Latest Fieldnotes

This cave can be tricky (and not the safest of things) to find amongst the old spoil heaps and mine shafts, the whole pasture is full of them. The cave is located on a local high spot near rocky ground on Carsington Pastures’ southern edge overlooking Carsington Water. The two entrances, one in a hollow the other on a small knoll directly above it, are both locked.

It’s no very big (about 3 ft tall, tops), but there are a good few smaller things in Northumberland that have been recorded quite firmly, and even scheduled.

I reckon the fluted grooves are much what you’d see on a BA orthostat in these parts, so I’m claiming it to be the genuine I-am.

(But if the TMA Eds should decide otherwise, please do slap a Dubious Antiquity tag on it. I’ll not get too upset...)

Another possible fact in it’s favour is the presence, about 3m away, of some definite Cup and Ring carvings, and it’s in what used to be a cairnfield, fitting a general pattern of Northumbrian sites.

This rock shelter is about 220m NW of the footbridge at the bottom of Cales Dale as it joins Lathkill Dale. Tricky climb onto the ledge and shelter.

Excavated by TA Harris in 1928. Finds included Upper Palaeolithic flints plus some reindeer bones. Neolithic flints were also recovered and included a discoidal knife, a leaf-shaped arrowhead and flakes. A possible human burial of a Neolithic date was also found.

I visited Chee Tor a coupla years ago after I came across a reference to a stone circle there in the SMR/NMR records. I now note that Pastscape also mention the site as an uncertain stone circle Short arc of bank with four upright stones within it, possibly a Bronze Age embanked stone circle. So I thought I’d post some pictures...see what folk thought.

Chee Tor is a high spur of land overlooking the River Wye in the valley below. It’s a pretty spectacular location for a circle located as it is right on the edge of the near vertical slope into Chee Dale.

I’m not sure what to think....other parts of the tor are noted for their Romano-British settlement remains and it’s this that bugs me about the site...’taint a million miles away from them...although there’s nothing like this structure amongst them.
Spectacular area and worth a visit for the views of Chee Dale alone.

“.....a group of distinctive earthworks in the north-east of the North York Moors that prior to investigation by the RCHME, had been categorised as double pit-alignments. The earthworks consist of two or three pairs of pits, with the spoil from the pits spread into parallel enclosing banks. The orientation of the segments is rarely consistent along an axis north-west to south-east ; in each case there seems to be a tengential alignment on burial mound, putatively Bronze Age in date, which may give a clue as to their age and function.”

LOFTHOUSE C. A
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society
1993, vol. 59, pp. 383-392

Setting out for the day I had written down points of interest and had an idea where i was going, and to make things a little easier, foolishly forgot to pick up all my grid reference details from the kitchen table!

I hadn’t on this occasion read around the subject as fully as i could have done, and only when I returned home did i realise the whole area is Roulston Scar (I have always known it as Sutton Bank). We parked at the top, near the gliding club and headed roughly NEE to the fortification as marked on the OS map. Crossing a small valley we scrabbled up the sides and headed into the woods. I all honesty, an easier way would have been to park at the top of High Town Bank Road and walk down.

In any case the length and size of the fortification was quite impressive, and surrounded by woodland. Its termination point seems a little odd and I wonder if it maybe ran at some point to the top of Hell Hole SE523816. It certainly seems like this now wooded stretch is all that remains of the fortification. Walking along it’s ditch West to East with it’s Southerly side being easily 5 feet high in places, it wasn’t difficult to imagine what it once looked like, and when you look out over the flat land that Roulston Scar rises from, it isn’t difficult to imagine why fortifications where built there.

The thing that is a little tricky though, is that information about the Hillfort suggests that it’s perimeter terminates before the small valley we crossed. Maybe this was an additional fortification. The OS map shows a tumulus in the fields near by, although all signs of this are now gone.

There are 7 barrows in this group which is to the north of Sheep down long barrow and south of the Big wood group. The three largest are in the centre and include a rare double bowl barrow with a figure of eight ditch. The cemetary straddles the road to Weymouth and is part of the south Dorset ridgeway group of barrows.

You’ll probably need a gps to find this cist unless you have a few hours to spare. There is a large rock nearby that sorta becomes visible when you’re on top of it and so is something to look for in the thick heather....I think it is part of the boundary bank the cist is built into.
Two sides of the cist are clearly visible and constructed of fairly large stones.
If you have a gps then SK28157 71021 should get you to within a few metres of it.

Separated by the Umberley Sick from Gibbet Moor this cairn stands on Brampton East Moor proper, although it is directly related to the Gibbet Moor settlement and lies several hundred metres from Gibbet Moor North.
The cairn is enormous (close in size to Wet Withens’ barrow) even though it was robbed in medieval times to build an adjoining animal pen.

The NMR reckons that there is at least 2 cairns possibly 3 with some visible kerbstones but so interfered with is it, it’s difficult to work out any of it out.

Managed to find these elusive carvings last week. It was decided that the choice of Feb 29th was auspicious, as it proved to be.

A bit of research via Google Earth showed a patch that looked to be in shadow, implying the existence of a clearing. A bit of tricknology with a gps device converted the GE co-ordinates into a gps friendly point at which to leave the path and follow the furrows made when planting the trees.

The trees have recently been thinned slightly in the southern part of the plantation, so access wasn’t as much of a problem as it could have been. Working out where the carvings are was, and we initially walked right past the spot where the carvings later showed up. This led to an hour or so of hands-and-knees crawling through some dense and highly resistant coniferous gloom.

A combination of the satellite images, Stan Beckensall’s sketched map and a bit of tree-stump observation eventually led to the conclusion that they were buried under a 25 yr old annoyingly deep and tangled pile of pine branches and needles. (It took much effort to shift the heap).

It was still a very sludgy bit of rock art, as the decades of decomposition had left an unpleasant slime mixed with pine needles over the surface of the outcrop. Hence a return visit today, this time armed with a (soft) brush and some water.

The carvings are very worn, but quite complex in composition. I couldn’t help but think it looked like a panel that had been added to over time, possibly starting out as a set of simple cups, elaborated upon at a later date.

If you take the trees away, there’s a great view, showing significant hills such as Ros Castle, Simonside and the Cheviot.

This lovely stone circle is behind the “West Coast B&B” on the road to Dooncarton. The stones are enclosed within a fence on a sheep farmer’s property; be prepared to climb over the fence since the gates are locked. Outstanding views... even on a blustery winter day in February!

SK17230 65405.

Cales Dale as with Calling Low Dale is a tributary valley to Lathkil Dale with stunning limestone scenery where the two meet.
Cales Dale Upper Cave is well hidden on a high shelf on the western side of the valley and requires a steep tricky climb up from the path.
The cave was used in the Iron Age and later Romano period.

This rock shelter is located just over half a mile away from Bee Low in the secluded Calling Low Dale (previously Callenge Dale). Access is pretty straight forward once you have permission; although once at the entrance to the dale itself the going is rough with no path and plenty of ankle twisters.
The wall across the face of the shelter, built by a 1980’s visitor, lets you know you’ve found the right place.

In the Neolithic it was used as a burial site and two cists were constructed within it, one containing human bones, arrowheads and a Peterborough ware bowl. Colonel Harris who excavated here in 1936-39 also found other burials placed outside the cists.

At the shelter amongst the crags and trees the place has a ‘lost world’ feel to it, some what aided by the fact that no one comes here anymore. Although the dale is a tributary to one of the most popular walking dales, Lathkil, in the Peak.

Seeing as I only live forty minutes away and this is my nearest ancient place I will come here several times every year, almost as if expecting to see something new,so far I’m not doing bad Once I came at sunset , next it had been snowing, this time I climbed a tree to look down on it slightly.Sometimes there is a big Rottwieller dog just ten metres from the chamber but he was elsewhere today and all was quiet. The only bad thing about this visit was the bushes were ever so slightly closer to the side of the chamber, the whole lot should be ruthlessly chopped leaving only the mature trees, somtimes there’s not even enough room to stretch ones imagination. I leaned the fallen information board against a tree said goodbye to the stones (as you do) and walked back to the car.

We parked by a small bay called Porth Cwyfan right opposite a motor racing circuit and for the whole time we were there the sound of screaming motor bikes fought with the sound of breaking waves, niether won but I know which sound I prefered. Although it was a nice walk by the sea to the cairn it was by far the longest route, further back along the road was a turning and sign for a footpath and a warning not to go any further by car. As we walked down to it there was two cars and plenty of places to park, no houses, nothing to get in the way, of so damn them and drive practiaclly down to the sea. The cairn was excavated 31 years ago because of coastal erosion, but the cairn is well above the crashing waves so I’m a bit nonplussed. Only five stones are above ground and there is a dip in the centre of the cairn. This place is entirely about the place, the beaches, the rolling waves, the seabirds the mountains over to the east a whole afternoon could be spent here. If you do come don’t leave your camera on show in the car as it’s a ten minute hard run back to the carpark.

Din Dryfol is sign posted from the road, so presuming you successfully navigated the small warren of lanes, park somewhat precariously by the sign and walk down the driveway to the farm. Further signs take you through two gates and a stile, then across one field heading towards the tiny mountain and more specifically the information board, and your there.
The majority of this burial chamber is gone but it’s in such a lovely place and there remains just enough to stay for several hours. A small dolmen and two standing stones one of which is huge, a long rocky outcrop runs parrallel to the stones and was used as a curb for the cairn material (or so I read somewhere)The hill or tiny mountain as my kids called it is the highest ground for some distance and is surely the reason the burial chamber is here, if your coming why not climb it for a good all round view, also keep your eyes open for a Cokin ND Grad camera filter which inexplicably broke free from me and refused to be found, Darn it !

judging the cold and windy conditions, i would asume the coast line was further out in mesolithic times, it is a very exposed area.

There’s a track marked on the map that runs north from the road that skirts the south of Slievecorragh. I headed along here past the 1st old farm building until I reached the 2nd ruined farmstead. The bullaun is in the marshy field to the west of this. I spent about 20 minutes scouring this field in increasing frustration and headed down to the rath for a look.

The rath is fascinating, with the deepest fosse I’ve yet seen on one of these. It’s easy to explore at this time of year but would be impossible in the summer months. The inventory says that there’s no sign of an entrance, but they visited in August and I saw a clear entrance in the north-east quadrant.

Heading back into the bullaun field I noticed a cluster of boulders beside a massive gorse bush. The bullaun is here, almost flush with the ground. It’s a little over a metre squared and the basin is one of the smallest I’ve seen, placed centrally in the stone. The sides are sheer, carved directly down into the flat-topped boulder to a depth of about 15 cms.

My fifth visit to this site and the first time there hasn’t been livestock in the field, so giving me a bit of time here.

Site L, the one nearer the main mound, is almost totally destroyed. Four stones remain, a kerbstone and 3 chamber orthostats. None of the passage is remaining, or could it be that it is buried?

Site K is more interesting. Much of the passage is here. There seems to be a sillstone or doorstone at the mouth of the passage. Some of the passage orthostats are collapsed in on their opposite stones. Overall length is approx 15 metres, with a slight widening about midway along. It terminates in an undifferentiated chamber, the backstone of which is missing. The kerb is best preserved on the north-western arc, but there are some stones to the north. One puzzling factor is that an imagined continuation of the kerb arc would not meet the mouth of the passage but hit the 3rd or 4th stone along. Don’t really know if this is significant.

The hillock that both tombs sit on is higher that any of the surrounding terrain, including the ground level of the main mound at Newgrange. Trees and shrubs block this feature when viewed from the road in front of Newgrange. Looking north-west, the main mound at Knowth can be seen in the distance.

It was very windy here today and my hands were freezing as I took photos. It would be lovely to sit here on a sunny summer’s day, drinking in the atmosphere. It’s hard to say what sense of place you get here, knowing that big brother is only yards away. None of the previously mentioned decorated stones were visible, though some of the passage stones seem to have very worn and vague pick-marks.

Nobberbeg townland, next (unfortunately) to Muff townland, is at the back of Gallow’s Hill, north-west of Nobber (An Obair) town in north Meath. On the old OS maps at archaeology.ie this site is marked as St. Patrick’s stone. The site sits at the edge of a ridge that falls away to its south.
There is an old cross base here, beside which sits this interesting bullaun. It’s one of those kneeling bullauns, both basins of which break the side of the stone. One holds water in its bottom, the other unable to do so. On the map mentioned above there is a second bullaun marked. I think I saw this too but it’s been smashed up, much like this unkempt and uncared for site.

This barrow is all that I could find of a barrow cemetery just on the eastern edge of the town of Hospital. There are seven other barrows marked however after a brief look the only one I could find was this giant.
This is another of the large barrows that are mentioned as part of the Discovery programme for this area.
This barrows outer diameter must be up around the 15-20m mark with two concentric rings and a small central mound. The mound and the diameter is a much smaller in size to Knockanny or Ballinascaula.
To find it park at the farm-gate just outside of the town of Hospital on the right. Follow the track that is shown on the map. When you come up to the disused farmyard that is shown at the end of the track you should be able to figure out where it is. Its lowlying and there are lot of rushes around it so can be difficult to spot.

This standing stone is maybe about 0.75m high. I marked at an entrance to a farm yard on the right leaving hospital. You can check the barrow out at Coolalough from here. I walked in thru the farmyard and over a ditch to take a picture of it. Nothing special really.

The last time I was up here they had removed the ditches around the mound and barrows.
This seems to reveal a fourth barrow to the three barrows that are marked in a line on the OS map.
Ive heard it said that you can see the Paps of Anu from up here but Ive never been able to make them out.
You can clearly see where the ditches have been removed from the variance in the grass colour.

Avebury somehow seems diminished these days. I suppose the world heritage status and higher public profile which have put it on the tourist map have had some positive effects but it’s difficult somehow not to think that like at Stonehenge, they have simultaneously taken something away.

Anyway, we were struck again last weekend by the fact that in a way what is really important here is the Henge. It is apparent that at its original full height it would have created an artificial and perfect horizon – in other words, it would have engendered an idealised world view from within its circumference. As well as facilitating astronomical observances this would have created a psychological sense of ‘interiorness’ – a major step on the human journey from the purely instinctual through the communal to the individual and then to the personal. We felt this time more than at any other that Avebury’s function is in the promotion of the ‘artificial’ -in the sense of artifice or artefact – an aesthetic appreciation of the world as embodying conciousness and human potential rather than merely survival and the randomness of action.

This standing stone is on the sacred hill of Aine between the mound on the eastern side and the ringfort on its western side.
It is about 1.25m high.