In the picture I posted above I show the stones as viewed from a distance of about 45 feet.
According to Burl (Guide to the Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany 1995, 2005), quoting the Reverend Henry Rowlands, this site contained a circle of ‘eight or nine great pillar-stones... about twelve or fourteen yards diameter’.
Is it possible to imagine a stone just in front of my position and an arc of maybe three or four megaliths continuing on either side to meet at the pair opposite?
This long barrow is in nice condition and is about two hundred yards from the nearby bank barrow. It’s orientation is roughly west to east and is at right angles to the bank barrow. About twenty yards away to the east is a low disc like barrow with a ditch and a slight, possibly ploughed out bank. This could be a rare saucer type.
This is huge and as Juamei says it cannot be photographed along it’s full length as it runs down the hill. At it’s highest points it is about twelve feet high, the gap about a third away from the north end is about six feet in height.
Although the drawing on the O.S. map shows it to be similar in length to the Bincombe bank barrow it is at least a third longer.
Both sides of the barrow, which is orientated roughly north/south have pronounced ditches either side of it. These ditches are up to two feet deep and run along it’s entire length.
Also within the same field and adjacent to it are three low round barrows and one medium sized bowl barrow which is very close to the bank at it’s south eastern end.
To the north of the site, across the very busy A35 are two large bowl barrows, both of which show signs of past excavation.
Wanting a photo of a cliff on Shap at the junction before Work farm I took the LH turn towards the waterworks. The beach you see between here and the start of the Carness headland is the result of man’s works. Earl George of Caithness in 1614 made first landing at Carness in the campaign against our Earl Patrick. Until modern times all cattle headed for the Scottish mainland were ferried from Carness past Shapinsay, but the ferry point is unknown AFAIK.
At the turn-off for Water Board property the wartime road continues up to the headland. You need to go through two fieldgates, the first of which is chained against vehicles, then along the north coastline keeping to the coast edge. It wasn’t truly damp – there are numerous small drainage deltas, however they all have a smattering of what amount to stepping stones.
As you come to The Castle geo (not quite a rock stack yet) you see Long Cairn across the moss to your right. The long horned cairn [Yarrows type] is 47m long by 12-17m wide, on which is a 15-17m oval mound (Davidson and Henshall report that the ruined chamber was dug before 1928, in which case when RCAMS in 1946 give the mound’s height as 11’9” this must have been prior to that as later authorities give a total height of 2-2.1m and the RCAMS Inventory side elevation shows nothing above this chamber) an Orkney-Cromarty cairn. It is generally accepted with a site such as this that the chambered cairn was completed long before its incorporation by the horned cairn. This site, the Helliar Holm cairn (above the lighthouse to the north of here), and that at Haco’s Ness (on Shapinsay away to the east as you look there), are all intervisible – from which some intended guardianship of Shapinsay Sound has been inferred.
Along the higher ground on this northern side of the headland as well as the various purple orchids I was delighted to see Grass of Parnassus. What most struck me, though, was a darker form of eyebright mingling with the usual form – it appeared that they both grew on the same plant, the same coloured throat but violet instead of white elsewhere on the flower. I expected The Castle, a geological feature, to be difficult to recognise. Plain as a pikestaff really, a future stack with a short modern cairn (possibly hollow) of brown stones on top. I could have climbed down up the narrow neck... coming back might have been trickier. In the neck’s ‘valley’ there is an angled wall, of the same material and equally modern looking, at the eastern side. Beside this what resembles a solid cartwheel is apparently covering a well or something. The other side of the wall a large slump of water-worn rocks goes to the rocky beach far below (only after seein a picture I took have I seen steps on the southern side of the wall that go down to this [or I would have myself !]). By the cifftop the other end of the narrow beach is a bank of soil where the earth has been scraped up fairly recently.
After passing The Castle I crossed over mushy ground to the long cairn, soft-going but I did avoid damper patches. On this side of the mound I could see middling-size stones, presumably from the small late structures referred to by Davidson & Henshall others perhaps connected with the reported rectangular hollow (west of the chambered mound) they also believe prehistoric but not original. In my initial approach from The Castle circling clockwise the south horn of the western hornworks was very visible as a long broad grassy strip with a rounded top, looking like a pseudopod or starfish arm.
Coming to the western end the inside of the eastern hornworks my first impression was a sharper, less obtuse angle than shown on plan. I wonder if they have eroded back where these ‘end’ as this appeared higher than the reported height to me (however the O.S. earlier did report this end of the mound as of greater height).
Up on the mound not much more than a step from the back of the hornworks I found a feature [my A] surely not previously noted, as D&H state that turf covers all except the high mound. It takes the form of an oval, 4.8m wide by 3.8m front to back, on which lie many slabs. These are in a slight depression but as I looked back from its eastern edge a very low bank was visible. Perhaps it is a chamber of the later long cairn, but if instead this is from a second original mound it would help explain why the later cairn has appeared too long hitherto (the Roseness cairn also has an apparent satellite, even lower than this).
Next along I saw a slab projecting a little, distinct from the glimpsed ‘wall-faces’, then further on again the base of the main mound. The latter is about 12m across. Continuing to the back there is a 0.68 long angle topped slab projecting 0.3m , and a little distance on at the high point a hollow [my B1] filled with stones and slabs that is is 3.1m wide. At 1.4m from the western edge by the back end of the hollow (2.1m front to back in D&H) is 0.6m of an orthostat 1.1m wide was plain to see – I think this is in D&H as 1.5 by 0.65, wary of getting too closeI may have missed a bit. It is unfortunate that though the RCAMS Inventory shows this chamber on side elevation it is not indicated on the plan view, because half-a-metre to the right of B1 is another slab- & stone-filled circular hollow [my B2]. This is 1.7m across and fractionally lower on the hill (there are orthostats in B1 whose level is given as 0.65m below that of the rear slab). A second stall or possibly another chamber I would imagine (I suppose it might be that the turf between the two is simply the result of archaeological methodology). Then, just behind this, the other side of an imaginary line from B1’s largest orthostat is a depression [my B3] 2.3m wide and 2.2-2.6m from front to back. Despite there being not much stonework poking through B3 I would hazard that this represents a robbed stall/chamber (hence its apparently more downslope position) resulting from digging prior to the 1920’s period in which B1 is likely to have been excavated.
At the eastern end of the long cairn the S horn survives over twice the height of its NE counterpart making the latter less eviden on first viewing. At the moment the forecourt is very clearly defined by a singular display of a bed of reeds. Full distances and dimensions, as far as I could measure on my own, are givn under miscellaneous.
Though the ground about the site is mostly damp and springy this is boggiest on the southern side where it slopes down to the cliffs. I tried to get back this way but it was way ‘boggy’. When I kept to the drier portions this brought me to a ‘mound’ which is presumably the western end of the ridge, and less than a metre in front of this a bank or dyke, both apparently composed of earth with a few stones. The latter is rather bulky and would seem to emphasise control over the approach to the cairns, as along most of the Head of Work what some call rough pasture most would think of as approaching shallow bog (Roseness is similar though heathery). This must be the route Moth and Jane took through Work farm, once site of a broch and perhaps a souterrain.
After heading down across to the cliffs I went along the clifftop under the watchful eyes of two seals, but came to stop where the drystane fieldwall reaches the cliff. At this spot there’s a girt big pile of slabs 3-5’ long and maybe 4-6” thick, like a fallen stack of dominoes. Followed the wall back up to a gate, but with the field having kie in it I left well alone. This would seem to be the normal route to the headland. Further up another gate had a sloped top ‘standing stone’ over five feet tall as one of the gateposts. Then I was back at the military road again.
The field is named Stenso from stens-a ‘standing stone burn’. Today the open gate gave entry. I found a N/S aligned stone at the top of the hill. It projects less than it is thick i.e. 6” or less. If this is the stone it has become further reduced this last couple of months, if not then it is previously unrecorded. I had my photos but a tractor man ordered me off before I could take measure of the thing. He said that I wasn’t allowed and the land was private [an English derived conceit]. After the bullying I forgot to check from the road for the proper s.s. if this wasn’t it and doubt I’ll dare again.
The Auld Wives Lifts sit in a natural amphitheatre on the Cragmaddie Muir above Milngavie near Glasgow.
They consist of three extremely large pieces of grey schist, one propped on top of the other two. There is a space between them through which it is possible to pass.
The rocks are covered in carved grafitti from as far back as the 18th century at least, as well as around eight or so carved ‘heads’ or ‘faces’. These have a primeval look about them but are probably fairly recent. The surrounding rocks have several cup and ring marks as well as other markings (including an ‘eye’).
Found it! Quite why I couldn’t find it before, I’ve no idea. The stone is 27 paces at a bearing of 120 deg. from the modern granite pillar inscribed with the number 7 (a waymarker for the Llanfairfechan Upland Walk). The markings can be clearly seen along one edge and on the surface of the stone. Somehow, perhaps because of the short lengths of the markings, I find the antiquity of this stone less convincing than that of the other arrow stones in the vicinity.
The stone marked with concentric squares is another 12 paces downhill at a bearing of 20 deg. from the arrow stone. It lies in a direct line with the signpost at the path junction and the granite pillar
Having spent a fruitless hour looking in the area 200 yards to the east of the sheep pen as described by Bezant Lowe, I gave up and walked away disconsolately. Then lo and behold about 150 yards away I suddenly walked over exactly what I had been looking for all that time. I’m sure I only noticed it because I was grumpily walking along staring at my feet!
It turns out to be about 150 yards SE of the sheep pen right at the NE side of the Afon Ddu. It is 3 yards to the south of a granite pillar with the number 5 inscribed on it, which I have since discovered is a waymarker for the Llanfairfechan Upland Walk marked out by Conwy council.
The markings on the stone are beautifully clear.
This cairn is at 726m and on the peak of Monavullagh mountain. The cairn itself has been artifically modified into a shelter for climbers and to be honest with the weather that we had on the day it was a welcome relief.
Again there is evidence of a kist in the bottom of it. The cairn itself must be about 7m in diameter.
Interestingly enough it is rock outcrop that can be viewed from ground level.
This cairn is the next marker on the trail up the slope of Monavullagh Mt. It is a low cairn with evidence of a kist in its centre with fabulous views both North and South. Interestingly enough the cairn on top of Poul-na-maddra-ruadh can not be viewed from here.
This is a lovely standing stone on the slope of Monavullagh. It is about 2m high and about 0.5m wide. One side of it appears to have been painted/ whitewashed. To the north in the heather there are three more large slabs that Fourwinds discovered and look like they may also once have been standing before.
I cant confirm 100% that this standing stone is gone but im 95% sure. I had a good root around looking for it and its location according to GPS is between a ringfort that is completely overgrown or a gravel / sandpit that has been opened for the restoration works on Aherlow Castle. There is a new road into the castle which isnt shown on the map.
This is a nice little standing stone to the north of the Galtees and on the slopes of the Glen of Aherlow.
The stone itself is about 1.25m high and has lovely views to the hills in the south. Perhaps it was some kind of marker to the various notches in the Galtees but nothing really stood out to me.
It is about 3-4 fields from the road and the way I went in was pretty mucky.
On an aside, two lovely terrier dogs followed me the whole way to stone on a little adventure for them. They were so covered in mud I cant have seen their owner been very happy with them when they returned!
“Teroy-Almost certainly a Broch” R W Feachem 1963 (Canmore).
Well it sure looks like it might have been a broch, although now much reduced. If you remove the surrounding forestry in the minds eye, Broch or galleried dun, Teroy fort must have been a commanding structure sat on its prominence over-looking the loch. There remains what could be an entrance with a possible intramural guard cell on the ENE side; a ditch of significant depth also protects this area with a steep slope protecting the opposite side. It is a bit tricky finding the place but is possible with a good map and for the broch obsessed, a must.
The best way to visit this tomb is from the west, drive north passing by Lough Mallon and take the next left, then turn left again and follow the road down to the very end, the tomb can be seen in the field to your left, go through the gate and up the field, very easy, no cows, no bog, no Bullshit.
Take the road to Priddy from the Wells Road, and as you drive through this stonewalled landscape remember that you are entering a truly prehistoric landscape that goes way back into the past. Barrows, swallet holes, Priddy Circles and of course caves and rock shelters.
If you drive into the village of Priddy, stop for a moment and admire the large village green with an old fashioned farm on the other side. Drive up the hill to the church, and there is a barrow sitting in the field next to it. But to find the lane to Ebbor Gorge, you must take the first lane sharply left just as you enter the village, drive past the picnic place on the highest point of the hill, and descend down for a few hundred yards till on the left there is a car park for the Gorge.
The “scramble” walk is well indicated, you descend into the wooded depths of the gorge, high trees, dark green luscious growth and ferns on old fallen trees, patches of open ground gleaming pale in the sunlight, the white perfumed meadowsweet that loves boggy ground is on show. Then the scramble, you enter the narrow defile of the gorge where the shelters are situated, and begin to climb sharply over great natural stone steps with the sheer rock faces on either side, where there is sun the blue flowers of the nettle leaved bellflower cluster at the path’s edge and a small stream trickles down the steps, at one point the path becomes so narrow between the rocks that it looks impassable.
The shelters are dark and gloomy places, Victorian grottoes comes to mind, Neolithic and Bronze age finds have been found, perhaps they were more burial place that living quarters. Upwards to the viewpoint over the gorge itself, steep, steep cliff like faces of rock covered with vegetation and tall trees in the gorge below, gives it a rainforest look and of course there is also a misty view to Glastonbury Tor with Wearyall Hills’ long length blending into the landscape.
If you drive back to Priddy you should see some of the Nine Barrows on the horizon, turning left from the carpark takes you to Wookey Hole, and not too far away is Westbury Sub Mendip, where I believe half million year old bones were found…..
Its a middling demanding walk, steep paths and a bit of rock climbing.
This was the last stone I saw today but by no means the least , it has an almost human shape to it, kind of like someone turning in mid stride. You really need a map to find it I’d been stone hunting all morning and my brain was slightly dizzy, now I can’t remember how to get to it except keep the trees to your right and follow the telegraph poles. The stone is 6-7 feet tall with a large rocky outcrop just yards away with a suspect stone half buried just feet away . If it wasn’t for the mist Mynnyd Carngwch would be large and beautiful.
This was the tallest stone I saw on this day (friday 13th worked out OK for me) and was a welcome barrier to the wind and rain. From Betws Fawr farm head east and watch for a gate on the right , park near here (there’s nowhere good) and go through gate and along the path but beware it was well muddy when I came and the cows use it regular if you know what I mean. At the end of the track the 2.6m tall standing stone is on the right through a gate in the middle of the field. Although the horizon is obscured 180 degrees I feel certain that Mynnyd Carngwch would be visible on a clear day with no trees.
Permission should be sought at Tir Gwyn farm/house from there the south stone is about 50 yds away. 174 metres away in the other corner of the field is Tir Gwyn I . They should be together as one site I think but Coflein has them as two seperate stones , they remind me greatly of the Piper stones in Cornwall .
As ever Mynnyd Carngwch stands out proud on the near horizon.
A good tall stone about 8ft tall with a kind of twisted appearance. If this was Avebury we’d be calling this stone male but all the stones round here are male, perhaps trying to balance out the obviously female Mynnyd Carngwch. Ask for permission at Tir Gwyn house/farm or a long walk down the lane and round the corner is necessary.
These stones were just off the map that I had with me so I ended up wandering round and blundered into the large flat stone by the fence, which must be a significant stone, from there down hill and nearly in the fence is the menhir, just slightly bigger than myself (about 6ft then) it has two large boulders at it’s foot making it look like the male parts. It was comfy to sit on one of them too and watch the clouds scooting by. Across the field and again near the fence is another stone.
All these stones looking across to the mother hill of Mynnyd Carngwch are beginning to give me a funny feeling.
Location: Exactly where OS map shows it! To E of walled track. A gate gives access to the field a short distance N of the circle. All the stones are pink granite (erratics from Shap?) apart from one which is limestone.
Some nice pictures and further info at: visitcumbria.com/pen/gamelands.htm and stone-circles.org.uk/stone/gamelands.htm
The central recumbent stone of this three stone row has a cup mark , evident from a distance but not recorded . Despite lots of likely hills surrounding the stones the most likely astro alignment is to the NW , Cat Law , the summit of which would outline the major lunar standstill .
Ive been looking forward to visiting this one as its a bit of a curiosity.
A large ‘horshoeshaped hengytype thingy’ monument.
Its very well defined and has another smaller henge alligned with this one about 15 metres away.
Lots of lumps and bumps in this field along with some rather scary horny (not in the lusty way!) cows.
[visted 08/07/07] Another failed site, this time through not wanting to turn up unanounced at a Nuclear Power Station and asking to see their barrow. I did get to the gates and could see the barrow just inside the gates in a fenced off tree covered enclosure, but it was the other side of some (open) security gates and a large barbed wire fence. Call me overly cautious but in the current climate I figured discretion really was the better part of valour. There is a number for them on the British Energy website so I might give them a ring next time I’m heading that way.
Access is after sundown wearing ninja suits and night goggles.
