Latest Fieldnotes

Large, tree covered round barrow, seen from the road when walking from Condicote Henge to Stow on the Wold. The barrow is situated on the south side of the picturesque Dikler valley, between the Trout Farm and Donnington Brewery. There are supposed to be two barrows here, but I could only make out one from the road.

Visited 6.3.2009 on a walk from Stow on the Wold, via Lower and Upper Swell and Pole’s Wood. The henge is very low, to the point of almost non-existence. To the west is the village hall, which has a parking area. The southern part of the henge is in a field used by the locals for dog walking and accessed from the village hall car park.

The sun was out and I stopped here for lunch, as well as to recover from the nerve-jangling shooting at Pole’s Wood South. From here I walked back to Stow along the valley of the Dikler river.

The last long barrow on my walk today (6.3.2009), I arrived from Pole’s Wood South at a fair clip, as the shooting around me made lingering not seem like an attractive option. Following the main path eastwards through the wood, startling yet more deer and pheasants as I went, the barrow is an obvious mound on the south side of the path. It seems to be intact, a nice smooth whale-back with no obvious excavation scars. However, it is covered in a thick layer of leaves and I wasn’t hanging around to investigate further.

From here I joined the road to Upper Swell and made my way the couple of miles to Condicote Henge.

Made my way here from The Tump on 6.3.2009. As I walked up the hill towards the barrow, shotgun firing started up very close behind me, which added some urgency to my approach – I had already noticed a few piles of feathers along the edges of the field! By the time I got to the barrow my heart was pounding (I’m not very brave when it comes to the prospect of being shot, I’m afraid), so I skirted around the west end of the barrow to the north side, where I startled some pheasants and a group of deer. The wood here is full of game and I think I must have arrived mid-cull.

As Jane mentioned, this is a long barrow worthy of the name. Unfortunately the shooting started up again, even closer than before, so I didn’t get much of a chance to loiter. I snatched a couple of photos of the north side and east end before making a swift exit towards Upper Swell long barrow.

Ysgyryd means “shivered” or “shattered”. This is due to the hill’s jagged western side, caused by landslips in the ice age.

It’s easy to get to, you can walk to the summit from the car park on the side of the B4521 road from Abergavenny to Ross-on-Wye.

Also known as Castle Grove Camp Wyfold Castle is an Iron age plateau fort. it is now overgrown with beech woods and the north side is overgrown with Rhododendron and Holly bushes. There is still an original entrance visible to the sw off the site which is offset either side of the causeway, all other entrances are modern . The best preserved part is the eastern side where there is a nice uninterrupted part of the earthwork.

Walking west from Lower Swell long barrow, I took a chance on going to see The Tump, which proved to be well worth it. There are actually two barrows here, one very small, the other a much larger Ridgeway/Overton Hill type effort – this latter is the one called The Tump. Approaching from the south-west, The Tump is clearly visible on the edge of the field. The smaller barrow is very low and in a poor state of preservation – from this side it appears wholly ruined. However, as I walked past it towards The Tump, it acquired a better shape and, lo and behold, a large stone of some sort (possibly a capstone?).

The Tump is a large and impressive round barrow, covered in mature beech trees. From here I had intended to go back to the road, but decided to press on for Pole’s Wood South instead.

Visited 6.3.2009, from Lower Swell and the Whittlestone. I wasn’t expecting much from this to be honest, but I actually rather enjoyed Lower Swell long barrow. It lies in the first field as you leave the village by the road running to the west, which had an invitingly unlocked gate and a broad swathe of grass around the edge of the otherwise ploughed field, leading all the way around to the barrow. The barrow itself is large, and sits in a semi-hollow, unusually. To the north the ground slopes away, giving that side a steeper appearance. There is a deep excavation scar across the top, towards the west end – it reminded me rather of Coberley Long Barrow, with added vegetation. At the southern end of the scar is an in-situ stone, probably part of a kerb. The nearby hum of a tractor was not too distracting, but unfortunately the crump of guns soon spoiled the atmosphere and I headed back to the road, hoping to get to see The Tump.

Arrived from The Horestone on 6.3.2009. The Whittlestone sits in a landscape made up of a refuse bin, a flag pole (with St George’s Flag), a Jubilee commemoration bench and a neat stone building which appears to be a public building (I couldn’t work out what). Lower Swell is a nice village, but sadly the Whittlestone doesn’t add much. I sat on the Jubilee bench for a few minutes and then headed west towards Lower Swell long barrow. As you leave the village, the two new developments on the road out are called Whittlestone Close and Whittlestone Hollow, so at least there is some acknowledgement of the oldest piece of the village’s history amongst the Little England-isms.

Visited 6.3.2009, on a walk from Stow on the Wold. As indicated in Jane’s notes, the stone stands in the middle of a ploughed field, so any approach is a bit of a tiptoe through the crops. As I edged around the field, a startled deer jumped out from the remains of last year’s crop and ran across the field past the stone. The stone itself is odd, it sits down slope in the kind of place a Cotswold long barrow would sit, and it must be possible that this was once part of a barrow, as on its own it seems rather functionless. The south side of the stone has a from-the-sea-bed looking effect, green and grey and gnarly. The north side has a browner, crumblier look, like a fruit cake. Someone has sadly seen fit to leave two old tyres in the lea of the stone on its north side, although at least these were completely in shadow when I visited. After inching back across the field, I joined the road to the south-east – the stone is clearly visible from the field gate and over the hedge at this time of year, but will be lost in the crops come the summer. From here I headed north to Lower Swell and The Whittlestone.

I revisited the fort on the 15th of February 2009. Most of the clearance of the site seems to be finished, so you can get a really good idea of the scale of the place. It’s huge! I’d estimate it’s nearly a quarter of a mile wide. Around some of the edges of the fort are some really steep drops, so be careful.

On one the ramparts there is some kind of mound. I’m really not sure what this is or how old it is. It could be modern.

On the South Eastern edge of the fort there seem to be no defences, so maybe they’re somewhere further down the slope of the hill?

It’s also interesting to note there’s a Roman Settlement at the bottom of the hill in Lord’s Wood..

Recently visited the Rodmorton long barrow 05,03,09 .I found it a very magical place . Also visited the long stone just outside Minchinhampton ,that was abit of a hard place to find but once I found the stone it was very rewarding .The stone in the wall is pretty cool too. I found the longstone to be the same type as at the Rollright stone circle ? .

It was there on the left of Priafaia Altar Stone, but I didn’t noticed before; I was blinded by the beauty of the big altar stone next to it.
It took the special female look of Angela to find it.
A small but nice stone with fine cupmarks.

Never have I seen a hillfort with such effortless access. The hillfort at Symonds Yat is still impressive
despite being almost entirely in the carpark of said beauty spot, upon entering the carpark from the road a single lane takes you laboriously round and through the woods and right past the earthwork, (but you can’t stop here) reckoning on the size of the carpark it must get pretty busy in the summer.

The innermost bank and ditch are the biggest by far, at least ten feet seperates the top of one with the bottom of the other, and at least two other smaller earthwork defences lie just yards down the gentle slope. The path from the cars to the viewpoint cuts over and through the defences but kind of gives an almost cross section view of the hillfort.

Because of “access improvements” we were denied that famous vista of the River Wye running to and from us, but were led off down a path to an alternative viewpoint. Which quite frankly wasn’t what we’d come for, all I can say is Goodrich castle better be open, and bring on the stones.

You can see the Queen stone from the A40, but its across the river so is unapproachable
from this side, turn off towards Goodrich and Symonds Yat cross the
” Bridge over the river Wye” and park infront of a gate, not the best place in the world but if you leave someone in the car they can just beeep you back. The stone can’t be seen from this smaller road just skirt round the edge and into the next field and you can’t fail to find it. More than 6ft tall and standing in its own scrappy square of land in a ploughed field, this is the most deeply rain carved stone ive ever seen, all the way round, from top to bottom these runnels are big enough to put a fist in, I wonder how it got its name, perhaps it was meant to be unflattering, all those wrinkles.

The long stone is immediately south off the A4136 and I mean immediatley,
it is a nice tall stone, had it been just about anywhere else I would have stayed longer than three minutes, but the exhaust fumes not only kill the atmosphere but everything else between the stone and the road.
But if your’e passing and decide not to stop, atleast wave and say cooeee.

On this my third visit to this teriffic trio, the sun blessed us with bright sunshine, unlike the previous two times, but that was back when Wales didnt trust me, I like to think wev’e made some progress This time I was determined to pay special intrest to the cupmarks on the middle stone as I didnt even remember seeing them last time and only realised they were there when re-reading Burl, theyre really quite large as big as my hand, one above the other separate by a foot or so.
But as with both my other visits it’s the whopper stone that simply demands your attention, it’s got to be fifteen feet tall, leaning almost too far, yet giving the impression that the lean is intentional and it changes shape and character as you walk round it, its widest where it enters the ground almost looking like a, well you know what, aaaaand it’s the most conglomeratey stone of the three conglomerate stones.
I’ll come back again one day and see something different again.

Whoa man this burial chamber is too close to the road, and the land it’s on is owned by a welsh farmer and there was livestock in the field, dissapointing ? No not at all, the deaf toothless farmer was interesting to say the least, and the livestock was four tiny ponies that weren’t afraid at all, but it really is too close to the road, even with the insertion of a thick spiny hedge that hides the road and muffles the
noise a bit.
Six stones define the chamber with the capstone half collapsed inwards, the capstone looks slightly the wrong shape for a capstone its thicker than it is wide, if I was out looking for the top rock to go on my brilliant chamber, the one they got would have been my very last choice.
A nice relaxing visit creamed off with the mini equine.

“The cairn is situated on level ground near the head of the Egnant valley at a point where the land begins to fall away fairly steeply down valley to the SW. A mountain pathway passes close by.
The cairn consists of a low mound of mixed grade stones for the most part consolidated with grasses and mosses. The E half of the cairn contains a large proportion of loose rubble. Overall it measures 7.8m (N-S) by 7.3m with a maximum height of 0.35m. The cairn appears to be more-or-less intact and there is no structure visible. The cairn contains a signifcant amount of quartz.”

Above is the site description from the RCAHMW website. It was last visited by them on the 29 April 1984.

As is painfully obvious some idiot has used this cairn to create a marker cairn for walkers at the head of the valley! The remains of the original burial cairn are still visible below the pile of stones.

There is a second ring cairn called Graig Wen very close to the north east of this cairn but I was unable to find it this time. At least it’s not been converted into a sheep enclosure!

Hardwell Castle or Hardwell Camp is classed as an Iron Age valley fort, although, like nearby Cherbury Camp, it is not clearly in a strategic or easily defended position. It lies halfway down the scarp slope of the White Horse Hills and is tucked away in a curve, invisible from most angles.

Access to the Camp is through a hole in the fence about 10 m’s from the gate on the main road. The northern facing earthworks are completely wooded over but are the most impressive with a ditch and bank up to 7 meters in height with 2 spurs coming off down to the level of the camp entrance. The eastern and western defences are natural gulleys enhanced by man made banks and ditches . The southern earthworks are about 8 ft in height as the inside of the fort is level with the countryside to the south. Well worth a visit but the site is used for pheasant pens so be careful.

Morning of Friday 20th of February 2009. My two young daughters 6 & 10 and my partner (?) arrived at The Hurlers in the mist, we seemed to be alone as it was really quiet. We had a picnic and the mist cleared a little and we could just make out the Cheesewring in the distance (a large hill with a quarry at the bottom?) We counted the stones and walked on. As we approached more people appeared and everyone seemed intent on walking up the hill. We were taken in by the huge stones at the top performing their fantastic balancing act, two quite enormous ones of which only one was safe for my family to stand on. I got there first and as I climbed the clouds blew away and the whole moor appeared around me. There were horses roaming around in a large 30 plus herd, I think they’re trained to go into their stable for the night at a farm we could see a mile or so away, but during the day they have the place to themselves. After climbing down we had a look at some of the many pools of water on the moor, which are quite strange in themselves and my kids were up for exploring their imaginations. Later that day we went to Tintagel, by that time the day had got really warm, the sea was turquoise and the castle was expensive, but as it was just closing a nice lady let us walk to the gate entrance and from there we walked along the cliff to the YHA near the church. It was a great day. Daddy doesn’t go for walks that often and needs to be talked into it. He normally ends up enjoying himself though. Had a major fall-out with the missus the day after though. were meant to go to a wedding at a country club and threw a paddy cause my clothes didn’t fit anymore and wifey didn’t want me wearing camoflaged combats. Fair enough.

This large fallen menhir is site not so far from the Strada Megalitica, the ancient ritual trackway.
The menhir is about 2 m lenght

Limited parking spaces at the foot of the hill, just off the A957; coming from Stonehaven, the entrance is on the right, immediately after a very straight bit of road, and marked as a mountain biking trail.

A fairly easy, spiralling walk of about 45 minutes takes you to the summit, where the cairn shares its home with several imposing communications masts. Good views as far as Aberdeen on a clear day.

The cairn itself is topped with a trig point and is partly capped with a piece of concrete – presumably machinery or cabling relating to the masts is deep underneath.

Visited early spring (1.3.2009), hoping that the lack of vegetation would make this multi-phase site easier to see (which it did).

Approached from Haresfield Camp hillfort, along the Cotswold Way, a pleasant walk through the woods on a fairly level route. Standish Woods are in NT care, and the first feature is a notice board headed “More Than Just Lumps and Bumps”, next to a low Iron Age cross-dyke running NW-SE into the wood. The board has a nice picture of a typical forecourted long barrow.

I had anticipated a close cousin (or at least a recognisable relative) of West Tump, as Randwick Long Barrow also lies hidden in the heart of a wood. However, there the similarity ended. Randwick, unusually, is on the summit of the hill – most Cotswold Long Barrows lie down-slope. The interior of the wood has been extensively altered by quarrying, and the barrow seems too high, too big. I walked around it several times to make sure that this was the barrow and not some other feature: summit of hill? check. North end of quarrying site? check. Recognisable long barrow? ...erm. The mound itself is overgrown with brambles and doesn’t have the feel of a long barrow, with no sign of forecourt or real shape. I left feeling disappointed, almost hoping I would find the ‘real’ barrow over the next lump. Sadly I didn’t.

I did however pass two nicely shaped round barrows, quite small and low. I imagine these will be hidden once the undergrowth returns in the summer.

Visited on a lovely early spring day (1.3.2009). This is an interesting multi-phase site, strung out along a westward promontory of the Cotswold edge. Approached from the east, from Scottsquar Hill, Haresfield Camp itself is non-existent (I’m not even sure where it was). To the south of the road, the OS map shows two round barrows in a grassy field – of these only one is discernible, as a very low rise against the natural contour. Just past here is a parking area, used primarily as access to the Topograph at SO827083. The prehistoric interest starts further west along the road.

The Bulwarks

An unusual feature of the approach to the fort is that the land actually slopes down to it from the east. The first defensive feature, known as The Bulwarks, lies to the north of the road and comprises an impressive ditch and well-preserved rampart. There are two gaps along the length, which may be original entrance gaps. The northern end of the rampart meets the edge of the escarpment, giving natural defences along the northern side of the fort.

Ring Hill

Continuing west, you reach another, much bigger, defensive line. This comprises a double rampart of enormous, awesome scale, particularly when seen from the road running NW-SE along the eastern side of this feature. From the field enclosed within this there are good views of May Hill, The Malverns, Gloucester and Churchdown Hill. The Cotswold Way footpath runs along the naturally steep southern edge of this section of the fort, which tapers with the natural contour at the western end. A nicely proportioned round barrow (Haresfield Beacon), capped with an unusual stone-built OS trig point, marks the high point. It’s always interesting to speculate on what the Iron Age occupants made of the remains of their Bronze Age predecessors. Today, sitting in the sun in the solitude of the fort, I couldn’t imagine a nicer place to sit and speculate.