Latest Fieldnotes

Just north of Ballochroy village look for when the road is right next to the sea and there is a small turnung up to the farm buildings and the stones. The first time I came here I forgot my camera so I just had to come seeing as I was passing anyway. There are two farm buildings nearby but on both visits there isnt anyone round so we parked up and entered the field through the gate. the sheep here were of a different kind, usually you go in the field and they run off alerting the farmer that something is wrong, but these sheep were huge and unafraid they came right up to us so I flashed them (with my camera) and they backed off. These stones are great big bigger and biggest with a cist that is unusually large and all in a row, if your in the area these are a must

I’m not sure if this is the same place the site describes it as a stone row but there is only one stone and the grid ref is a bit off. I climbed the nearby hill hoping to see the stone . I looked right at it but still failed to see it . I asked at Skeroblin west farmhouse and a lady pointed the way. we parked at a ruined house and started across the field tip toeing on clumps of grass this was the muddiest field Iv’e ever seen the ground was mostly water and bubbled as I went .Eventually I got to the stone, unfortunately it was the least impressive stone on the peninsular, the only reason I tracked it down was ‘cause we couldnt get to Paul McCartneys stone due to padlocks (bloody scouses, sorry) time to head home.

Not a great deal to add to my misc post only that you can’t miss the stone it’s tall broad and thin by a very nice house that gives the stone its name, boy I could live here.

This stone was a bit special, we followed a land rover down a rough farm track and spoke to its owner at his house. He was most accomodating letting us leave our car there, explained how to get there and even showed us a photo of himself and his mate at the stone so we know what to look for. the map and his photo had no trees on them but they were certainly there now. we headed off, turning left through a gate up hill and into the forest. a path led all the way to a north-south fence which we then climbed and wandered around for a bit untill we recalled his words “there is a clearing for the stone in the trees” we turned back reclimbed the fence and headed for the only clearing we could see turning the corner into the clearing we both clenched our fists and shouted “yes” for there it stood. The clearing was large and only there for the stone which was nice. Tall and triangular, quartzy, moss and lichen covered I loved this stone . On the way back we luaghed and sang “I would drive 500 miles, just to see a stone in a plantation” to the proclaimers tune, we were cold and wet but very happy this is the one i’ll remember most

You can park the car about 200m away but you must then trespass, over a gate up hill over an electric fence then its just 60m away. Like a dunce I looked at the sign that warned of electric fence then tested it, ouch, my arm ached for about 10 miutes . The stone has great views over Campbeltown and from the high street there one can look up at the hill and see the stone not many towns can do that i’ll bet. Unfortunately Ive only just read Rhiannons post so failed to note the cupmarks. We saw six stones in south kintyre and this was the tallest.

From Craigs standing stone head east following the wall and this stone come into view, the field almost won the award from me of Scotlands muddiest field but was later trounced by Skeroblin . A good stone with one hunched shoulder, strangely hidden from its neighbour. the stone is placed between two large rock outcrops .

This tall stone took more finding than I anticipated in the end my wife hayley saw it first. Tied down with wire as if to curb its wandering and guarded by a very big horse . Right next to two creepy and deserted houses. Its neighbour Glencraigs is just 200m away but is hidden by a slight rise in the land. Good views of the hills and the sea, wellies preferred.

I wasn’t able to visit sites on this visit due to my not having a car. The buses would have been too complicated so I didn’t even try. We had been to the family Summer House and I persuaded a stop here as there is a carpark. There are two Barrows and can be seen from most places around here.
The information notice tells us that the Barrows are 3000-3500 years old and that they have not been disturbed by excavation, the pictures show what they may contain from excavations at other sites.
There are quite a lot of sites in this area but persuading people who aren’t interested to stop isn’t easy.

The tombs at Xemxija are significant for a number of reasons. They were excavated by Evans in the 1950’s and yielded a whole host of material. The majority of the finds dated to the Ggantija phase but there were also some sherds of Tarxien pottery and some later Bronze Age burials were also found along with some axe amulets. Many animal bones many were also found here giving us a good idea of what animals existed on the islands during the Neolithic. Bones found included sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, horse, dog, cat, deer, rabbit and hedgehog.

The tombs themselves are not too difficult to find and you can drive to within a dozen yards of them. To reach the tombs you need to turn off the main road (route 1) at the roundabout at the top of the hill at Xemxija, there is also a church on this roundabout. Turn into Xemxija and drive past the derelict hotel complex to the top of the village. The tombs are beside Triq bil-Preistorja which is the last road at the top of the hill. Park on this road. The tombs are at the top of the small rise about half way along the road. When we visited we drove to the end of the road and then went mooching around the fields on the hillside until a very nice lady pointed us in the right direction.
A word of warning, You need to keep your wits about you in this area . It seems to be very popular with hunters. I used to drive past this hillside on a daily basis and there were always at least a couple of four by four vehicles parked on the hillside.

The tombs themselves are basically just holes in the ground. I stuck my head into most of them and was greeted by the hum of wasps or bees in three of them which kind of put me off going any further into the tombs. What I did find remarkable was that the tomb builders had picked a horizontal surface to tunnel into. The limestone here is very hard so excavating the tombs vertically in to the bedrock must have taken a considerable effort. It would have been far easier to cut horizontally into the strata a little lower down in the Mistra valley where there are cliffs and natural caves. Which leads to the question why all the effort? What was the significance of this particular hill?

The hill is not the highest in the area but it does have good view over St Paul’s Bay and the coast beyond or at least it would have if the village were not in the way. It is possible to pick out the location of the Buggibba temple in the distant sprawling resort.

All in all the Xemxija tombs don’t offer much in the way of spectacular remains but if you are wanting to build up a picture of Maltese Prehistory and maybe understand why certain locations were chosen then it’s worth coming here, sitting yourself down and having a good look around you. One feature of the tombs is that some of them are lobed which indicates that there may be a link between the lobed nature of the caves and the similar layout of the temples.

I would never describe Malta as a pretty place then again I would never describe the Maltese landscape as boring. I’ll take interesting over pretty any time. My lad would say that it’s worth visiting the site because there are lots of huge ant’s nests and you can spend time feeding dead insects to the ants.

If you are visiting Clapham Junction the caves are quite easy to find. Just walk a few couple of dozen yards uphill to the top of the limestone area and you’re there.

Back in geological time the caves were all underground but then as tends to happen with limestone, the roof of the largest cave or a series of caves collapsed leaving a large cavity in the ground with a number of caves many of which are interlinked, around the margins. It’s well worth scrambling down into the caves, they are lovely and cool and provide a bit of welcome shade from the Maltese sun.

The caves were occupied up until the nineteenth century and when you climb down into them you can see evidence of walls and entrances. Solid evidence of prehistoric occupation has yet to be found in the caves but considering that a set of cart ruts start on the margins of the caves I’m sure this site would not have gone unnoticed by the prehistoric Maltese.

I guess if you want to see prehistoric cart ruts then Misrah Ghar il-Kbir aka Clapham Junction is pretty much the place to go. However cart ruts are not just a Maltese phenomena, they can also be found in Sicily, Spain Sardinia Greece and France but I guess the reason why the Clapham Junction cart ruts have become so famous is that there are so many of them in such a small area.

The site can be a little tricky to find especially if you are coming at it from the Dingli cliffs. Your safest bet is to get on the Rabat to Busket gardens road and look for an area between two large modern quarries.

The cart ruts themselves are pretty remarkable when you consider their age. I should mention something here about the age of the ruts. There is a lot of debate on this subject. There are a number of rock-cut Punic tombs in this area and at least one of the tombs cuts through a set of cart ruts. The tombs have been reliably dated a have been dated to the later centuries BC. This means that at least some of the ruts are older than this date. Most of the experts seem to agree that most of the ruts are pre-Punic but opinions differ from this point onwards. Some argue that the ruts are from the temple period whilst others, including Trump favour a Bronze Age date.

The debate around the use of the ruts isn’t much clearer than the dating debate, however many experts seem to favour the idea that the ruts were made by some kind of vehicle but after this there seems to be all sorts of opinions. Trump states that ‘Wheeled vehicles do seem to attract the least serious objections’.*

As a visitor I guess you could probably spend the best part of an hour following the ruts around this limestone plain, they are fascinating but I’m going to contradict myself here and tell you that I found them to be are pretty unremarkable and felt quite under whelmed. However, what I really did enjoy about Clapham Junction was the Ghar il-Kbir caves and the rock cut Punic graves.

*Malta Prehistory and Temples
David H. Trump
Midsea Books
Pub 2002

Also see
Malta’s Ancient Temples and Ruts
R. Parker & M. Rubenstein
Institute for Cultural Research Monograph Series No. 26
1988

I’d just come straight from Cairnholy and sped here before it got too dark, but even in the dark it would still ooze perfection . I sat for too long almost forgetting my wife and dog in the car .(easily done) the sky was awesome, plenty of stones to sit and watch the sky looking pretty. If you like stone circles (and iv’e an inkling you do ) then you’ll have to come here .

We parked at the corner of the field and walked down the road to the stile, and were mildly surprised to see two sheep messing about on one of the stones, but after reading other notes here it seems they’re allways up to no good. Not been here for a few years so was pleased to see the grass was much shorter, I like this stone circle, big stones, big ring, just a shame there are’nt more stones, presumably it would have been more like long meg and her neighbours. A good place to start before heading west .

Although listed as a long barrow this is actually one of fewer than 50 oval barrows known to exist and is therefore much more of a rarity. It is sited on the Purbeck hills north of the village of Church Knowle. Its in good condition and is about 30 metres long by 20 wide and nearly 3 metres in height. It has ditches on either side which I would have liked to have seen, unfortunately the field had about 30 bullocks in it and I wimped out, having been chased by them in the past. I will definitely be visiting this site again hopefully minus the cattle.

Small standing stone outside Hospital. Id say its only about 500mm high.

This stone also isnt marked on the map but it really looks standing stone ish to me. As per the style at the moment i stuck a horse in the shot for effect.
There is a mound marked nearby but it looks in bad shape. More like field clearance than a mound really.

I first listed this as a comment but feel it needs its own place. We tried to visit Greycroft at the end of August 2007 and parked the car facing that eyesore, that is Sellafield, as soon as we pulled up and were getting ready for our nice walk to the circle, we were immediately set upon by armed police, asking us what we had in mind? After about thirty minutes of questions on various topics, Where you from? Where you going? Where you been? Even our poor old dog, tofu was interrogated, after satisfying himself that we didn’t in fact want to blow up the ex power station, Officer Friendly went about his business, leaving me the wife and dog shaken up slightly to say the least. We decided not to venture to the site after all and leave it for another time, and hopefully not getting banged up in the process.

This is a strange site, there is nothing marked on the top of Luddenmore on the OS map yet there is a very impressive standing stone and the remains of what appears to be a cairn.
Archeaology.ie calls it a stone circle and Ive seen it mentioned as being a cathair.
So I cant really say what is up here other than what I saw myself. The views are amazing and again this seems to be interconnected with the other major hills around here. You can see across to the hillfort on Knockroe and it seems to line up with Cnoc Greine behind it.
It is hard to make it up onto the summit, it is a in the middle of agricultural land and there were lots of horses and cattle on it. There is also a recycling Mr. Binman site and a quarry nearby so be careful if you do decide to climb up here.

This standing stone isnt marked on the OS map. It is on the top of Luddenmore / Buchillbreaga.
It is about 2.25m in height. From below it looks huge altogether.
There is also the strange broken ruin of some kind of turret. I dont know what it was for. Perhaps it had something to do with the antennas that are up here but i doubt it because it is held together using lime mortar.

This is a very unusual Bullaun Stone as far as I can see.
The stone itself must be about 1.25m high by about 1.75m long and is probably big enough to be a standing stone in its own right.
The depth of the bowl is about 600mm deep, I presume that must be a lot for a bullaun.
Also there is what looks like a few cup marks on one side. They may be natural but who knows?
There is a church and holy well about 200m away from here. However to put it in context, it is also in an area rich with older sites such as standing stones (a holed one at Inch) and the hillfort at Knockroe and the unusual features on Luddenmore.

It took me about 3 visits to find this stone. Finally I asked in Cahir Castle about whether it had possibly moved into the Castle.
The girl behind the desk didnt know but there were two OPW workers hanging about and one of the guys could confirm it was there. He called it St Patricks Knee stone.
I headed back up again and used a stick on the over-growth around it. Im living in Cahir at the moment so will try and keep it clear of growth.

Cueva de la Menga and Cueva de la Viera are located next to each other on the left hand side of the road as you leave the Northern end of Antequera. There’s a big green sign on the road next to them.

There is a portacabin next to the sites which was manned when I was there. The person provided a leaflet with a map showing how to get to La Cueva de Romeral, which was helpful, as it is not quite so easy to find. They were also giving away some nice free posters when I was there.

Cueva de la Menga is impressive, and has obviously been located with the Los Enamorados hill face in full view of the entrance. Three massive stone menhirs support the roof, of which the centre one features a square cavity.

I saw this on a map and told myself one day i’ll come back and take a closer look, today was that day. Hopefully you’ll have an os map to navigate the maze of small lanes, just follow the road untill it enters the forest, park here there’s plenty of room. Take the path north for ten minutes then look out for big stone off to the left under the trees. The stone or ‘Carreg’ is a really good sized stone covered almost totally with mosses, resting on a slight bed of cairn , you can just see under the stone at a few points. There isn’t much cairn material but the size of the stone makes up for it . Even the forest is light and breazy but obscures the view which would have been considerable.

Not easy to get to. I parked at a crossroads N.W of the stone, walked passed a few farms, and then turned left through a gate or four, allways heading for the highest ground . When on top of the hill the stone and cairns are big and obvious. A tall angular stone strangely free of moss and lichen with fantastic views of the valleys below and the hills behind. On top of the nearby mountain tops are plenty of cairns,I could have stayed here a while, but I’d somewhere else to be, it took 23 minutes to get back to the car.

Some impressive cave art here, and a fine collection of finds (including bones and tools) are on display. No photographs are allowed within the caves, but they do sell postcards.

In the summer months the caves are closed between 1 and 4 pm, so make sure you don’t arrive just as they close for lunch. We arrived just in time for the last tour of the morning session at 1 pm having just been to the Ronda Dolmen. Well worth the visit it was too. The Guide was knowledgable, and although he spoke primarily in Spanish he did ensure that we as the only English speaking folks on the tour were not left out. The parafin lamps provided make the tour all the more atmospheric.

There are numerous cave paintings, the most impressive of which is an image of a fish. There’s also images of buffalo and human figures. The limestone cave formations are impressive too, and they even speculate that a formation that they call “The Organ” was used to make music. Certainly striking the long narrow collumns of limestone formations created a wonderful resonating sound.