Latest Fieldnotes

Doesnt seem to be much of a cairn left here. Basically all there is the cross. I guess suggests that it may have been a place of assembly in the area. The views from up here are great. It is a commanding spot.
Tricky enough to find as there seems to be a labyrinth of roads in these parts.

This is a monster of a boulder, propped up on limestone pedestals and partly embedded in the hillside. Was it a burial chamber? Hard to tell, it certainly does just look like a larger version of the many similar sandstone boulder on pedestals seen around the park.

The cup and rings do look pretty convincing from some angles, this is quite a soft stone so perhaps they are just very badly weathered. There definitely is a pair of cup and rings on a small boulder further up the path from the track, even in the unfavourable sunlight and bleached texture of the stone, some carving work was noticeable.

The Archaeological Survey of Co. Louth has a nice photo of some rock art here but I dont think I found the panel that was illustrated. The large outcropping here has been partly bulldozed in the not too distant past, hopefully the best of the rock art did not dissapear with it.

I did manage to find a single cup and ring at the western end of the outcrop, with some possible cup marks beside which are somewhat dubious. The outcrop is very overgrown so there could be lots more underneath.

You can see evidence of some of the hill-fort ring that circles the tomb. I didnt walk all of it because of the cows but i would think this goes around half of the way around the tomb. It seesm to stop at a boundary wall where the other half of the circle should continue but doesnt.

This “cairn” is just off the N8 at Johnstown on the main Dublin-Cork road. Recently Ive been passing this way quite a bit and wondered about the funny looking trees on top of the hill (They are pretty distinctive from the road).
I checked the OS map and it looked to me as the trees corresponded to the position of a cairn so I decided to take a look.
Head into Johnstown and turn left and then left again where there is a sign for the Spahill. It should be easy to find from here.
I’m not sure about the cairn itself. It seems to be a tree covered mound. The mound itself isnt very distinctive. However the fact that a wall has been built around it to protect it says to me that it is of some importance locally.
It may be possible that the wall around it was built from some of the material from the cairn. I dont know.
There is also a funny feature in the wall. A little “portal” no more than half a metre high. Maybe its for letting wild animals (badgers?) in and out of the enclosure.
I imagined it was left for the little people to get back into their Sidh!

This is an interesting megalithic tomb and hillfort on Spahill in Kilkenny.
The mound itself is maybe up to 1.5-2m high by about 10m diameter. It is made up of stone cairn material and there seems to be two unusual stones sticking out of the top of it. Some of material may have been removed and there is what looks like the remains of a filled in chamber, but its hard to tell.
To the south east, Slievenamon can be easily picked out and there is a great panaroma view all around the site here.
Archaeology.ie has this down as a “passage tomb”. Im not sure if it does have a passage but it would be interesting to find out.

It’s a fabulous place. The path up to the enclosure was called Pennyunk / Penyonke [Lane] back to the 1300s and likely long before[geograph.org.uk/photo/351089] as this seems to be a pre-English [i.e. Old Welsh] name [it doesn’t make any sense in Old English but does in the language spoken in the Peak until the 7th/8th C]. Pennyunk would have meant something like ‘headland of [the] youth’ in Old Welsh [Pen = top, end, head, headland; Iouanc = youth, youngster]. It’s possible that this was the pre-English, P-Celtic, name for the enclosure. After all, Penbroga [= ‘land’s end’ = Pembroke] goes back to the Iron Age... Cf. the shape of the hill with another ‘penn’; Pendle.

I was pleasantly surprised at how much of this monument remains. Roughly circular, its about 150 metres in diameter. There are many gaps in the bank, the largest of which is on the east side where a modern farmtrack has cut into the henge. It’s hard to tell which, if any, of the gaps are originals. The best preserved portion runs from roughly north-west to north-east and the bank here is about 2 metres high.
Kilbrew henge is on the slopes of Windmill Hill and has a sister henge higher up the hill about 400 metres to its north-east. The site at Kilbrew seems to have been chosen for the natural platform that it rests on with the ground falling away very steeply on its southern end. There are the remains of a large house built inside the henge in the north-west quadrant.

There is a mound marked here just off what will become the slip road from the M8 into Cahir.
Not a lot to see really. Just said Id post to save anyone the stop.
There is a great view from the mound to Knockgraffon Motte so I think this mound may be from the same period.

Wellies needed !
Visible from the road, go down the hill through the gate into the woods then slowly pick your way through the trees. Two cairns right on the edge of the loch . Couldnt get too close because of the water and we were running out of time. Oh where does the time go?

This Burial chamber was the one that sparked off the whole trip up here, Greywethers pictures only served to tantalise though god bless him for that, I needed to see it up close.
Between two houses on different sides of the road there is a cattle grid, park here and jump the fence to the east. Try and pick out the path to the river where the bridge still awaits your patient feet. From far off the cairn looks to have a side entrance but it turned out to be just a dark bit . The chamber is accessed through the roof it has only one capstone, but in the chamber is another smaller chamber which probably has a technical term which now escapes me. I loved this one, the weather was good the views were great, but was it worth the 9 million mile pilgramage........You betcha!

Right next to the small road at Skelpick, the biggest cairn is very impressive, still retaining a chamber and the forecourt is still in good nick too. The same can’t be said for the northern one though the chamber is all gone except for one orthostat and the area where it should be has been used as a rubbish dump. The southern cairn is still cool though, with good views up and down the the river Naver .

One of the nicest places you could ever be.
There is a site specific carpark just 20 yards up the road, over the stile the ground is a bit boggy but theres a wooden walkway leading to the information board and chamber.
Such a lovely place in the early morning sunshine lichen hanging off the nearby trees and the place giving off a really lush vibe, the chambers are well defined and the cairn is still quite substantial.
If your ever up here definately give it a visit

The first chambered cairn of the day, at about 7am ish the sun had yet to reach over the hill to the east. Visible from the road if you know where to look, and only a 5 minute walk so well worth a visit. Great views up and down the Strath of Kildonan. There was more to see in the imediate vacinity including more chambered cairns and at least 3 souterrains but time was not on our side.

This one’s tucked away in the car park of a ‘dinosaur zoo’. The sweet little dolmen sits behind a little wooden fence, presumably to prevent kids climbing on it, as it seems quite dinkily precarious. It was great to have an ‘easy win’ and park right next to it. A charming monument, if a little bizarre to hear the roars of tyrannosaurus rex from the nearby attraction!

Next we went to find the dolmen de Pradinas, a very small, rather haphazardly restored dolmen standing near a dusty crossroads behind some trees. It’s good that someone took the trouble to cement it back together again, but it lacks any atmosphere…

Approximate coordinates only

Dolmen 6 is weird thing!

Originally it was a pretty ordinary dolmen for round here, but it’s drystone lined and slightly corbelled and curved at one end, and has two capstones – or was it one at one time?

But curiously somebody has built a tower practically on top if it, of drystone rubble in a square section, perhaps 12 feet tall with a staircase running up the middle of it to a lookout at the top. I scrambled up to get a view. We reckoned it was probably quite modern and perhaps a shepherd’s lookout.

Approximate coordinates only

Continuing up the track, which began to get steeper, we eventually found dolmen 5.

It has a very good chamber still embedded deeply into the rubble cairn and a superb really flat capstone sloping hard at 20 degrees towards the back. Very nice!

In Bruno Marc’s book ‘Dolmens and menhirs of the Ardeche’ we spotted a number of interesting monuments listed in the Bois des Geants along a single track which didn’t look to arduous for a non-walker like me!

Not recommended, but I drove up a gravel and bedrock limestone track for as far as I could before the really big rocks threatened to damage our ordinary large family saloon (a Mazda 626). We eventually had to park up and walk through the woodland and scrub which smelled of herbs and hot pine resin.

On the map we saw six monuments marked, though we only found three.

Please be aware that due to difficulties in spotting stuff on google maps, the PRECISE location of each monument maybe out by a few metres – the track that they are on is the right one, however. Please note that the track you need to go up is to the west of the bridge that crosses the combe.

Approximate coordinates only

The first dolmen you come to is not far after you pass under crackling powerlines.

This is a small dolmen, following the usual pattern from dolmens round these parts. It has lost its capstone, but the shape of the little box which remains is still worth a view and it has plenty of original rubble. A nice even pair of portal stones still stand to mark the entrance. It’s right by the side of the track so you won’t miss it.

Near Bidon, to the north of the Ardèche gorge, is the dolmen de Champ Vermeil, a vast and beautiful dolmen of just five huge slabs lurking in the woods, the capstone gently sloping at an angle of 15 degrees towards the back entrance. The capstone is massive and quite flat and a single slab makes up one side. Very impressive!

About 300ms away from Le grand dolmen de Ferrusac, again just off the D130 road, is the Petit dolmen de Ferrusac. As the name suggests it’s much smaller and not a double decker like its large sibling, but it still has a detectable passageway in front and plenty of rubble- and tell-tale black lying around.

This one is very sweet and so tiny!

Around Ferrusac there are other monuments including four good menhirs, made of white limestone.

Access: Just visible through trees from the D130. For this one and many others very near by, leave the A75 at junction 52 and take the D25 through St Etienne-de-Gourgas and St Pierre-de-la-Fage. From St Pierre, continue for around 1.5km, taking a right fork south, to La Vacquerie(-et-St-Martin-de-Castries) on the D9.

Pass through the village and carry on for a short distance to the D130 left (east). Take this for around 2km, probably a bit less, keeping you eye out for a glimpse of a dolmen in the trees to the left (north) of the road. You may also spot a ruined tumulus. (We didn’t, but I forgot to look for it.)

Visited Wednesday 5 September
Wow, what a dinky dolmen! I’d assumed it was just called that to distinguish it from the Grand Dolmen!

Standing in the remnants of its mound, this is a more ‘standard-looking’ structure than the Grand Dolmen just up the road. It appeared to us to have traces of a passage.

Actually, we would probably have missed it if not for an elderly French couple we met when we overshot to the Grand Dolmen, who managed clarify Bruno Marc’s directions in Dolmens et Menhirs en Languedoc et Roussillon, despite our pidgin French and them not speaking any English....

And inside the tiny dolmen was an even tinier ‘model’ dolmen. We saw loads of these in the south of France, near real ones. Must be a local megalith-spotter hobby. I’ve only ever seen a couple in this country (& a tiny model stone circle on the path to a stone circle in County Cork).

In the area there is also a huge necropolis (at La Roque aka Laroque) and there are a couple of other more ruined dolmens very near St Pierre-de-la-Fage. The St Pierre dolmens are covered in the Bruno Marc book mentioned above. The necropolis is covered in his snappily titled Statues-Menhirs et Dolmens des Sausses et du Haut Languedoc. We didn’t have time for everything and chose to target what seemed the more striking places.

Access: See the Petit Dolmen de Ferrusac (which we would probably have missed if not for an elderly couple we met at the Grand Dolmen!) The Grand Dolmen is around 300 metres further along, also on the left. Reasonably easily visible through bushes and small trees from the D130.

Visited Wednesday 5 September
Like the similar Dolmen 1 de Coste-Claude, this one had been fascinating us ever since we saw a photo, as it looks like a double-decker dolmen! As with Coste-Claude, it’s actually a passage grave where the chamber is considerably taller than the passage, creating a strange overall impression.

A very impressive monument, noticably larger than Coste-Claude, slightly ‘tattier’ and marred somewhat by a concrete slab used to replace one of the side slabs of the upper part of the chamber.

There are several outcrops of rock immediately to the north of the dolmen, and even some suitable slabs of rock that could surely have been used instead, but I dare say there are reasons why concrete was used....

Perhaps those slabs may be the remnants of other monuments? In Dolmens et Menhirs en Languedoc et Rousillon, Bruno Marc certainly says that there is a menhir in the trees behind, 50 metres to the NW and another (fallen and broken in two) 80 metres to the NE. Not sure if he means 80 metres from the dolmen or from the from the ‘50 metre’ menhir.... We didn’t have time to go looking.

There are certainly several menhirs to the east – 4 that we found: Menhir de la Levade, Menhir de la Cisternette, Menhir 1 du Coulet and one which I guess is Menhir 2 (?) du Coulet.

With the Petit Dolmen just down the road, the area seems to have been a fair old complex of monuments.

Le grand dolmen de Ferrusac is a whopper, built with two levels of capstones, leading into one tall chamber beneath the top deck capstone. One side has been restored with an ugly concrete slab which takes a bit of the ‘wow’ away, but the original capstone and side slab are vast. Each perhaps weighing 20 tones a piece of more. A mighty place!