Latest Fieldnotes

This single stone is visible from the Dorchester to Broadmayne road. It is however on private farm land along with the other stones that once may have formed a circle here. There are signs up here threatening legal action against trespassers, but apparently the people who live on the site will allow people on the place by prior arrangement.

These fieldnotes relate to the barrows in the pictures numbered 1 to 5. They are situated between Came down golf course and Bincombe hill barrows. These are one large bowl barrow, the western bell barrow about 90 feet in diameter and 20 in height, the eastern about 60 by 15 feet.
The west barrow has distinct platform or berm about 10 feet wide around the base, a ditch about 2 feet deep surrounds the whole monument. It is rather unkempt and has some damage from rabbit holes, it has also been excavated at some stage.
The eastern barrow looks to be in better condition, however it has been ploughed in the past and has lost it’s outer ditch.
I have included these here as they don’t really make sense on their own, they seem to be part of a huge barrow cemetery which covers the hillside in this area, including both Came sets , Bincombe and West/East hills.

I’ve been to a lot of stone circles but this one is amongst my favourites, you can park quite near, the surrounding scenery is just beautiful, the stones seem to be picked for there ability to reach inside you and stick in your memory for ages, I really love this one. I’d drive all night just to see this one little four poster and it would be well worth it, I’ll be back again and again .

I was a little thrown by the stones being on a golf course, not being a player the only golf course I know is my local one which is considerably bigger than this one, but when I got there about tea-time no one was there at all but then it had been raining nonstop for two days.
We parked the car in the small street leading to the club and crunched along the path to the hut (which was shut) and there in the distance were the stones, looming large through the fine rain.
Boy are these stones big, you know they’re big but your’e never really prepared for stones of this size. After the wife and kids had gone back to the car a fox came along, the wind was the right way so he didn’t smell me, I crept slowly toward him until he saw me at about 30 metres, we looked at each other and then he was gone. I’d really like to come back one warm summer evening.

There are actually six barrows on this site. The two western most are large,one bell and one bowl type in good condition, the most easterly of the group is also in fairly good nick. The rest of the barrows are very knocked about, they look to have been very roughly excavated in the past.
They are in a row from west to east along the ridge of a hill overlooking the village of Chaldon Herring or East Chaldon. They are very prominent on the horizon from the valley to the south below. There are barrows all along the spine of this hill including the Lord’s barow to the west.

A pair of heathland barrows, one large, one much smaller. The big barrow has a large cleft in the top of it, obvious signs of excavation. Both are covered in ferns and gorse, but in good condition. Both these barrows have very well preserved and prominent banks and ditches. These are unusual locally as most barrows are on farmed land and have been ploughed.
The ditch around the big barrow is about two metres deep, I couldn’t see over the lip of the bank while standing in the bottom of the ditch.
Access to these mounds is very easy as they are on Tadnoll and Winfrith nature reserve.

The OS map was pretty vague about where exactly the walls are, firstly we took the middle path that goes high but under the bridge ...not that way ,next we went left and ended up at the rivers edge beautiful but...not that way,after an hour and half we took one last chance and wahay we found them . There are bigger and wider cliffs and walls but they chose these two little ones out of the way, very strange.
They do look very faded but still visible, we asked four people if they knew where the rock art was, but to no avail so god knows how brainless kids found them I don’t know what can be done to protect them but something should be done. There was no directions from the car park nor any mention of them at all ,Returning to the car I felt a bit of a plonker upon realising how close to the car they were. A wonder of prehistory hiding in the forest known only to a few . I liked it here a lot.

Hi. Sorry its taken so long to reply to this. I have been away for a while. I didn’t mean that Barbrook Moor was in any immediate danger, except for that of visitors stomping all over the sites.
I was just really shocked to see that this (and other) sites are not better cared for. Most people are unaware of them anyway I suppose or just don’t care. But I feel they are a valuable part of our heritage and so much can be learned about our ancestors from them. When I was on Barbrook Moor I felt that it more could be done to protect thes and other sites. I read so much about ancient sites that have been documented in the early 1900’s but have disappeared since then and I am just afraid that soon we will loose all of these sites.
Sorry if I caused any confusion or worry, it was just an observation.
Much love
Karris

A pair of large bowl barrows on the ridge of a low hill. These are quite overgrown with scrub, the western one is about twenty feet high and fifty feet in diameter, the eastern one about a third smaller.
Both these barrows were excavated by E.Cunnington in the late 19th century. He found a crouched burial the eastern barrow with a pot and 6 flint arrowheads, these are very fine barbed and tanged variety and are called “Conygar” type arrowheads. They appear to be too delicate for use and seem to have been made for burial. The western barrow contained an inhumation and several cremations.
The position of these two barrows seems to be quite important, their placement in the ancient landscape appears to be no accident. To the north east the Mount Pleasant henge is in plain view, also a now lost large henge on the site of the bypass around Dorchester, called Flagstones would have been directly north.
Maiden castle can be clearly seen to the west, Came woods and Came down barrows are visible to the south and south west. Now obscured by houses and other buildings, map elevations show that both Maumbury rings and Poundbury hillfort would also have been in plain sight from these two barrows.
This pair of barrows are very accessible, they are several hundred yards only from a large housing estate. A public footpath runs straight past them. Although a busy road is only about two hundred yards away noise is minimal and the views from this site are well worth seeing.

I’m embarrassed to say that I couldn’t find this one. I think I must have been on the wrong path. I hope so, I’d hate to think it’s gone.

I hope that if it has been moved, it’s somewhere safe.

A small group of round barrows below Flowers barrow hillfort. Also in this group are the adjacent Water barrows, which I will include here as well. These round barrows are on m.o.d. land used as tank gunnery ranges, which are usually only accessible at weekends, the roads are closed when firing is in progress. You can’t actually walk on this site, due to possible unexploded ordnance, but they are clearly visible from the roadside. It is possible to park in a nearby farm gate entrance.

Whereas the site has always been within a fenced area, overgrown and neglected and with a landowner who didn’t want people to enter the site I am happy to report that it is now a delight to visit.

The grass has been cut back, and the fences have been repositioned. There is now no fence between the site and the layby/parking place. If you want to visit the immediately adjacent chambered tomb, though, be prepared to climb a (nice, new, shiny) fence and risk the wrath of the land owner.

This is a massive and quite confusing site. The outer ramparts are three miles in length and enclose an area of 210 acres. The confusion is in large part to do with the amount of quarrying that is and has taken place on this site. What look like banks are spoil heaps, only once you get to the outer edge of the hilfort does it become more clear what is going on.
It commands a hilltop with 360 degree views of the surrounding country. The easiest part to walk around is the northern end, where there is a large war memorial. This is a mainly bivallate hillfort, with a third bank and ditch at some lower points in the perimeter.
Within the interior is a modern stone circle, which I have included to show the stone which is still being quarried from this site. Most of the surrounding villages are built of this redddish stone.

I decided to have a closer look at the first barrow in this group. It’s a very unusual example, possibly unique, as it is a large bell barrow with a very wide platform or berm, a deep ditch and a two foot high surrounding bank. This has much more in common with disc type barrows which more normally contain a small mound within the banks. L.V.Grinsell picks this barrow out as being particularly unusual in his book. I have seen this barrow mentioned in other books, such as Dorset’s Archaeology by Peter Stanier as a unique example of a bell/disc barrow.

Following my discovery of the roadworks on the barrow and a phonecall to Kent Heritage, I went visiting today. A team of three, including a young lady who I have been emailing regarding the Medway Megaliths for six months, were busy mapping the site, and then I got a nice surprise. Thinking they were getting ready to explore the pothole repair, I was stunned to be shown a large, squarish hole with a buried kerbstone, beneath the tarmac and metalling of the road. I was told I was only the 4th person to see that stone in over 500 years, which is a bit of a buzz!

The road is now closed for “as long as it takes” and I have been invited back at the weekend to see the next stage. They are planning a fullscale survey and possible excavation in the next 12 months, and will keep me informed so I can visit every day and blog it.

And about bloody time too...

PS In return for showing me underground, the team asked that I ask that no visitors descend on them this weekend please! Next year, when the real work begins, no problem.

This is a large, mixed set barrows of different sizes and shapes. There are some very large bowl shapes, one bell and one probable pond barrow. Most of them are in good condition, only one has very obvious signs of excavation, it has been very bashed about and it is difficult to tell what shape it was originally.
The placing of the barrows on the spine of the hill gives excellent views both north and south. The island of Portland is in plain sight.
These barrows are in a long group which runs the length of the south Dorset ridgeway, this group extends from the Bincombe/Came set.
Between a bell shaped barrow and the eastern most barrows an ancient, sunken trackway runs down the hillside.

Only three barrows can be seen at the moment, the rest are obscured by the crops growing in the main field. The barrows are of the bowl type and are in good condition. West hill overlooks the hill of Chalbury, an early univallate hillfort.

This cup-and-ring marked stone was “raised” prior to 1867 by Mr A. Ferguson, school-master of Cargill.
It is recorded in Canmore under NMRS-number NO13NE 8 (Newbigging/Balholmie House) and NO13NW 9 (Balhomie/Balholmie).
The original finding place is not known and it is not clear when and why it was moved to Balholmie House.

Sits in a field to the south of Boscastle / Tintagel. Easily reached by road with fantastic views out to sea or over to Bodmin Moor and beyond.

Carreg Samson is a favourite, wander round the cliff path from the village, the farmhouse route looks pretty boring. Chunky is the best way to describe the dolmen, standing at the head of a small pretty valley that runs down to the
sea, the great capstone perched on three of the seven large uprights forms an oval/polygonal chamber. It dips towards the bay and Strumble Head, dominated by the peaks of Garn Fawr, Garn Gilfach and Garn Wnda, again the siting of the tomb is not on high ground, its reference point seems to be easy accessability to the sea and stream that runs down a few yards away. The chamber being constructed over an irregularly cut pit, stones that may have been found in the chamber could be put down to the fact that it was recently recorded that it was used as sheep shelter and had drystone walling inserted between the stones. There is no direct evidence for a covering mound but Nash suggests that the elongated shape of the stones points to a covering mound, not unlike Pentre Ifan
Three of its stones are of similar material and stand in a small row together, whether these stones are part of an earlier monument I don’t know but Figgis says
that there was some mesolithic flintwork found within the tomb, so perhaps it points to a ‘returning place’ which had special significance.

ref; Neolithic Sites – Geo.Nash and Geo.Children
Prehistoric Preseli – Figgis

This is a chambered long cairn and the remains of its mound can still be seen. Set high on a hill, with, at the moment,(which must have been in March 2007) hundreds of sheep and lambs cavorting around, this is one of those spectacularly rocky places, with stones protruding from the ground everywhere. Soft turf and chunky stone walls add to the charm of the surrounding rather deserted countryside. The capstone looks rather like a flying saucer, elegant with two shaped orthostats framing the stone portal door, this is seen as a sophisticated design, but perhaps we are looking with modern eyes, given the chunkiness of Coetan Arthur and Carreg Samson’s capstones, the ideal of beauty is in the beholders eye. Who is to say; maybe the neolithic builders felt that the erection of great heavy capstones was a work of great physical strength and prowess and deemed far worthier than puffs of the wind sailing capstones that Pentre Ifan represents.
Its capstone is tilted towards the Afon Nyer Valley to the north, the chamber being about 3 metres long by 2 metres wide. It was originally cut into the ground about 40 cms and lined with drystone walling, but has recently been infilled.
There is a blocking stone(doorway) in the forecourt area. Apparently there is supposed to be a cupmark on its outer face, but have stared long and hard could’nt find it- so I shall put it down to wishful thinking on someones part.
According to Nash it is a terminally chambered long cairn with a semicircular forecourt set in the southern end of the barrow – a Closed Portal Tomb. Glyn Daniels compared it to the so-called “horned cairns” of Carlingford in Ireland. Not surprising really its just a short hop over on the ferry to Ireland. Interestingly he also suggests that our more easterly Severn-Cotswold tomb group is derived from the Pentre Ifan type, perhaps that is why I am always drawn to this part of Wales – the sense of the familiar.
Grimes, another archaeologists who trod the ground round Somerset as well, excavated in 1936 and 1958, and he described the forecourt where ritual feasts may have been held, it consisting of two orthostats placed either side of an entrance, itself blocked by the massive ‘closing’ door. This door is of course speculated upon wildly by archaeologists, maybe it was open on occasions to bring in bodies that had been stored elsewhere. Maybe, it was a great chieftans tomb, with his retainers being sacrificed with him (bit dubious). Or in fact was a false door, the bones of the dead being inserted from the side of the mound, similar of course to the Rodmarton ‘porthole entrance’ or the Lanhill longbarrow.
The mound does not survive, but could have measured about 40 metres long by 17 metres wide. There are traces of kerbing stones, but they do not always align with the mound, and it could be linked with possible ritual pits.
Nash points to the dip in the capstone and the slope of Carningli, both point to the sea and the Afon Nyer Valley. This I could’nt see, being misty and very cold but I did find one of the fallen stones rather beautifully white with lichen and, a bit like a ‘jewel ‘stone, a rather rounded female stone

p.s.N.P.Figgis in Prehistoric Preseli gives another theory; there is a fallen stone, that remained in situ as the stones of the burial chamber were put up. This may have been a first phase, a single standing stone with a fire pit near to it, making this a dual mortuary site, or at least, a site that was in use over a long period but again all conjecture, with the stone being part of the first chamber building and single unembellished facade, with short mound. “The latest elongated tapering mound, and the elaborate facade covered the whole of the earlier structure”.

ref; Prehistoric Preseli N.P.Figgis
Neolithic Sites – Geo.Children and Geo.Nash

When people write about this small dolmen they talk of mushrooms and fairies, and it does indeed sit tranquilly in its own little garden surrounded by a surburban small settlement of bungalows. Coetan Arthur was excavated in 1981, there had been a build up of plough soil over the centuries and in fact, the stones would have had another metre added to their height originally, making them much taller than they are today. There are four stones theoretically supporting the capstones, but only two are in contact.
One of the marvellous things about neolithic builders, is their ability to balance a huge capstone on a fine point. Think of a stiletto heel, its fine point bringing all that excruciating pain on to someone’s foot, the weight of a person concentrated on a small round five pence bit. So it is with the capstone pressing its enormous weight down, thrusting it through the upright to secure thousands of years permanency – it gives one pause for thought.
Carreg Coetan Arthur is low-lying, just eight metres above sea level, close to the Afon Nyer estuary and about half a mile from the coast. To the south is Carningli, and the usual legend has been attributed to the stones, that they were thrown from the summit of the mountain. According to George Nash, the capstone when aligned with Carningli peak seems to match it.
Turning to N.P.Figgis on the subject, he cites a recent excavation which gives Carreg Coetan Arthur a somewhat different history. It had been presumed up till recently that the tomb had a closing ‘portal door’ and that its corresponding upright stone had disappeared, it was in fact an ‘H’ shaped portal dolmen similar to Pentre Ifan. It seems though that there never was a third stone, so no portal door. An arc of small stones had been laid like a kerb to the south round the remains of the mound, and between it and the now supposed ‘front’ of the chamber a space had been cleared. In front of the chamber had been a platform with some pottery and ‘clumps’ of cremated bone.
Radio-carbon dating gives the early date of 3500 years old for the construction – middle neolithic. But also inside the chamber there had been found much later Grooved Ware and Beaker Ware, showing that it had been in use over a long period of time.
Figgis goes on to speculate that perhaps we should not fall into the easy trap of labelling these sites as chambered tombs, but that they may have had a mulitiplicity of functions, which is little understood today.
refs; Neolithic Sites of Cards.Carms.Pembs.by Geo.Children and Geo.Nash; 1997 Logaston Press.
Prehistoric Presili (a Field Guide) N.P.Figgis 2001 Atelier Production

Access From Callanish V. Quite tough! Involves reasonable length yomp that took us around 45 mins to an hour I guess, across undulating, boggy & slippery ground. And I’d say the weather had been only averagely wet for Lewis (at most) when Juamei & I visited....

If memory serves, I think you can make out the standing stones on their hillock/crag from Callanish V itself. If not, you can certainly see them (probably most of the time) on the way towards them. You also lose sight of them at times.

There may be a better way than this, but it’s the best we could find! Starting from Callanish V, head east north east down the hill to a bridge at approx NB238301.

Cross and follow the stream/river east. There are tributory burns to cross, some of which have plank bridges but some don’t. Some may be almost impossible to cross if the weather’s been particularly wet....

Warning! We found that trying to strike out for the stones are can be a waste of time. Even from spots where the stones are clearly visible, you can come to hidden burns running down to the main river.

At around NB245300, at a distinct bend in the river (on the map, at least – the whole thing is bends ‘on the ground’!), we set off more or less NE heading up the hillock/crag that the 2 standing stones are clearly visible on. We still had to leap across at least one inconveniently placed burn....

The last bit of the walk is steep – but that’ll be pretty obvious when you see it!

Wednesday 12 July 2006
Brilliant! What a lonely spot, especially on a wet & misty day. What a lovely spot it could be on a sunny day though!

On Lewis it’s easy to feel like you are miles from anywhere, but here it seemed particularly easy – perhaps because it’s a bit of a walk (and awkward) to get here. If fact, it’s not really all that far from 2 roads (which seems ironically close to civilisation by Lewis standards!)

As mentioned by Kammer in his miscellaneous post, this seems unlikely to be a circle. To me, it also seemed unlikely to be a pair of standing stones – not least because they are too far apart and don’t ‘feel’ interlinked in that kind of way.

I can see that they may however, be part of the same structure that would have taken up most of the top of the craggy hillock. At the very least, the northernmost stone is a very nice chunky standing stone.

According to Gerald Ponting, the stones are now thought most likely to be the remnants of a chambered cairn. It seems possible, and there are many stones and fragments around that could once have been part of it – especially in the nearby sheepfanks etc.

It seems unlikely to me that they are anything to do with the signs of more modern settlement, such as the sheepfank. I can’t think what the stones could be part of if associated with the more modern remains, particularly because of the way whatever it was would have been perched on top of the hillock.

To be honest, about the only thing that ‘bothers’ me slightly about this theory is the general lack of chambered cairns in the area.

So, not one of Lewis’s most essential attractions unless you’re a completist, but well worth a visit if you have the time and inclination. Or if you are a completist…!

The ‘Hag of Beara’ is well signposted on the coast road between Ardgroom and Eyeries, there’s a bit of hard shoulder on the corner where you can park.

The rock is through the gate and across about 20m of marshy ground to a small track, you could walk right past it like I did if you dont spot all the offerings strewn over it!

The rock itself is wonderfully weathered and resembles a camel with no legs or neck. There’s great views seawards and across the bay.

It also features the wierdest assortment of ‘offerings’ I have ever come across, car remote controls, batteries, hair scrunchies and a mobile phone belt clip all share crevices with the more usual coins, ‘goddess’ figurine, seashells and berries.

For a split second I thought the hag was having fun with me, I was trying to set a manual exposure on the camera but no matter what I tried, even turning the camera off and removing batteries, I could not set an aperture below F8 even though it was an F4 lens, what the hell???!! Of course there was a simple explanation, I had left the camera in ‘bracketing’ mode at Drombohilly but had not taken the last picture of the bracketing sequence there! For just a moment.............

The ridge leading out to Tregarrick Tor from Minions contains at least five cairns (or Tumuli if you use the OS map) The two biggest stand proud and can be viewed from some distance away. One is a standard cairn, usual mound of granite boulders although the covering of moss on many I find unusual. The second, that stands just to the west, is a nice ring cairn. Both (in May 07) have been striped of vegitation and are easily seen. The ring cairn has been subjected to fire and all the gorse has been burnt back revelaing its shape.