Latest Fieldnotes

This site, though grouped with Nuraghe Albucciu and Malchittu, has free access. The tombi is not particularly well conserved – the central stele, or portal stone, is missing and there’s only one capstone left, but the corridor of almost 10 metres is impressive, and probably originally an allée couverte reused and restyled as a tomba in the bronze age.

Nuraghe Albucciu is just outside Arzachena on the SS125 and well signposted in the vicinity. It has an information office/shop with parking on the opposite side of the road to the nuraghe, which is reached through an underpass. We bought tickets to visit here, and Malchittu and Coddu Vecchju, at 5½ euros per person (includes an A5 colour site guide for each of the 3); the site is open from 09:00 – 19:00; the shops sell the expected range of drinks and souvenirs, and has clean toilets round the back; there’s a café right next door.

The nuraghe was built onto the side of a granite cliff. The entrance is on the east side and above it you can see corbels which would have supported a wooden balcony; inside, there’s a tholos (false domed ceiling) room on the right with a niche in the far wall which once led to another entrance to the nuraghe cut into the cliff, and to the left is a low entrance to a possible store room. Both these rooms have no natural light, but an electric lamp is supplied for visitors. A central staircase leads up to the terrace level, where you get a good view of the rooms surrounding the tower, and to the south a few steps down take you through a doorway into the largest room, with one wall of solid granite, and two windows constructed with the narrower part to the outside.

Finds from the site are exhibited at the museum in Sassari.

Everything people say about this being a magical place is quite true. You can’t help but be quiet and respectful as the stones appear one by one, forming a broken and scattered circle. ShropshireTraveller has posted a map at the Megalithic Portal website (see link off main Rempstone page) that is pretty accurate from my visit to this site in September ‘07. I would just place the layby a bit further west. I recommend anyone planning a visit to print that map off first. The shrubs and nettles have grown a lot by the verge of the road since the 2004 photos you see here, and you won’t be able to see the stones from the road, but you can still get in easily enough. Just before the autumn equinox , the sun set into the base of the ridge of Nine Barrows Down as it stretches away to the west.

After a difficult 20 to 30 minute walk (perhaps 1 km long over rough ground, uphill through woodland) we reached Le grand dolmen de la bergerie de panissiere.

It’s essentially a passage cairn with a dolmen-like structure at its heart, surrounded by about 5ms diameter of cairny rubble with intriguing standing stones pointing out of its outer edge. It’s clear it’s been restored but rather well we felt. We sat and got our breath back before pushing on.

A beautiful dolmen, recently excavated and reconstructed. Start with this one and leap like a deer up the limestone terraces toward dolmen 2 (just 20 ms away) and (dolmen 3) about 50ms away.

To have three monuments, in such good condition within site of each other in such a spectacular setting is marvellous.

The morning looked bright and clear, and so a quick visit to this barrow (i only live minutes away) seemed an easy option to grab some photographs.

The barrow is located above the Devil’s Punchbowl and not far from the Ridgeway itself. I parked where the Ridgeway crosses the Lambourn Road, and where the Model Aeroplane Club have their site.

By the time I got half way across the field, I realised that I wasn’t dressed up enough to cope with the icy wind which blasted away and nearly took me hat with it a couple of times.

This was a nice reminder for me of what I always preach to others, which is: always go properly dressed if you’re going up the rudge. It may be pleasant and warm down in the valley, but it’s amazing how a few hundred feet up the chalk, the wind, temperature and weather can be totally different!

Away to my right, and on the distant horizon, I could make out the large hump which has Beacon Hill Hillfort on its crest. The view down into the Vale is outstanding on a clear day, and to my left I could see over to Boars Hill. Ahead, the towers and chimney stack of Didcot Power Station dominate the landscape. Glancing over my shoulder I could make out the denuded barrow of Pigtrough Bottom and wondered if the two graves were related in any way (same period, or possibly even same tribe?).

The lump lies next to the fence and nearly adjacent to a small stile. Once across, I had a close up look. There’s a single Elder bush next to it that seems to be doing quite well, given the exposed location. The usual bunny holes have penetrated the barrow in a few places and were quite deep. A quick rummage around the spoilheap, but no treasure was found!

The grave sits not far from the edge of the punchbowl and I thought about all the times I’ve walked here and never gone the extra few feet to investigate. The Punchbowl is an impressive piece of topography, in a funny kind of way, like the manger below Uffington Castle, although not quite as stunning.

The last time I was in the vicinity was to walk my friends lurcher, Lenny, who sadly passed away (old age) a few years ago, he’d definately of flushed any bunnys out and had a good time!

I took a few snaps (before I lossed all feeling in me paws) and wandered over across the ploughed piece towards the edge of the punchbowl. An object caught my eye on the ground, and I bent down to pick up a coin. Upon closer inspection it turned out to be a half penny of George VI from 1949 in very good nick.

Happy that I’d found treasure (a stone with a hole in it is a valuable treasure to me – i’m easily pleased), I started back to the motor and it was good to finally get out of the wind.

PS When I got home, i looked on Google Earth and you can make out lots of marks on the ground near this site – could those be remains of the workings that J R L Anderson saw when he visited?

Outside the village of St Alban Auriolles, if you climb up the hill at the back of the village towards an old chapel is the dolmen du Calvaire. A walk over the limestone outcrops towards it – the same limestone which the dolmen is built from – gives the impression that the dolmen spontaneously, and quite naturally, appears from the ground.

Inside the lovely chamber was a visitors book and I was quite surprised to see how many people had visited it quite recently. But then it is signposted from the village. The dolmen itself is a classic stone box: two stones each side, one at the back and one on top. Simple and perfect.

It’s a short but very steep climb up a path (follow the brown painted marks on the rocks) through grassy, low scrubby bushes to the hilltop. Even though the dolmen isn’t in perfect condition, and the climb is steep, it’s well worth the hike simply to see this monument in its commanding position. It once had two capstones, but one has fallen inwards and the other fallen back. Its sides and back are still in position. It’s been a bit carelessly restored with some ugly cement here and there, and in one side is a curious hole, probably a result of breakages over time than an original feature.

Not very easy to find involving a drive along some hair raisingly small lanes. From ponsanooth, take the turning at the bridge (centre of village) past shop and school and head up very narrow, steep lane until you meet t junction at top (approx 1 mile). Straight accross is a farm track which leads to Tory farm. From here bear right on a footpath accross a couple of fields, the stone is directly in front of Tremenheere farmhouse. 9ft tall with a square-ish profile and slightly bulbous top. Has metal eyelet fixed into it at the top, apparently once attatched to a washing line.

I decided to head up here finally to to see if this monument is aligned to the Equinox sunrise (as predicted by Fourwinds).
It was a fabulous morning and myself and my Dad sat around on the crisp 22nd of September morn waiting for the sun to rise.
When it finally did, we made a few interesting observations. The first was that the sun does enter the right hand side of the chamber (looking in) lighting it up pretty well. However due to the number of gaps now in the exterior of the tomb any effect is really lost.
We decided it may be worth coming up here next equinox with some black plastic bags to try and darken it as much as possible.
The second interesting thing was the way the sun shone thru the back chamber. I was inside the main chamber snapping away when my Dad spotted it.
Im not sure it this the second chamber was open to the east originally but it looks like a pretty good fit for the equinox sunrise. It may be just a coincidence but if say the east end of the chamber was open but the rest closed off it would surely light the small chamber completely on the Equinox?
The stone itself seems to be lintel like. themodernantiquarian.com/site/1034/baurnadomeeny.html
Perhaps the main chamber is aligned to a different sunrise, I would be interested to know which way the sun rises on say Winter Solistice, is it further north or south than at the equinox?

Following a post on the forum, it seems like the summer solstice sunrise may have the best chance of entering the chamber.

Update
I headed up here on the 22nd of December and thankfully the sun was shining at sunrise. Amazingly enough there were 3 more people up here, so that made a welcome change. The sun seems to shine into the rear portico at right angles to the length of the tomb.
Two of the people that were there had been up there the previous Summer Solstice morning and confirmed that the sun does shine into the main chamber on this day over the foothill of the Mahurslieve. So that is definitely a time for further research.

This holy well is fantastic. When I first got there I was acutally a bit spooked by the area. The trees really enclose it and it is pretty dark beside the well.
It took a bit of time to get used to the unsettling feeling that the place gives off but once I did I relaxed and you really get a very tramquil feeling of the place.
It still seems to be in use today with lots of offering there and the water seems fresh.
As Fourwinds mentions the eddys in the well are lovely and Im sure they were one of the reasons for locating here and for the wells “sacredness”.
There is now also a timber path going from the Kyle to the well so it would be very hard to miss it now.
There can be cows/ cattle and horses in the fields so keep an eye out.

To get a view of the well at a different time of view see Fourwinds site here megalithomania.com/show/site/1239/Kilberrihert.htm

Not much to see up here either. This mound can only be barely seen as a slight difference in the grass. I believe that archaeology.ie has this referenced as a stone circle for some reason. There is no sign of any stone in the area.
There is a pretty large Rath that is circled on the map just next to it.

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