Latest Fieldnotes

I found these barrows while walking back from Tregeseal circle in the pouring rain. I had seen them marked on the map but that doesn’t mean you’ll find them so this was a bonus. I found 4 distinct barrows of varying sizes all to the north of the stone circle and east of the holed stones.
To the north of this site across the road are Chun Quoit and castle and Boswens Menhir.

These two barrows are north of the Goonhilly down and Dry tree sites. There are three here but I could only see two of them. Both were visible from the road past them and appear to be in pretty good condition.

[visited May 08] Wow oh wow. Once in a while a visit to a site created by our ancestors lifts me well out of the mundane and into a state unlike any other. The glorious paintings here did just that. I’ve seen a lot of Neolithic and bronze age rock art in the UK and I’ve seen the 11,000 BP engravings at Cresswell crags but this is a whole different ball game.

Photo taking is banned so you’ll need to have a look at the link to the attached visitor’s centers website. [edit] Or look at the Public Domain images....

I walked about in a state of disbelief looking at paintings of human representations pierced by a spear, mammoths, bison, ‘female symbols’ aka triangles, a bears head and amazing dotted horses which were carbon dated to 25,000 BP. There is also very old animal bones and unbelievably 10000 year old footprints. The paintings range from 25,000 BP to 10,000 BP.

Oh and then there is the geology, this cave would be renowned for that even if the paintings weren’t here.

Superb to see something that puts the mere 3-4000 years back to stonehenge into stark perspective.

Access is down stairs and occasionally slippery under foot as you walk on the floor of the cave system.

This is a large oval hillfort which has had a lot of damage done to it by quarrying. I could see very recent signs of continuing damage in the form of crude “sculptures” made of piled stones. This was on the south side adjacent to a stone cross set up as a war memorial.
Having mentioned the amount of damage, there are still substantial remains of banks and ditches to be seen. Also on this hill are two further round enclosures below the hillfort to the north. There are entrances to the west and east.
To get here I parked in the tiny hamlet of Balwest and walked up the footpath. The path is made up of compacted stones and looks to have been built to serve the quarries to the east of the hillfort. One of the quarries was where china clay was first discovered.

Tests are being done to find out whether it predates the Cursus the east end of which is just behind the trees. After the excavation the barrow will be invisible as it has been completely flattened and a road built over it!

The general consensus is that it is a settlement site of late Bronze/early Iron Age date.
Interesting finds include a small carved chalk pig (?),the articulated skeleton of a sheep(goat?) with a scatter of flint above and below it, was it crushed alive as a sort of sacrifice? An infant burial has been found but at the time of writing (07.09.08) was waiting for the coroner to give permission for its removal.

Atkinson found this enigmatic feature in the 1950s.
It seems to lead NNE from the first elbow in the Avenue. Any more information will be welcome. It will be invisible after the excavation.

Scissorman is absolutely right, the views from this hillfort are some of the best you’ll see anywhere. It appears to be made up of a single rampart on the south and east sides where the land falls steeply away. The northern and western sides appears more complicated with inner and outer walls/banks and ditches.
The hillfort was donated to the national trust and is dedicated to the memory of all the women who died locally in WWII.

This is a substantial hillfort, the banks of which are constructed from granite boulders. The construction is similar to others in the area but is considerably bigger than say, Chun castle. Also it appears to be formed of two concentric rings of ramparts and ditches (apparently there were four)
Within the interior is a dividing bank next to which is a stone built castle-like folly. The folly appears to built from stones robbed from the structure of the ramparts, they seem to be of similar size and there is a gap in the bank next to it.
The only obvious entance I could see was on the west side, there is a stagger in the ramparts here.
I got here by using a footpath about half a mile along the road from Chysauster. It’s not a very steep climb but was very wet and muddy after 24 hours of heavy rain. I was the only person there in the hour or so I was here.

An interesting combination of features are present at this site, set by a minor junction to the Clonakilty-Enniskeane road, though the town-land name may prove confusing to those of you more familiar with the Knocks stone circles or row – located in an identically named area about 6km southwest, on the other side of Rossmore.

On the left-hand side as you enter the field gate is a well marked ring fort, filled and outlined with mature hawthorn, its southern arc incorporated in the field/road boundary. A slab in the interior partially covers the opening to what the Archaeological Inventory classifies as a possible souterrain, exposed after a ground collapse in 1985 and a southward-heading tunnel is clearly visible inside.(1)

Less than 10m west of the ring fort perimeter is one of the very occasional multiple groupings of Cork/Kerry boulder-burials, missed in this instance by O’Nuallain in his 1978 survey but described in the Inventory as ‘Three boulder-burials set in form of triangle c. 1.5m apart.’(2)

It’s curious how ordered the stone placement is in these cases; four boulders forming a square with a NE-SW axis at Breeny More, three boulders in a N-S line at Mill Little, two boulders forming a rough, yet defined, E-W avenue to a third stone here and a similar triangular arrangement punctuated by a fourth boulder at Derrymihan West.(3) There is further documentary evidence of a line of three at Lackadotia in North Cork.(4) Of course, any order may have been for its own sake rather than a product of ritual variation or necessity.

Incidentally, if you choose to see boulder-burials as mushroom-like, or if that was any part of the original intention then the southwestern capstone here was an excellent choice – it looks like someone already took a nibble out of the top of it. Permission to visit this site can be obtained from the farmhouse to the south, on the right-hand side of the main road.

(1) Archaeological Inventory of Cork Vol. 1, 1992; No.2344; 250.
(2) ibid.; No.124; 32.
(3) O’Nuallain, PRIA 78 C, 1978; No.18; 90, 105.
(4) ibid.; No.1; 83

The town of Ingatestone (Ging ad Petram – the ‘parcel of land by the stone’) in Essex takes its name from a Saxon settlement of 430 acres which originally supported a dozen or so inhabitants belonging to the Gigingas – the ‘Giga’s people’. The Saxon name for the settlement was Ing-atte-Stone (Ing at the Stone). It is likely that a Saxon church predated the small Norman one built there sometime between 1080-1100. The Saxon church may in turn have occupied the site of a former stone circle as a sarsen (a hard silicified sandstone of a type also used at Avebury and Stonehenge) was found in the north wall of the church during building work for the organ chamber there in 1905. This stone has since been relocated to the south side of the church. See – themodernantiquarian.com/img_fullsize/69865.jpg

There is evidence that some Christianised sites in Britain and Ireland have been in continuous use as sacred meeting places from before the Roman occupation. Such sites may have started with people meeting in groves, or close to springs, ponds and other water courses. The remains of a stone circle, either near or actually beneath the church itself, are sometimes found at such sites. Often an Anglo-Saxon, and then a Norman church, were built on the older pre-Christian site: Alphamstone and Broomfield churches in Essex and Alton Priors and Pewsey churches in Wiltshire appear to be examples of this continuity. The north wall (the oldest part of the Church of St Edmund and St Mary at Ingatestone) is constructed largely of broken puddingstones, although there are also several quite large dressed stones in the buttress between the north wall and the tower. The puddingstones in the north wall of Ingatestone church are interspersed in places with layers of Roman tiles. See – themodernantiquarian.com/img_fullsize/69864.jpg

In the south wall of Broomfield church there is a similar pattern of flint nodules interspersed with Roman tiles, as well as a few small broken puddingstones and one single, very impressive, puddingstone which protrudes from the base of the south wall. It has been suggested that the sarsen now on the south side of Ingatestone church, and the two sarsens on either side of Fryerning Lane in Ingatestone High Street, once belonged to a single standing stone. See – themodernantiquarian.com/img_fullsize/70012.jpg

Whether or not the ‘stone’ in the name Ingatestone derives from a single stone, or several stones, is unclear. To complicate matters further the Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names gives the origin of the name Ingatestone as, “One of a group of places so called, this one distinguished by reference to a Roman milestone.” Were the first Saxon settlers at Ingatestone referring to one (or more) pre-Roman standing stones on the knoll now occupied by the church or to a single Roman milestone? A cursory examination of the sarsen in the churchyard, and the two sarsens at the entrance to Fryerning Lane, suggests they may actually be three discrete stones. The Freyering Lane stones seem to have been at their present location from at least the early 1930s – ie some twenty years after the stone embedded in the north wall of the church was discovered in 1905. If it can be shown that the Fryerning Lane stones have been at their present location since before 1905 however this would indicate that the sarsens are indeed three separate stones. This may be important; there are five other much smaller stones on Ingatestone High Street (making a total of eight so far accounted for) and these might have once formed part of an Ingatestone stone circle. Together with the broken puddingstones in the north wall of the church this could indicate that a stone circle of considerable size and variety once stood on the knoll now occupied by the church.

While the smaller stones, some painted white and now scattered along Ingatestone High Street, might not yet be considered important enough to return to the Ingatestone churchyard there are good reasons, on grounds of conservation and heritage, for returning the two large Fryerning Lane stones to their likely place of origin on the church knoll.

These Fieldnotes first appeared in the Heritage Action Journal. See – heritageaction.org/?page=theheritagejournal

John (Hedges) wondered if any of the various sites Ronnie Simison had noticed had been taken on board. Well, the 1958 newspaper report on the Tomb of the Eagles reports a little disturbed long grass-covered mound (smaller than Isbister) between the tomb and the burnt mound settlement, with a few protruding stones. The tomb les in front of where two fences meet at an angle, and infield of the start of the straight fence leading to these (near where the 1:25.000 shows another North Taing) this can still be seen. It presents as a low pillow shape of earth with a few stones of varying size, cut through in a few places then ending just before the modern fence. It is most striking that a only a few metres to its south is the angled top of a very regular-shaped stone, projecting a couple of feet or so and about six inches thick. My rough measurements give NGRs for the stone at ND46938423 and the eastern end of the mound at ND46958425 [photos megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=20250&mode=&order=0&thold=0]. Is there a relationship with the tomb, as both of these and another ‘hump’ past the tomb can be seen on the horizon from the burnt mound.
The tomb’s north hornwork would appear to continue past the fenced enclosure, and additionally I found a few very small erect slabs barely protruding in the same general area.

Sorry Ocifant, but this cracking dolmen couldnt have been easier to find, you must have asked the wrong Postman. At the south end of Llangynog on the western side of the road is a carpark with footpath leading almost straight to it, both carpark and path look new though so we’ll let him off. when the path forks turn right and on to the bridge, its off to the right amongst the trees there is even a gate at the end of the bridge but it was locked. I didnt take the right hand fork in the path and ended up stepping stoneing across the river and into the quarry, then I started wading through neck high bracken and was beginning to think this was another lost site, but just then a chest high beige coloured pony came right up to me out of no where( how cool would it have been to meet a greyhound) it then began to toss its head in the direction of the river, being one to accept and act upon signs and portents I went in that direction. After two minutes following the small river back towards the carpark it seemed to pop out from behind the trees. I had secretly wished this one to be a goodun, and it was.
Three moss covered stones between two and three feet tall make up the chamber and the large thick capstone leans against one side, reminding me of in size atleast Maen y Bardd on Tal y Fan up north. At first it seemed tranquil and serene, but then it took an ominous turn when I noticed someone had been collecting quartzy pebbles probably from the new footpath, and the soft ground was disturbed in a ring around the dolmen, dancing wiccans make me nervous, don’t know why they just do, it was time to go anyway, so I did.
Upon returning to the carpark I realised I’d lost me filter and attachment ring so I returned to the stones, then I realised I’d not replaced two big quartz stones from in the chamber not wanting to anger any spirits I put them back and asked for them back foolish maybe but I got back the car and returned two more times (it isnt far) finally finding it by the side of the river
Hoooooray viva la spirits.
When I finally got home and put the pictures on the computer I saw that at least half of them were very blurry, just the ones from this dolmen, not from any of the other places I’d been to just this one. Hmmmm?

After the confusing warren of streets and lanes of Llanybri we eventually found these two stones near the pylons infact there was a prostrate pylon in the next field it was in two or three parts and looked like the bones of some iron giant. These giant killikng stones haven’t had it all there own way, the biggest stone is on it’s back and it is big, about 10ft long. The other stone isnt quite 5ft tall and has a triangular cross section. Two hundred metres to the west by the river under the pylon is a smaller Maen Llwyd also threatened by hedges and brambles.
Why so many Maen Llwyds ? Their spread out over most of Wales, Iv’e been to maybe half a dozen, but they’re all over the place here, did they get a one word parrot in to name them all or was it “what shall we call this one?” Ermmmmmmm

Very easy to get to but parking is sparce, on the east side of the B4312 less than a mile south of Myrddyns quoit. The field was half full of sitting cows but there didnt seem to be any bulls so I skirted around the far side of the field and moved in for the kill, only to suddenly see a very large bull stand up, it didnt come over, none of them did they just stood up and stared at me. Three stones remain, one leaning, almost down but putting up a fight and two at the front? about five feet tall.
The info board says this is another quoit, a dolmen, if it had it’s capstone and it would be a big one I thought it might look a bit like Lanyon quoit in Cornwall, which is only a boat trip away, so they may be linked.

A narrow lane seperates two monoliths, for which no further detail is given.

That is what Coflein says of these two stones, it doesn’t get much more enigmatic than that or unhelpful. We wended our way through the narrow lanes passed all the right landmarks and parked for all the world right between the two stones, but now I understand the “no further detail” bit, they werent there,not in the field, not in the lane either. I can only assume that like Maen Melyn they’d been consumed by the earthern wall, hedge and brambles. A winter visit with a long stiff pokey stick might yeald more.

Just a minutes drive east from Llanybri, located in the corner of a T junction. There was loads of room to park the car, so while the wife saw to the dogs I went in search of this seven foot tall stone. Should be easy you’d think but ohhh no those damn welshies have really tried hard to hide these stones and they’ve had huge success here. So much so that I didnt know what Maen Melyn was, it just said the name on the map and I assumed it was a stone, but couldnt find it so I presumed it was the long mound nearby I even took a picture. It wasnt it, I was so obviously in the right place I couldnt work it out . When I got home I looked on Coflein and they said it was actually in the hedge, so I was right on top which is why these are field notes and not a misc note. Why on earth would you hide it in a hedge, they’re not just hedges but an earthern wall with a hedge on top, it may be lost forever, a winter visit may be more rewarding. I cant beleive it was there all along I must have walked past it half a dozen times.

Heading S.W on the B4312 just after Llangain turn right after going under the power lines, watch for footpath going to the right. Follow the path under the lines and just before a stile are these two stones, surprisingly, with an information board. If these were a pair of standing stones they’d be cool but seeing as this was once a burial chamber there’s not much left. Having said that I quite liked it here, we were even joined by an elderly gent and his collie, he said he’d heard that thirty years ago there were three stones, cool I thought local knowledge. Then he went on to tell me to stick to the path as that was a private road over there, I sighed inwardly and thanked the chap.
There could be still three stones, the bank with a hedge on top could have just gone right over the other stone, or there was a small boulder on the other side of the hedge. The information board reminded me of Asterix, and it didn’t even have much information on it (see pic).

The road closest to the stones had cows in it and I didnt like the sound of a manor house so close to the stones. My lack of respect for Welsh farmers forced me to make a clandestine visit. I make only few apologies for this but heck it is more fun sneaking about like ninja trained SAS. I made my way along hedges from the east, furthest away from the big house, so it was over the gate by the road, through a really muddy gateless gap in the hedge, then not wanting to go over another gate I tried to squeeze between some barbed wire but messed it up some how and ended up with a bleeding two inch scatch to my forehead, poetic justice maybe, I was sweating so much that I couldnt tell if it was blood dripping down my face or sweat. After a long swear at my self I saw the first of the four stones a huge bulky monolith with better camouflague than any sas dude. 250 degrees of bramble round it and threats to be completely consumed by them but still a good place to sit for a while and nurse ones injuries.
About 100m to the south-west are the two stones with a smaller one 50m further on.
The smaller most northern stone is known as the pulpit stone, the taller southern stone is almost twisted. Luckily there were trees between me and the big house so when my daughter started shouting me from the gate up the hill I realised I’d been here too long and now would be a good time to go, as shouting kids are a dead give away to someones prescence even more than fleeing sheep.
God I hate farms.

Theres nothing one can do to escape these damn pylons round here, it wasnt the first time i’d been slightly freaked by the fizz and crackle from above this morning either, some times I think they do it on purpose, perhaps the council or farmers pay a bonus to the pylon erecters if they can people orrf my land.
One side of the stone (the one with the tiny gorge at the top) was two tone, a nice mottled shiny grey with lichen and moss, whilst the lower half was a fetching manure colour, not that odd really when one examines closer and realises that it is manure.
Kammer is right, this stone needs respect, and then some.

I arrived about 7pm armed with shears and a binliner, determined to get a good look at these two stones. But someone had beaten me to it all the brambles and nettles were gone, someone does care afterall, I wonder if it was the farmer himself (seems unlikely) or someone from one of the houses that back on to this field. Either way its nice to see you, to see you nice. A few things occured to me now that I could see the stones, both stones lean in the same direction at the same angle. They are both aligned on a nearby hilltop to the east, so well aligned that from at the end of the row you can hide one stone behind the other. On our way back I turned to say goodbye to the stones and noticed that the stones were in the middle of two bumps as if they had been erected inbetween two ploughed down barrows, but the ground is all natural I suppose, intriguing though.
Untill we note the name change, the henge is almost gone, just the two stones remain.

I used to visit this lonely stone alot when I lived in Luddenden foot. The folklore regarding the placing of money into the basin at the top of the stone dates back many,many years.

A local chap once told me that the stone marks the spot where Joan (carrying her milk churn in a snow storm) died.

I remember visting this stone one July morning in 1999 (if my memory serves me) to find three quid in the basin and a stick of blackpool rock placed on the floor next to the stone.

Strange indeed.

I had a good look at this place last week. This would have made a very impressive site if the stones had still been there.

My grandfather used to tell me that a local farmer pulled down the last of the stones sometime in the 1940s. Apparently he remembered this site from his childhood years when there was more to see.

Still a nice place to visit in nice weather.

I wouldn’t plan a trip around a visit to Beanley plantation but it’s well worth seeing if you’re coming to see The Ringses or any of the other sites close by.

The site itself is unmistakable on Google Earth as a circular area in the planation has been left clear to preserve the site.

To access the site from Eglingham, take the road West towards Beanley, passing The Ringses site on the left as you climb the hill. Turn left at the first junction and you will quickly see a gate to a field with ample space for parking on the left hand side. Enter through the gate and follow the wide farm track up the slope to the South East. As you climb up the track there is a large ditch and very prominent rock outcrop on the right. OS maps show a footpath leaving this track on the right near this point, passing to the west of the site, but I couldn’t see any sign of this on the ground. Visited in late July, any area not covered with trees was thick with waist high ferns, so a path could be there, I just couldn’t see it. Instead, follow the farm track up the hill, turning right and coming to a junction on the left. The easiest way into the site is to head West-South-West from this junction for about 100m, through thick pine forrest with some undergrowth (fairly flat and dry but not the easiest going) till you see the clearing ahead.

Before leaving the plantation you will encounter the first ring ditch, very clear on the ground but hard to photograph under the canopy of trees. A few more steps and you come into the clearing. Different from all the iron age hill forts/defended settlements I’ve visited so far this site has no dramatic views over open country-side. The sense of enclosure however is dramatic on a still day and has a strong effect on the atmosphere of the site. Just standing and listening to the wind through the trees and distant bird-song has quite an effect. The clearing itself is about 55m across, but given the inner ditches the habitable area is probably less than this.

Unfortunately when I visited, the whole site was covered in waist to shoulder high ferns so any detailed survey of the inner ditches wasn’t possible. A quick trip into part of the centre showed there was at least one large ring ditch inside the outer, wooded ditch. It’s quite easy to follow the ditches round the whole site but be careful if following the outer ditch in the plantation as it’s very easy to lose your bearings (as I did). I’m planning to visit the site again in winter to get a better idea of any central structures.

The outer ditches feel defensive in nature and the site is on the highest ground around, sitting above The Ringses. The North and West of the site is very steeply sloped and would offer good defense but the East and South is quite flat, so the “fort” nature of the site would be hard to justify. That being said it’s obviously a much more defensive position than others close by.

Archaeologia Aeliana 1822 mentions the site and the impressive nature of the access road. With that in mind I retraced my steps looking for more features.

The rock outcrop passed on the way into the site is well worth a few minutes as you head back. The ditch between the track and the outcrop is very deep and errosion has exposed what look like hand laid stones, forming an impressive entrance of some kind? The ditch certainly looks far to big to be there just for drainage. I could see no evidence of rock art on the outcrop itself, but the sides facing West and North have very impressive holes on their sides. Quite possible these at naturally formed, I don’t know enough to say but they certainly catch the eye.

There is a Cist nearby in the plantation but I was unable to locate it on my first visit.

Other items of interest very close by are:

1) An large circular enclosure (45m across), 170m north of the access road and 130m east of the main road – not visited yet but clearly visible on google earth.

2) Cup and ring stones, all removed unfortunately (Alnwick Castle Museum), references N3151, N3163 & N4368 on Keys to the Past.

The whole family were with me at Hirnant but Iv’e been left to wander around this one alone, just as well really because I really should take note of other peoples fieldnotes. I tried the direct approach from the road and found my way barred by the uncrossable but very stunning Rheidol gorge. Not wanting to leave the gorge
I followed it back up to the farm where I would do the right thing and ask. There was only one dog compared with Kammers two, perhaps the other one was with the farmer, because no-one was in. So i made my own unhindered way following the very obvious track right to it. What a stunning view it would be on a sunny day, I was glad for the peace I had on my own, it was a good circle to find, though the thick green grass obscured the depression and some of the smaller stones. Both this circle and Hirnant are small in every way (except the views, there big)
but very nice nonetheless.