Latest Fieldnotes

Despite the rather unattractive chicken wire which holds the renovated cairn in place, this site was really intriguing to me. Later than the other burial chambers, the remains of 5 people (3 adults and 2 children) were found here and it is the most elaborate of the sites at Carrowmore.

What fascinated me though was the fact that, despite it having been partially excavted, the packing stones which held the lovely big capstone in place on the orthostats are untouched. I love this fact – what we now see is exactly how it was when it was first built. Fab.

Unfortunatley, the weather was too overcast for us to see the curved rock art which is carved into the capstone.

This is one of those sites that takes your breath away. Despite the rain and mist, which meant we didn’t get to see the site in the context of the surrounding landscape, this felt like one of those places where things just fit together.

I was with my mum, so decided it would be worthwhile taking the guided tour, so that she could have a better understanding of what we were looking at. As it turned out, I too ended up feeling like I understood this place better after spending an hour with the fabulous OPW guide. She was interested AND interesting, answering questions but also asking for our opinions and she skillfully avoided responding to the only other 2 people on our tour who seemed to be into biblical/creationist archaeology and kept referring to Noah a lot! Odd. Mind you, it was raining quite heavily.

She led us on a (chronological) spiral journey through the various sites, explaining the relevance to the surrounding hills (which we couldn’t really see) She also advised us which of the other sites (which weren’t on the tour) we should visit and went into detail about which sites had been excavated and/or altered, so that we got a sense of how this landscape would’ve looked when littered with these amazing burial/ritual sites.

If you come here with non-stoney folk in tow, I would recommend taking the tour for their sake as my mum was as giddy as a kipper by the end of it all – she said she could now understand why I am so enthusaistic about all things old and stoney and spent most of the next day asking me hundreds of questions. Some achievement!

Louven Howe represents the highest point in this chain of barrows and stands just by the junction of several tracks. One leads north into Sneaton High Moor Woods, one south into Langdale Forest, one southeast towards Scarborough and one northwest along the same ridge as Ann Cross and Foster Howes.

About half a mile southeast of the Foster Howe barrows on the same ridge stands the lowish barrow at Ann Cross. EH record it as being about 18 metres diameter by 1.2 metres high although it seemed smaller to me (non megalithic push-bike included in photo for scale). They also mention a 2 metre wide ditch and some traces of a stone kerb neither of which I can confirm as I didn’t notice either feature in the short time I was there. It does however have the ubiquitous crater left behind by those naughty early antiquarians who seemed to love excavating barrows but weren’t so keen on actually recording what they found. Canon Greenwell had this to say on the subject in 1890 when he wrote about the barrows of the area – “Nearly all the barrows have been opened, and many of them in quite recent times, but no account of these examinations has been recorded, so far as I am aware, except a short notice of the openings of some on Cloughton Moor”.
While the barrow has great views west, the eastward view towards the sea is now partly blocked by the trees of Louven Howe Side and Pike Hill.

Cross over from the ‘cairn’ on Prince William’s seat, down the track to a bog and up again to this very peculiar, altar-like outcrop. It stands proud of the surrounding peat to about 4 metres tall. It sits there brooding like some broken-down tank or an exhausted rhinoceros, completely out of place on these wind-swept hills. And yet, where else would it be? The only comparison I can think of is The Cheesewring, with its eroded formations.
There is one stone, the top stone, that seems to have been worked by human hand, with a shallow mini-bullaun. It’s quite an eerie place. My dog got quite antsy while we were here but that may have been because he smelt the local goats. Was this a ‘sacred’ place to the ancients? It affords the same type of views that Prince William’s Seat with its dubious cairn has, though there is very little else of megalithic significance hereabouts.

I started at the car-park at O185168 on the Glencree to Enniskerry road where the Wicklow Way crosses and heads around Knockree. Follow the Wicklow Way until you get above the forestry line and turn left. This track heads off south around the summit of Prince William’s Seat but there’s a right turn after about 200 metres. Take this and head up.
I’m not too sure about this being a cairn. The trig point in cemented onto an outcrop. There are very few signs of cairn rubble, just some large stones of the same conglomerate as the outcrop.
The views from here are spectacular, south and west over to Kippure, Tonduff and Djouce, east to the 2 Sugar Loafs, north-north-east to Howth and north down the Glencullen valley.

The OS 1:50000 map shows two barrows here but there are actually three that stand in an almost north-south line along Foster Howes Ridge with the land falling away gently on each side. The barrows are visible from some distance, particularly when approached from the northwest when they are silhouetted on the skyline and there are fine views across Goathland Moor to the southwest and down to the sea at Robin Hoods Bay to the east from the barrows themselves.
When approached by track from this northwest direction it is the smaller northern barrow that is met with first, with the central barrow just beyond it but on the other side of the fence. The third (and largest) barrow stands a little further away just to the west of a gate and stile. This southernmost barrow also had a stone kerb although a very quick rummage through the heather only turned up one stone – there may be more. All three barrows show the signs of previous diggings with craters in the top, the one to the south has a rough looking boundary stone in it’s crater, the central barrow is also said to have it’s own stone although I can’t confirm this.

This is a difficult mound to photograph as it is so badly covered in heather and is also the most low lying barrow of the group, indeed if you draw a line linking all the barrows together then Robbed Howe marks the lowest point of that line – from here it’s uphill in either direction.

The smaller stone here has been so regularly shaped that it would be impossible to tell if it had a prehistoric origin. The larger stone is a difficult one to call as far as I’m concerned, it may be prehistoric but has been tooled on one face and at least one side with the face bearing an inscription from 1784. The barrow is also a little suspicious due to it’s size and the fact that although it’s marked as tumulus on the map it doesn’t appear in my copy of the SMR.
Scratch head and file under Hmmm....

This is the easiest barrow of this group to visit as it stands just a few metres to the west of a small car parking area next to the Whitby – Goathland road. EH says it measures about 13 metres by 1 metre tall and like many of these barrows has a large hollow in its top – the result of antiquarian excavations or plundering in the past. While Breckon Howe is clearly visible from here, I don’t think the next barrow in the chain, Flass Brow, can be seen from this point (I need to check the sightline again)
Although Sil Howe appears on the SMR it is not shown on either the 1:50000 or 1:25000 OS maps. This seems rather strange as it was formerly the home of the Lilla cross between 1952-1962 which would have been a prominent local landmark.

Access: Easy to reach from the Dolmen de Crucuno, as it is right beside the road from Crucuno to the D105. The monument is up a high verge, which is short but quite steep.

Take the D781 between Erdeven and Plouharnel, turning NE to the village of Crucuno. You can’t miss the Dolmen of Crucuno as it is against the wall of a farmhouse-type building on the village green.

To reach Mané Groh, continue through the village for around 500 metres, just past a forestry road into the woods on the left. Park on the right (east) of the road, the dolmen is on the left. Or park at the little carpark a little way up the forestry road and walk back.

Coët-er-Bei is only a few hundred metres away along the forestry road, bearing right and is signposted from there.

Alternatively, include as part of a walk between the woods and Erdeven, taking in the Alignements de Kerzerho, the Menhirs de Kerjean, Mané Braz and Coët-er-Bei (including La Chaise de César).

Visited Sunday 17 April 2005
A beauty! I failed to find this when I was in Brittany in the late 90s, mainly because I had really lousy maps, no time, a partner who wasn’t very interested, and I thought it was in the woods....

Nothing really to add to Jane and Mark’s descriptions, so I’ll shut up!

Access: A fair walk, I reached the monument(s) from Erdeven (Les Alignements de Kerzerho via the Menhirs de Kerjean.

From Erdeven, the walk to Mané Braz was probably around 30-40 minutes, though it has to be said that the rain lent me speed!

Could also be reached in the opposite direction through the woods from Mané Groh, via Coët-er-Bei (and La Chaise de César).

The walk through the woods is all on good but circuitous tracks (not too muddy even in the filthy weather I had!). Mostly pretty flat with only a few pretty gentle gradients.

All along, I was very grateful that the paths were signposted, as it was so wet that I don’t think the rain would have done a map or a book any good at all. And truth be told, the only maps I had would probably have proved sadly inadequate.

Just before I reached Mané Braz, the path started to climb a bit, and the land began to rise above me on my left. Probably at around this point, Julian seems to describe the dolmens as being visible from the path, but I wasn’t in the mood for stopping and studying the lie of the land any more than necessary, trusting completely to the signs.

(I think there’s probably also a shortcut at some point here but I didn’t think it was worth trying, especially with limited time and the sopping undergrowth.)

Visited Sunday 17 April 2005
Really beautiful on a thinly tree-grown, glade-like mound, there are 4 monuments in one here, all originally having apparently been covered by a single oval mound or tumulus.

The first 2 that I approached (from the SE) were a classic Brittany passage grave with transepts, and a ‘simpler’ passage grave. There is also a heavily denuded semi-subterranean one and, finally, the stripped remnants of another (that can hardly even be termed megalithic in its current state!)

If only the sun had been out, what a place for a relaxing picnic, a chill and a chat!!! And the walk would be lovely in the sun! I’ve since learnt that there seems to be another very ruined dolmen to the SW of the mound, and a fallen menhir to the south.

I spent 15-20 minutes at the dolmens and it wasn’t nearly long enough. It didn’t help that a fair bit of it was spent crouching in the chamber of the largest dolmen, juggling batteries, as I’d forgotten to recharge our SLR and those in our ‘point & shoot’ were now also practically dead.

Although this poor Long Barrow has been almost completely ploughed out, it is well worth visiting because of its spectacular setting. Situated on one of the highest parts in Hampshire (234M.), the views encompass nearly the whole of the county and the N. of the I.O.W.
Deep combes to the E. and Butser Hill,Old Winchester Hill to the W, Southampton Fawley and the Solent to the SW and the N. Hampshire Downs and Beacon Hill to the N.

It is shocking that this ancient relic has no protection. So far as I could see, ploughing may well be going on (The site was under grass silage), and within a lifetime could destroy all traces of the barrow.
Why not impose a small exclusion zone as has been done elsewhere?
(MAGIC says it survives well. Hmmm!)

In all my pictures the barrow is the vague hump in the extreme foreground!

Access
Rough but adequate track to the W. of the disused MOD site leads to radio masts and parking by the barn. Short walk on level but rutted foot path (South Downs Way) and the barrow is just, barely, visible in the second field on the left.

Access: From the Alignements de Kerzerho and Les Géants on the same good paths and forestry lanes. Could also be reached in the opposite direction through the woods from Mane Groh, via Coet-er-Bei (and La Chaise de César).

Following the signs through the woods towards Mane Braz dolmens it was only 5 or 10 minutes before I could see the Kerjean Menhirs peeking through the trees to the right of the path.

Visited Sunday 17 April 2005
These might be more difficult to spot with growth on the trees in the summer, but shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

There are a fair number of stones left here, mostly smaller than the remaining Kerzerho alignments and far smaller than Les Géants. But still well worth seeing in their disarray, and helping to get a feel of what this area must’ve been like when the alignments stretched for kilometres through the now wooded area.

Just around one of the next corners, there are a few stones visible to the left of the path in the woods (probably quite a few if you’re up to having a thrash about in the undergrowth). For all the paths through these woods it’s well worth scanning the woods on both sides, as there are many small ‘patches’ of remnants from the originally wide-ranging alignments hereabouts.

Access: Car park next to the stones at Erdeven. Good even grassy paths between the stones. Travel to Erdeven on the D781. Just to the SE of the village, there is a carpark on the NE side of the road.

Visited Sunday 17 April 2005
I first saw these stones in about 1998 on the way to Carnac and was wiped out!

I guess they’re less impressive than the various other Carnac alignments in terms of numbers and extent, but they’re accessible at all times, beautiful and still damned impressive.

Les Géants de Kerzerho: Les Géants are a walk of a few hundred metres at most on flat, pretty even ground. The path is grassed through the main Kerzerho stones and then a pretty good grass/dirt path (not too muddy when we were there).

The (signposted) path to Les Géants de Kerzerho sets off from very near the car park, on the left as you walk along the main rows.

Visited Sunday 17 April 2005
After a false start missing the path, a short distance down the path, there they were. And very wonderful they are too.

As they’re now quite isolated a short distance from the remaining main part of the Kerzerho alignments, it’s kind of difficult to get a ‘handle’ on just why these extra large stones are bunched together like this. Possibly if the intervening stones were still there or if there wasn’t vegetation inbetween, it’d make more sense.

Unfortunately, I forgot about the holed stone Julian mentions, as I was unwilling to get TME out of my rucksack in the heavy rain.

The alignments here must have been absolutely magnificent once, as they’re still fantastically impressive in their ruin. What it must’ve been to see them and the other small patches of alignments still evident right across the woods when they were all continuous!

I have visited Crucuny a number of times over the years. It is an impressive mound and I used to like catching out of the corner of my eye from the road to Carnac.
It is pot-luck as to whether you find it covered in six foot high vegetation or shaved clean by the council’s rather aggressive looking lawnmower.
I will, at some point, work out how many of these Grand Tumuli were intervisible in a landscape with less trees...

Approximate long/lat coordinates, as I couldn’t see the site on the (inline) aerial photomap.

Access: The easiest way to reach this site is in the opposite direction to the one I took, by setting off from Mané Groh.

I reached the monument(s) from Erdeven (Les Alignements de Kerzerho via the Menhirs de Kerjean and Mané Braz. The walk was a fair one – probably around an hour, not counting looking time at the monuments on the way! (Luckily I got picked up by Jane in the car at the other end....)

From Mané Braz, I rejoined the main path and continued on away from Erdeven, following signs to Mané Groh. As it happened, we’d been there earlier but I’d forgotten its name!

After around 15 minutes I suddenly saw a sign to my left for a ‘new’ monument. I’d completely forgotten about La Chaise de César and Coët er Bei (not daring to get The Megalithic European (TME) out in the constant downpour) but here they were! And even better, I could just see the stones through the trees.

I walked quickly along the path to reach the nearest stones, and quickly realised I’d been here before. On a previous trip in the late 90s, on leaving the Dolmen de Crucuno I’d rushed trying to find another dolmen (which I now discovered was Mané Groh). On that occasion I’d missed the dolmen but I had happened across some stones. Until now I’d never known what they were....

Visited Sunday 17 April 2005
There were a lot more stones here than I’d seen (in a hurry) on that occasion. Approaching from the path, La Chaise de César itself doesn’t stand out quite as one might expect, as there are a few other stones around the same size here. It’s impressive though, and unmistakeable – it is indeed, very chairlike!

Interestingly, in TME Julian calls the La Chaise a “gorsedd”. This seems strange to me, as a gorsedd in the sense he usually uses it is a natural rock formation (or so I always thought) whereas this is clearly an artificially erected stone.

The stones are very scattered but impressive, and many are difficult to ‘see’ as rows. It’s indisputable, but very difficult to imagine that they were once part of same alignments as Kerzerho, Kerjean and the various other groups I’d walked past. Especially as I’d walked, so knew just how far they once stretched!

To reach Mané Groh from here, simply return to the main forestry road a few hundred yards until you reach the tarmaced ‘real’ road (from Crucuno). Turn left and Mané Groh is a very short distance on the verge to the left.

At last I have managed to visit this small round Somerset hillfort. Access is very easy via foot paths from Dunster but it is six hundred feet up and is a pretty stiff climb, the views from the fort are well worth the effort.
It has low ramparts made up of small pieces of local stone piled up into banks. I doubt it is as high as it used to be as it appears to be very disturbed in places. No doubt it has been used as a quarry by local people. For most of the circumference there are two banks and a ditch. The interior covers three and a half acres and evidence of occupation has been found.

When the Saxon/Norman church was demolished in 1876, it was found that the old tower had been built on a circle of 12 Sarsen stones. They were described as “A Druidical Temple” at the time and the builders blamed the difficulty of working around them as one of the reasons for the cost/time overrun of the new church. This was designed by the famous Victorian architect Sir Alfred Waterhouse (Nat Hist Mus, Manchester Town Hall etc.) and he put the new tower on the site of the old and used the old circle again for the foundations. Nothing to see above ground sadly but another nice example of one religion imposing itself on another.

(Two prone Sarsens by footbridge over the River Itchen and fine ancient clipped Yew to the north)

As Jane has said, easily to find just off the main road to Cala en Porter, this site has ample free parking, but a small entrance fee is payable and a guide leaflet is available at the hut.

A pair of unloved and unsignposted talaiots only yards from the roundabout at the exit from the airport road. Directly under the flight path of everything, I’d guess!

The grid reference is for the better preserved of the two; its more ruinous neighbour is about 50 metres east of here.

Directions: when you come out of the airport, take a right at the roundabout onto the M12 and after about 300 metres, take the narrow left turn just past the first buildings. The road winds round and at the T head, go right. The talaiots are in the field just past the last buildings on the right.

Off the main road from Porto Christo to Porto Colom, just past a zoo, there’s a left turn to Cales de Mallorca – also with the pink sign to Hospitalet Vell. The first site that was clearly marked on our (AA) map as “ruinas prehistoricas”!

Only about 1km down the road, you can see what appears to be a huge wall to the right a way off the road, and soon after there’s another sign and a layby in front of a gate where we parked up and walked up the track to the poblat.

Before you actually get to the wall you’ve seen, a signpost directs you to the left to the foundations of 3 naviforms with a small wood still separating you from the major part of the site.

Back round the wood and the sheer scale of what appeared to be a wall reveals itself as a rectangular monument with the huge blocks of stone typical of the building style of the era. The interior of this monument had inner walls added later.

Exploring round the back, a path leads to the left to a square talaiot with a series of rooms around it and wooden steps to allow visitors to admire the central support pillar of the talaiot and the only known remaining spars which formed the ceiling and second floor – the last century hasn’t been kind to the momuments on the island and many have been left to go to ruin, if not ruined intentionally.

Beyond the talaiot and surrounding rooms, there’s a heavily overgrown area with more ruins extending into the woods.

Limited parking, open access & no entrance fee.

This site is on the road out of Porto Colom towards S’Horta – the road narrows as it leaves the urban area and the roadside stones – a naviform – are clearly visible on the right hand side.

Almost all the site is in the process of being excavated, but at a very slow rate (20 days a year apparently) and almost all was covered with black tarp and spikes, and we could only make out only one naviform in the uncovered area beyond the road and that was becoming overgrown.

Listed as naviform as this is what’s visible but thought to be a settlement of more than 10 buildings.

Signposted off the main road from Capdepera to Son Cervera, just before Canyamel Golf Club, this one is a bit of a mystery.

The pink sign says “Es Claper des Gigant” – nb the first time we tried to visit was a Sunday and the gate was padlocked with no way in – but open the 2nd time so we could park and walked round and came out on the path round a golf course.

Almost immediately, there’s a path off to the left with a wooden sign for “Es Clapers” so we followed the way through a wooded area until we came to a gate and turned right at the T head through it on the basis that my instructions said the talaiot was on high ground.

There were gardeners out on the wide sandy track cutting back the undergrowth, and a few minutes walk later we caught a glimpse of some stone ahead so took a left fork off the main path and after a short climb found ourselves here.

A beautiful talaiot with a path up its side so you can see the entrance, blocked from the outside, and a series of walls and enclosures beyond it .... only checking my notes, I realised it’s the poblat of S’Heretat we were in. But the signpost was quite clear ....

So I’ve listed it as both names and hope someone can identify the location of Es Clapers or confirm that that is the name of the talaiot in the poblat.

Two square talaiots, right next to each other; the first one you come to has a modern wall enclosing it and was very overgrown when we visited – it was all but impossible to see the zigzag entrance runner or the central column, and the second one is so ruinous it’s barely more than a pile of stones in the field boundary.

Directions: From Sencelles take the PM314 south to Cas Canar. After the houses at Cas Canar, just as the road bends sharply to the right, take the turning to the right watch for a pair of gates on the left – one low and rusty, the other over 8ft high with spikes on the top, opposite a sign saying “Sencelles 2,8”, – as you look at the gates the talaiots are in the field to the left.