Latest Fieldnotes

Right beside the road this is an easy one to find, the most interesting thing about it location is “An Screagan” an hill to the west of it that has some kind of marker on its peak, may just be a trig point as no standing stone is marked but I will investigate.

Heavy going – he’s not joking!

We took the path up from the gate at the eastern end of the plantation. It’s a slog of about 1.5 miles uphill, but decent underfoot. Until you get to the top!

The area at the top of Windy Edge is boggy and (as you would expect) covered with hidden treestumps and branches. Normal instincts to use the hillocks as dry stepping stones became scuppered when in fact they were rotten chunks of wood!

That said, there was some lovely moss and lichen action, if that’s your thing.

The cairns were very, very interesting. We thought at first they were one rediculously long Long Cairn, as the piles of stones were close together to a length of about 100 metres!

You will need a map to find this beast...or some friendly locals. I had both. After driving up the lane to the farmhouse at the top I turned around and asked the owners where the quoit was and where I could park. They advised me to drive back down the land and park at the first gateway on the left. The field in which the quoit stands is not theirs, so they said they could not give me permission to go in...but as the gate was open and there was only grass growing I went for it.
It is quite a long walk from the bottom corner to the quoit which is at the top of the field. It is also quite muddy..in fact the quoit has a shallow moat around it at the moment.
With all the brambles and whatever else died down it is easy to make out the surrounding mound, made up of quartz stones. Being that this is the common rock around here...is the whole pile made out of them? Are they only on the top? or have they been thrown there by farmers clearing the field over the ages?
The Quoit is not tall by the standards of others in Cornwall but it is the great thick capstone that makes it standout...such a shame that it is in a field with views of a huge modern farm just to the west...somewhat spoils the setting......I would think on a sunny day in times long ago this would have been a fantastic place to be buried.

After viewing the Men Gurta I was dissapointed that I could not get close to this stone. The double row of barbed wire fencing makes it clear that entry to the field is not encouraged! I did think about going in via the gate into the windfarm but it would have then meant a walk down the whole length of the field to reach the stone. There are what looks like a couple of barrows in the field plus one just to the east. This is the eastern end of a row of them that runs past the Nine Maidens and includes around 50 barrows in a seven mile stretch.

What a lump!..and I love this North Cornwall quartz seamed stone. As someone has allready said it is a shame about the rubbish strewn about the site...and I would guess it is a local landowner judging by the type of rubbish.
I waited patiently for the sun to come out from behind the clouds to get some decent photos...not sure if I succeded yet..will look later. Very windy and wet underfoot, I want to return on a drier day!
From here it is not far as the crow flies to Pawton Quoit or the Nine Maidens...but legal rights of way are few and far between and I ended up getting in the car and driving to the others. Perhaps on a nicer day I would have persevered and found a route.

Having just visited the Nine Maidens today I would advise not going after rain! The field was more water than earth.
Could I make a request...Please do not make for the stones by hopping over the hedge by the lay by. You will notice that some new fencing has been erected to stop this but people have obviously decided to go around this. If you walk down the road a short distance there is a nice new stile beside a gate leading into the field. You can then follow the official track across the field to the opposit side where the stones are.
Sadly today was not the best day to take photos..very gray cloudy day...until I got home and as I sit here now the sun is out and there is hardly a cloud in the sky...

Camped in the field next to these last night and took the opportunity to have a good look around. Am now more confused than ever! They do look positively henge-like as you approach but there doesn’t seem to be any continuity and nothing is “finished off” Also, there is evidence of quarrying and there are a couple of large holes (now lovely – but very deep – ponds with ducks a plenty)

If these are the residue of quarrying then it seems that they would be less stylised to me. Also, someone would know because the quarrying would’ve been done in the last couple of hundred years, so there would be records, surely? BUT......why so many half henges???? Agh, it is frustrating. I’ll post some pix and see what you all think

The Stones are at the center of the village on the corner of the lane leading to the Farmer’s Shop.One is about 4ft 6ins tall and the other,which has had a lot of interest is on the other corner.I was talking to an elderly lady who told me she was brought up in the house by the tall stone,she said she never really took much notice of it or the other one.There has been a flurry of interest since the news article.

salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/1230160.stonehenge_secrets_may_lie_by_side_of_the_road/

These two cairns lie high in the Cambrian Mountains to the South east of Tregaron. They can be reached by walking up an old drove road from a remote chapel at Soar y Myndd on the mountain rd heading towards Builth Wells. As you reach the summit of the track there are several finger like mounds on the left hand side. The cairns lie at the far end of these alongside a sheep fold. Soon after the hillside drops away into a steep sided valley.

My Welsh speaking friend tells me Saith Wraig translates to Seven Women.

Could not get close to this stone that I spotted across a very damp field. I would think it is about 5ft high and quite broad. It is in a triangular field bounded on all sides by minor roads just to the north of Aberporth.

It is marked on the map as Pillar Stone and a bit of searching on the web came up with the facts that it was ‘discovered’ in the early 1800s when a tumulus was removed including a heap of stones. The stone was re-erected and an urn and several supposedly Roman coins were found. These were given to Colchester Museum... who now have no record of them!

The inscription reads ‘Corbalengi Iacit Ordovs‘

After parking by the phonebox cross over and go through the turnstile and on to the footpath,follow the path with the hedge on your left, after 50 yards a gap appears go through and up the hill to the nearest telegraph pole. Just at the foot of the pole is the first stone 8ft long and positioned in an east-west line,pointing through the hills and on to Anglesey, almost covered in moss and ivy but nearly free of gorse it’s next to impossible to find unless you know where it is. Unless it’s been excavated and proved to be a burial chamber I’d be inclined to see it as a fallen standing stone, what’s the chances of there being two chambers of so different styles so close to each other?, then again what do I know.

From here follow the telegraph poles southish into the trees, It’s only 50-60 yards away from the other stone and slightly downhill, your first view of it will be from behind the capstone.I spent a good hour or two chopping back the undergrowth of brambles, and removing all the deadwood. The capstone is fifteen feet long and rests on just one upright, it is aligned N.W-S.E and you could just about get in so long as you lie down. The chamber seems to have at one time been built into a dry stone wall because at least two denuded and broken down walls converge on the site.
Two blokes with a truck and the right gardening equipment could in just one day change this place from unknown and overgrown to delightful and charming ,somewhere you might expect to see fairies,two or three trees removed and the views would open right up.Having said that despite the scrub and tree cover this place remains very nice and good to find.
The first time I came here it was a total surprise expecting to see just the overgrown boulder, when I saw the obvious chamber and it’s capstone I felt like Indiana Jones in the Raiders film when he says about the bad guy” he’s dgging in the wrong place”.Untill someone else comes here I will pronounce this place MINE
If you do come bring the machete and have at the brambles.

Standing 60m north of the Bank Top oval barrow is a Bronze Age round barrow, again, like its older neighbour the mound is not that impressive. Some 12m in diameter and below 1m in height a drystone wall cuts across this barrow too.

The Bank Top Neolithic oval barrow is located below the crest of a local high point and orientated east-west. A little over 13m in length and maybe 5m wide the barrow is very low although gains in height towards its western end, which is helped by the fact that its eastern end is down slope.
Just over Haven Hill from Wigber Low which lies to the west.
No recorded excavations and with a drystone wall built over it not very photogenic.

Not as impressive as the Holyhead Mountain Hut Group, but getting to see them isn’t a problem, as they are visible from the roadside.

John Barnatt and others have never been able to decide, without excavation, whether this ditched square mound is a barrow, a modified barrow or as its name suggests a gallows site.
Square barrows are not unknown in the Peak several examples are to be found on Harland Edge in the Beeley Moor area and also on Stanton Moor.

Visible from the roadside on Manystones Lane.

Around 20x19m in diameter this barrow has been robbed of most of its stone, leaving only the rim and a central hollow with a surviving stone of a cist. (One of half a dozen barrows in the area with an exposed cist).
Gallows Low Lane access is pretty straightforward, the track to the Roystone Grange Trail passes right by the barrow; and it is worth a look when in the Minninglow area.

No recorded excavations.

These two Iron Age stone Cashels are on the bank of Lough Gur on a hill called Carraig Aille. Seemingly during excavation a silver hoard was found here.
Both forts are quite low, the wall only maybe 1- 1.5m high. There is an entrance in both of them to the east.
I heard well over a year ago that the state had bought the land that they are on and they were to be made available to the public but have had no further update.
They are located just after the crossroads going to the lake on the left hand side. We parked in front of a nice house on the right hand side of the road and you should be able to see them from the road.

Situated on a shelf of land just below, and to the south of Harland Edge proper, this slightly ovoid/ovid? cairn enjoys far reaching views to the south down the Wye Valley. Completely covered in heather the mound stands to a little over 1.5m, kerbstones detectable under foot in the NW and SE sectors of the cairn’s rim.
On the whole disappointing and perhaps not worth the effort of crossing the very wet moorland.

No known records of any excavations.

Re-visited 25-02-07
This little marked stone is more or less exactly where akas555 reports it, on the south side of the field boundary. (Garmin e-trex says NZ019648 when rounded up from 10 figures). It looks like a very old boundary, with the remains of a bank, mostly quite low, but giving the impression that it may have once been quite substantial, with traces of hedge in places. The absence of undergrowth shows there are oodles of field clearance stones in the bank, making me wonder if there are any other carvings still hidden from view. The marked stone is quite obviously no longer in situ, but presumably came from somewhere fairly close. Maybe there was once a cairn in one of the fields, or I suppose it may have been part of an inconvenient (from a farmers point of view) lump of outcrop. The former seems more likely.

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I’m very pleased to see someone has located this one again. For it has deliberately hidden from me in the past.

I spent a very uncomfortable afternoon in high summer a couple of years ago looking for it on the wrong side of the fence, which is festooned with brambles and nettles. I was searching on the north side of the fence, further east towards Brockhole dean, which is where it appears to be when using the ref given on the Beckensall Archive. So near, yet so far...

I feel a revisit armed with akas555’s info and a gps would be in order.

I spotted this on the Northumberland Rock art Website, and because there was no photograph I thought I’d take a look.
This portable is on the south side of the fence, directly (magnetic) south of Thornborough High Barns, well situated over a view of the tyne valley.

Perched [unusually] right on the crest of a very slim ridge running roughly N-S, this rare Kentish bell barrow has suffered from looters at some stage in antiquity. The hole left in the top has probably reduced it from its current 2m height quite considerably, though there are supposed to be remains still waiting to be excavated. The ditch has suffered with falling trees uprooting large chunks of soil, but is still in evidence to the North and South. Due to the [too] narrow strip of land this barrow is sited on, the East and West sides of the barrow are actually on the downhill slopes and no trace of any ditch can be seen.

Access via Ivy Cottage Farm [park opposite], across the small field and straight up the hill to the N Downs way, then left and along the ridge for 200m. The barrow takes up the entire width of the woodland so no hunting.

The views on either side of the ridge are quite impressive, with a long strip of the Medway visible to the South round to the North West. This barrow must have been highly visible especially to the West, as it would have created a large hump in the smooth horizon especially if it was as high as has been suggested.

Llyn Brenig is a really good place to see lots of different types of monument, but ideally a long summer day would be needed to see them all, a long walk of 2-3 miles with good walking boots (though in the summer watch out for the hoards of anglers, they think they own the place)
If walking from the main Archeaological trail carpark allow 2 hours there and back, Try to look up as your walking there is a path but it fades now and then, two streams must be jumped and one barbed wire fence climbed but you do walk right past Brenigs 40 and 41.Unless you shrewdly park on the B4501 as I almost did .
This barrow is about 2 metres tall and has commanding views up and down the lake and is strangely shapely if you know what I mean..Curvey

An ideal place to see Brenig41 and various birdlife too as this is on a wildlife preserve. From the shore this barrow looks big but from the opposite side it merges with the hill so the hieght is not easily estimated.
Once again don’t walk the entire legnth of the lake to get there park to the north west on the B4501

It’s really difficult to make any on site fieldnotes for fairly obvious reasons, and not owning a dingy I decided to at least get as close as I could, this meant a long walk from the carpark all the way round the head of the lake and then back down the other side.( With hind sight this was the wrong way to go as there is a carpark to the north-west on the B4501,go from here.)
I got soaked from the knees down and the very edges of the lakes banks are under cut and very easily collapsed ,so tread lightly.
The barrow looks to be around 2m tall

What a briliant stone! – a dead ringer for a squatting toad when seen from the side. It’s 1.2m high, 1.1m wide, 0.5m thick and has small packing stones at the base. It lies about 30 yards to the east of the Cistercian Way in an open field, a 5 minute walk from the minor road at SD363776.

The National Monument Record describes it as possibly the remains of a circle of stones such as a walled enclosure. This is based on a confusing reference from 1872. There is certainly nothing else visible now.