-nine feet. The earth for raising this barrow had been excavated from the sides, each end being level with the down.”
As for the account of their findings, Mr. Tucker and Mr. Bartlett are recorded by Sir R.C. as..“In making a large section through layers of chalk and vegetable earth to the depth of nearly seven feet, they discovered the bones of about seven persons who had been interred on a pavement of rude stones, and lying very irregularly” Sir R.C. goes on to comment, “as in Bowls Barrow and other long barrows”.

There is no record of the age or sex of these bodies, or even if they were re-buried in the barrow, but it would appear Sir R.C. examined the finds and writes...“The only articles found with them was an iron knife, a bone handle, and a small urn broken in two, which was made of a clay intermixed with stony particles, was turned in a lathe, and was rounder, better burned, and different in fashion from the British urns : the knife resembled those found in Knock Castle, and in the Roman villa at Pitmead.”
He then concludes by saying......“All these circumstances tend to prove that this tumulus was not of Celtic origin, but probably the sepulchral mound of some Romanized Briton.”

I have yet to visit Bowls Barrow, I think it’s only open when the village of Imber opens, but I have visited some of the barrows that are under this Roman-British label and this barrow does not resemble anything like their shape. For a clearer idea on this see my field notes on Mount Wood and Round Hill Tump or as listed by Camerton Round Barrow on the BANES bit of TMA.

It would be easy to dismiss this barrow as not Celtic like Sir Richard does but these people may have been migrate Celts from a Europe becoming increasingly influenced, and trading with, Rome. They could easily have been part of the Belgae, the Aduatuci maybe. I hope that one day the bones of these people could answer that question and a little bit more of this mystery is revealed.

Chance

On the main road, right in the centre of Sedini, the tombs are cut into a massive 12m limestone block. Dated to around 3000BCE, in more recent times it’s been used as a jail, but now houses a museum (apparently – siesta time, all quiet and closed up when we were there).

Visited 21/05/09ce. After waiting in the (newish?) car park / picnic area on the A867 for an hour or so until the Uist Monsoon passed over, myself and Hugo the Megalithic Dog headed up the (also newish?) gravelly path which leads up the hill and around the cairn.

We had the place to ourselves for a good 20 minutes, during which time I didn’t pick up any unwelcoming vibes – maybe the presence of HtMD patrolling the perimeter kept any supernatural interference at bay. That said, I did only spend a brief amount of time actually inside the chamber, impressive though it is. Too much talk of potential for collapse playing on the mind, maybe…

The remains of this circle can be found by leaving the B9001 north of Inverurie at the Balhalgardy signpost. Go about a 1/2 mile and the farm of the same name is reached on the south side. In a field to the north the last remaining stone rests. The stone has fallen and broken into three being most famous for it’s cup marks. to protect it from further damage a fence surrounds the area. In the next park is a massive pile of field clearance possibly a resting place for the missing five stones.

Further along the road is the site of the Battle of Harlaw and a monument dedicated to those who died. Slightly further along is the Liggar Stone.

Visited October 08.

A slight accidental detour took us through Padria, and in the village we spotted one of the brown signs directing us to an archaelogical area.

Follow the signs – part way along, there’s a huge map at the roadside of areas of interest in the vicinity – and right at the end of the road there’s a gate on the left with a path and steps climbing the hill.

On the plateau, there are nuraghic village huts – hard to work out in the long grass – and the nuraghe itself is to the left behind a tree. It doesn’t look that impressive ..... till you get round the other side!

On the SS292 south of Villanova Monteleone, with great views towards Lago de Temo.

It was 2pm on a gloriously hot day; the site is fenced off and a recently adapted notice said that it would open at 14:30, so we sat in the car park and had a picnic, and read. And waited. No sign of anyone, we waited another 10 mins and then decided to wait no longer. Beardy took the direct route of over the tall padlocked gates, and I went for the walk along the drystone wall between the barbed wire approach. For future reference, the easiest method if needed is the exit I used – under the tree at the corner of the road and carpark!

The entrance fee is 1½ euros, and we left sufficient coins on a stone by the ticket hut, in case someone appeared ...

There are 9 tombs here, set into two outcrops of rock, of which the most interesting is no 8, with its main chamber (through an anti chamber) having a ceiling carved to represent a roof and rafters, and a false door to the afterlife. The tombs mainly have double framed entrances and cups in the floor of the anti-chambers for offerings, and grooves which I assumed where for drainage.

Admittedly, we’d missed some carvings (other than the architectural features) here, but for a signposted, pay to enter site, I was a little disappointed, compared to what we’d seen already (and without knowing where our next stop would be, the fabulous Santu Pedru).

We’d driven north through Putifigari in search of Laccaneddu tomba di gigante (in vain, with poor babelfished directions and no signposting) and had planned to head for a beach and relax, but chief navigator Beardy spotted this on one of my bits of mapping and announced it was right on the road, on the way back.

Heading west towards Olmedo on the 127bis, there’s a sign for this site about 400m before it, at a right turn. Don’t turn right, but watch out for the layby contained within the slip roads of the junction as it’s probably the best place to park.

Tomb 1 really is right up against the road.

A 16m corridor first – with a metal gate padlocked across the entrance, but someone had already bent back one of the bars and we were able to squeeze into the anti chamber with an impressive entrance to the main part of the tomb. Apparently discovered by chance 1959, still sealed by the stone slabs of the Bonnanaro culture circa 1600BCE.

I donned my headtorch and climbed in ....

The first room has two massive pillars supporting it, and a false door carved into the wall immediately facing the entrance. It’s huge .... and dark! The torch wasn’t thowing out much light at all, so I had to rely on the trusty method of flash photography and was immediately spooked by the shape on the right hand wall. The walls are painted in blood coloured ochre with carved doors, but I looked for the bulls horns mentioned in one set of research notes in vain.

A series of rooms lead off this main chamber, with their doors set maybe 3ft high in the walls. With limited light, I didn’t climb in but have included a link to a diagram of the whole layout.

So, some not so dainty wiggling back through the main entrance and the bent gate, to explore the slopes of the hill ....

There are another 8 tombs up here!

The entrance area to one was flooded with thousands of tadpoles in the murky green water, and another was mainly collapsed. Further up though, crawling into a tomb revealed another huge double pillared room with chambers off it. Even though I’d been warned there was one in there, I couldn’t help but shriek as the resident bat swooped past me .....

Patrick Will, of the Mill of Kelly, told me about this place. There is a fallen slab which could be the recumbent and a possible flanker lying not far away. In a field behind the farm a massive pile of boulders sits, field clearance, former dykes or the remains of circle stones.

Leave Auchnagatt and travel north towards Stuartfield on the B9030 taking the third right (east). At West Crichie Farm turn north thru the farm and stop before the bungalow. Recumbent to the left, flanker/boulders to the right.

Visted September 08.

(I know about Upper Crichie and it is in the Skelmuir area so anything might of happened!)

This is thought by many to be the remains of a stone circle and be found near the edge of the B9002. More accurately the site is found between Kennethmont and B9002s end at the A97 near Gartly. I also found out that occupants at Jeldah have no problems with visitors. All you have to do is ask. The stone is in the back garden.

Visited October 08.

Betwwen Turriff and Aberchirder, Foggy to us locals, on the B9025 is the B9121 Whitehills road which heads north. Follow this for two miles until the signpost indicates Burreldales Farm. The present occupant, Gregor Cook, is a pleasant chap (and a former Eb Tuba player) and is okay with people coming and going a long as they keep to the side of the field before cutting across to the small wood in which the four poster is housed. Beware there is a boggy bit half way up! This is a short walk up the gentle slopes of the Brownside Hill.

The site is surrounded by a small dyke and houses some very old field clearance as well. The trees prevent the dumping of any newer stuff, to be fair the current owner looks after the site very well.

If the fairies do/did exist then this would have been their playground as the stones themselves, like North Strone, seem eternally young. A happy place.

Visited July 08.

Leave New Deer on the B9170 Methlick road heading south-west. Take road to Knaven and stop at the first passing place. Turn right and go up the side of the field. The two remaining white quartz stones can be found on the brow of the hill looking south, the recumbent and a flanker. The whole walk is no more than a 3/4 mile. Just along from the passing place at the road junction take a look at the quartz stone used as a gate marker. One of the stones from the circle?

Visited June 08.

To get to the monument leave the A981 at New Deer just before the church and head north. Take the first left as the village ends, the monument is unmissable.

In the middle of Milltimber, a suburb of Aberdeen on the A93, find Contlaw Road (there is a pub at the junction) and move in a north Westerly direction. Just as the road is about to leave Milltimber take the farm lane that heads east and walk. This isn’t very good for cars. After about 11/2 miles a fork in the road will be reached. Look to the left and a path can be seen which leads to the circle and also a little mentioned cairn. (Keiller mentions it in Canmore)

The recumbent still stands with both it’s flankers lying on the ground beside it. Only two other stones stand with others all having a rest amongst the trees. To my thinking there also seems to be the remnants of a kerb cairn or an inner ring here as well. If the trees weren’t here the site would look onto the River Dee.

Visited 18/5/09.