Latest Fieldnotes

Well the map said this was destroyed and indeed it is. Quite a bugger to find too with my two incompatibly scaled maps. In many ways though it’s still worth a visit.
Set on slightly higher ground and hence, this being the Norfolk of France, commanding views of all around. The dolmen is now a low mound around 11m long by 5m wide. A number of large stones lie upon and within this mound including at least one former capstone. The others may be the collapsed walls; although for all I can tell there may still be a chamber within.
I am realizing that this area may not be the megalithic metropolis it appears at first glance on a map but these small, sadly ruined, sites have a personal air lacking at some more impressive sites. And it feels more like real antiquarianism hunting them out too!
The mound is orientated around 340°-160°.

Worthy of a visit for its name alone this 2m cream granite pillar is nestled at the end of a short alley off a busy dual carriageway. In many ways it is nothing special in a pointy kind of way but I am visiting everything so…

At last a site I can access and rather pleasant it is too. This two and a half metre menhir sits in short grass at the edge of a field. Wide and tall but thin across in a playing card kind of way and the stone is of creamy white quartz rich granite.
One can see on the south face how the menhir was split from the bedrock along a quartz vein as a layer of smooth quartz covers the surface.
I think that I’ll start calling these ‘Barbamama’ stones after the blobby cartoon wife of Babapapa. Cos that’s what they look like really.
The land around is very flat, although we are near a water tower, and to the north is the vast sprawl of the port of St.Nazaire.
The long axis of the stone is orientated 220°-040°.

AAAGGHH! More private property! And a lovely tapering lozenge menhir this is too. Maybe 3m+ but I can’t get to it at all. How frustrating this is becoming.

The ‘Bounding Stone’ (I believe) is also private AND in the middle of a flooded water meadow! Ho hum…well these sites are not even marked on the 1:100,000 scale map so maybe the better known sites will be easier. The menhir appears to be a largish lozenge of about 2m but unfortunately I can say no more…

Another chunky menhir guarded by, not just a fence, but cows too! Could be on a mound or it could just be the pricklys that the cows don’t want to eat. NEXT!

There are in fact two menhirs here. The first small, from which a signpost rises, and the second larger but fallen, to the west.
This is curious megalith country, very flat and in close proximity to the Loire River. Indeed I’ve just seen the vast bulk of the Queen Mary 2 in St.Nazaire ship works, where it is being built.
Why such a seemingly insignificant pair of menhirs warrant signposting from the main road I’m not sure, but if I must be the modern antiquarian then completion rules.

Dolmen des Rossignols
‘It’s a suburban dolmen!‘
At last something unique and interesting. The dolmen sits below ground level in a large crater in an empty plot amongst an estate of bungalows. I t would seem likely that the dolmen was discovered whilst the foundations for another such bungalow were being dug. If this were true it would explain the row of holes connected by a crack along the top of the capstone. It would appear that an attempt was made to split the capstone before (hopefully before) its significance was realized.
And what a capstone! A good 3m by 4m and about 70cm thick at the edges this is a monster and the only capstone surviving, is ever there were more. It is actually difficult to ascertain where the original entrance was as it was either blocked off in prehistory or some of the uprights were placed wrongly during restoration. Nonetheless this is a very important and impressive dolmen.
The chamber inside is now very low but this could be due to the infill of sandy soil more than anything else, and the capstone appears to be supported by a combination of corbelling and orthostats.
Also, whilst here, I finally managed a break a rule by eating my lunch while blissfully unaware of the ‘no picnics’ sign, hurray!
The rocks appear to be a mixture of schist and granite and one wonders how far they were dragged to this sandy spot…

Visited the general locality passing through Sarn Meyllteyrn in 2005. was informed from a local source [Gwenllian] that the place name could be broken down as follows

sarn – ford
meyll (mal) – place [of]
teyrn – king or kings

the standing stone and site is thought of as ‘the burial place of Rhiw kings’; it is a mere several kilometres from Mynydd Rhiw *neolithic axe factory*, so it is surprising there are not more stone age monuments hard by – perhaps there are, or were? also, local place names seem to abound with deer names, into which could be read much, perhaps -

there also appears to be an ancient well or spring nearby, known as ‘ffynnon fair’ -

rhiw.com/hanes_02/axe_factory/mynydd_rhiw_axe_factory.htm

streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=223500&y=332500&z=5&sv=223500,332500&st=4&mapp=newmap.srf&searchp=newsearch.srf&ax=223500&ay=332500

streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=223500&y=331500&z=3&sv=223500,331500&st=4&ar=N&mapp=newmap.srf&searchp=newsearch.srf&ax=223500&ay=332500

thanks

Ric

When it comes to ‘looking at rocks’ my family and I have an unspoken agreement, they are happy to tolerate my obsession as long as it doesn’t involve me dragging them around a bunch of sites or trying to convince them how wonderful these places are. So I had a choice to make, I knew I could get away with taking them to one prehistoric site on Gozo. The island has many prehistoric sites from standing stones to temples to Dolmens, so where would it be? Without a doubt it had to be Ggantija.

Ggantija is signposted and quite easy to find. Once you get to Xaghra just look for the large car park and you know you’re there.
When walking towards the temple it is worth looking at the surrounding walls. Not far inside of the main gate there are some large orthostats that have been interpreted as possibly another structure associated with the main temple.
Another feature worth looking out for is The North Cave, which is a cave just at the top of the site. The cave has been interpreted as possibly starting out as a rock cut tomb which then became a rubbish pit for the temples.

As for Ggantija itself, the scale of the walls is overwhelming. Mr Cope is spot-on when he refers to the walls as Cyclopean. I just had to stop and take it all in. This structure is five and a half thousand years old and was build by people who had no knowledge of metal. These stones were cut, erected and had fallen long out of use long before any Egyptian had even considered building a pyramid.

Of course the Maltese temples were not the first structures in Europe, we on the margins of western Europe had been erecting our megaliths and building tombs even before the Maltese culture had risen and flourished, but what is important about these these Maltese and Gozitan temples where designed and built as public buildings, they had torba floors, the walls were plastered, they contained ornately carved decorative stonework as well as carved features such as holes for door posts, animal tethers, libation bowls etc.

I could bore you here with a long explanation of the lay-out of the temples but I’ll spare you that. In a nutshell you have two temples enclosed by a huge wall, the older, western temple has five apses and the eastern temple has four plus what the guidebooks call a ‘niche’. The Ggantija temples should not be seen in isolation, this part of the island has many prehistoric monuments. The Brochtorff Circle which is now known as the Xaghra circle is just on the other side of town, the Santa Verna temples lie 700 metres west of town and there are various other bits and bobs including Ta Ghejzu, a cave that yielded pottery from the Ggantija phase and has the possible remains of a temple on it’s margins.

Ggantija is an extremely important site and is treated as such by the Goitans, it has had the full heritage treatment but is not over the top, this is no ‘Stonehenge-site-in-cage’ it is a site you can still interact with and come away feeling that you’ve had a personal experience. As temples go Ggantija is definitely a world class site and my second favourite temple of the islands.

This is a single bowl shaped barrow despite it’s name. I think the name comes from the fact that it is perched on top of a small hill which looks like an extension of the barrow. This positioning would have much more obvious in the past, sadly the barrow is now in a plantation of hideous fir trees.
The barrow itself is in poor condition, trees grow on it but most of the damage has been caused by badgers burrowing in to it. Although it is near a footpath it’s not easy to get to through the thick undergrowth, I had to dig quite a lot of thorns out of my jacket and trousers and I could have lived without the stinging nettles.
It appears to be an outlier from the barrow cemetery on Black hill several hundred metres to the east. Also to the west two barrows are marked as being extant on Tolpuddle Ball, which at some stage I’ll try and visit.
To the north west is Wetherby castle which stands prominent on a hill rising out of the valley floor.

This large bowl barrow, paired with a smaller one, is to the west of Ackling dyke. On the crest of a hill, to the north is Oakley down and to the south is Wyke down barrow cemetery. This area is covered in barrows of all types including several long barrows. To the east of the barrow is the Dorset cursus, indeed on Bottlebush down is some of the remaining cursus bank.
Incidentally the Anglo – Saxon naming is quite rare in Dorset, the Saxons, it’s reckoned didn’t fully conquer the area until about 700c.e.
The word berende means plentiful or productive and may refer to the large size of the barrow. Beorh is the root of the modern word barrow.

A few sad notes about the roundhouse erected in July 06.... Vandals have pushed out two sections of the painted wattle and daub walls and have pulled out chunks of the thatch.

It would be interesting to know where they got the inspiration/source for the carvings and painting from. Decorated bowls perhaps?
Jim.

Located this panel safe and sound after some helpful guidance. It had been buried under a pile of small rocks and was a little muddy. After cleaning it by pouring lots and lots of water over it, the full designs became easy to see.

This is a very nice example, both cup and rings are kind of egg shaped and one has a gutter that runs uphill, the other has a large and deep natural hollow that was incorporated into the outer rings of the other design. An odd little panel.

I covered it back up as found, putting some sods of grass and mud on the designs to ensure I didn’t damage them when I placed the rocks back over the panel. Great to see the panel is safe and sound, hope it stays that way.

I approached the hillfort from the north, passing close by Lanceborough, the massive bell barrow below Maiden Castle. I was hoping to see a long barrow which is shown on O.S and Magic, this now appears to have been completely ploughed out.
Once inside the hillfort I decided to look mainly at the neolithic origins of it. Still visible is the very long bank barrow or possible cursus feature which curves across the northern part of the interior for about 550 metres. It now shows as a low ridge, this area has been ploughed in the past. The original causewayed enclosure is now no longer visible on the ground and is thought to be overlaid by the first phase of the hillfort.
Also visible in the south west corner is a low bronze age bowl barrow.
From the southern rampart I counted twelve round barrows on the ridge of hills a few miles to the south, one of these is a unique hybrid disc/bowl barrow.

Cheshire Wood Cave is located on a high crag at the top of the woods, about 15ft below the ridge line. Access is pretty tricky from below although if you have a head for heights approaching the cave from above is easier and was possibly the original way of entry.
The mouth of the cave is large and impressive with a further crawl in the back of chamber.
Getting a good photo of the cave was almost impossible such is the steepness of the slope below the cave mouth.

Visited in Aug 2007 with my mum in tow. Lucky to have quite a fine day and the views across the water were breathtaking.

The visitor centre is interesting; certainly from my mum’s point of view she found it helpful to have some info about the landscape, geology and the history of the site. Without this, I imagine the actual arachaeology side of it would be rather dull! The huge Scots Pine which is located in the centre is also pretty stunning.

When you get out, you walk among the bog past lines of stone walls; I actually got a bit excited about it all but can appreciate why it may be beyond the interest of the casual observer!

There are the remains of a domestic enclosure which is also really interesting but overall the most spectacular thing about this site is the location. Amazing.

In a green area just off the Stillorgan dual carriageway, this is a great little stone. Over a metre tall, it sits north of a few tennis courts in an area popular with dog-walkers. The limestone rocky outcrops in the field are a surprise: how they have survived, and how the stone has survived, all the ravages of house and road building is a miracle.

A great, semi-buried stone, grafittied and otherwise ignored. The basin is huge, after the soil and broken glass have been removed. Bullauns always fascinate me; how were the basins carved? How long did it take? Were they worked with a denser, harder stone? As is mentioned in Monumental About Pre-historic Dublin (I wouldn’t have found the stone without it!) it would be great to see it raised and the basin enabled to collect rainwater again.

To update the the access situation, the ‘unofficial’ side entrance from the adjacent farm field is now shut off by fencing, so all visitors must follow the official route from the car park.

In winter the path is very muddy and the steep slope leading down to Coldrum Lane from the car park track is very treachurous, so wear good boots and if possible take a walking staff.

The access to Coldrum Longbarrow is now effectively non existent for people of limited mobility, particularly in winter. :(

I would prefer to see some special arrangements made for people with walking difficulties so that they could gain access to at least the lower part of the site by driving up Coldrum Lane, but a key to the gate would have to be made available for such visitors by the locals.

Whilst in general the gate on the lane is a good idea and keeps too many people from driving up the lane, (and has thus reduced vandalism and littering thereby), in this day and age of allegedly improved disabled access policy the changes of late to Coldrum are a retrograde step. :(

Many Blessings.
Oriondruid.

Viisted this last week with Mr Hamhead and Scubi63. I wasn’t previously aware of this site, but took some photos on a glorious autumn morning and stitched the pano photo together.

The circle consists of 15 low granite stones and has a diameter of 20m; it is sited next to the well preserved remains of a Romano British Enclosure into the walls of which some of the stones on the Western side have been incorporated. The circle although quite ruinous is easily recognized, although a number of the stones are hidden by tall grasses.
The extensive site, of which the circle is a part, bears evidence of long term occupation, containing not only the circle and enclosure but four substantial cairnfields, several stone banks, an ancient trackway, hut circles, and the remains of a medieval field system.

This barrow is only really visible from Shapwick churchyard. It is situated on a flood plain next to the river Stour, Badbury rings is about two miles to the north of this site.
The barrow is relatively well known for the engraving of its excavation in 1838. The person responsible for the dig was the Rev. Charles Wools, the then curate of Sturminster Marshall. Wools wrote that “the examination of the Barrow was continued for Eight Days with an indomitable spirit of perseverance.” Work had to stop when they dug below the level of the river and the trench began to flood. A possible Bronze age cremation burial was found.
Wools wrote up the dig in a book called “The Barrow Diggers; a Dialogue in Imitation of the Grave Diggers in Hamlet” a mixture of farce and serious scholarship.

All I can see in this area is one low bowl barrow covered in brambles and scrub. What looks like ditch in the photo is a rut in the track which leads to a gateway into a field. There should be another three barrows in the vicinity, I suspect they’re over a slight rise in the field. As this is private farmland with sheep grazing I didn’t go further into the fields to look for them.

In His book ‘The Stone Circles of Cumbria’ John Waterhouse describes three circles at Gretigate that were not identified until the late 1950’s “by which time they were in a very ruinous condition.

I parked up in Gosforth, crossed the A595T and walked down the track to Seascale Hall. Waterhouse’s sketch map locates the circle on a trackway that runs off the main track at a cottage called Sides. I called in at the cottage and was met by an old fella who was working on his immaculate gardens, obviously a labour of love for him.
“Howdo, do you mind if I have a walk down your lane to have a look at the stones circles?
“Don’t mind at all, if you can find it” he replied and then promptly disappeared into his shed.
Waterhouse’s sketch map places circle A about 100 metres from the cottage and circles B & C another 50 or so metres beyond that.
The only remains of circle A was supposed to be a ‘chord of the circle, about 30m long, which has been incorporated into a stone wall along the edge of the field. Unfortunately this wall is now covered on both sides by a dense overgrowth of every thorn bearing bush known to grow in the British Islands. I managed to hack away at some of this and found a number of large boulders at the base of the wall. Unfortunately boulder based walls are quite common around these parts so in all honesty it was difficult to say if these were the remains of the circle. Examination from the field side was equally impossible, hindered even more by a barbed wire fence.
One possible candidate for a stone was a large plum-shaped boulder that had been dumped amongst a bunch of bramble strewn rubble of the opposite side of the trackway.

As for circles B & C. The lane petered out at a large farm dump that contained decades of accumulated rubbish. Behind this was a narrow wood of low trees that had once been used as a pheasant rearing area. The wood was badly overgrown and the terrier and I spent a good three quarters of an hour hacking our way around it being ripped to shreds by brambles and thorns in the process. After that we turned our attention to the bordering fields. The result of all this activity was that we found absolutely nothing. I can only assume that all visible traces of the three circles are now either beneath the dense woodland mat, ploughed out of the adjacent fields or dumped in the nearby stone dump.

All in all our visit to Gretigate failed to yield any concrete evidence of the stones, we found a couple of possible stones but that was it. Definitely one for the enthusiast.

If you do find yourself in this area, I would recommend a visit to the Gosforth Bakery, a small house just opposite the car park; it’s a pie lover’s paradise. There’s also the beautiful carved Saxon Cross in the parish churchyard.