Latest Fieldnotes

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.

There are five barrows on this site. The most substantial is a medium sized bowl barrow in the middle of the group to east of what remains of Deverel barrow.
Adjacent to it is a small, low saucer barrow, which may well have been ploughed in the past. Also close by are two small bowl barrows, just around the corner, up a farm track.
This site is not the most spectacular I’ve seen, but it’s archaeological importance cannot be underestimated. It, along with the now destroyed Rimbury barrow, show a significant cultural difference in the finds, from earlier local burials.

The grid reference for this site seems a bit inaccurate. I found the 2 smaller stones, each 45 – 50 cm high and 3 paces apart, at GPS reading SK 28255 71378 with the larger stone, 115 cm high, 100 paces away at SK 28225 71454.

There are lots of stones in this area and it is tempting to believe that many others have also been erected. When standing at the larger stone another possible alignment suggests itself looking east to a stone 45 paces away at SK 28265 71450 and a third stone another 20 paces further at SK 28281 71446. The former is leaning over a bit with its top 75 cm from the ground and the latter is 60 cm high.

This is just around the corner, north-west, from the Valley of Stones. It is a hillside valley with what look like square celtic / Iron age type fields. Cutting through the field boundaries, down the centre of the valley is a well defined trackway. This looks to me as if it leads to and from an enclosure marked on O.S. maps and Magic.

Quite a long walk to get to these barrows. It’s a mixed set of various types, including one very low saucer shaped barrow, which looks like it’s been heavily ploughed in the past. All but one of the barrows have signs of clumsy excavation i.e big holes dug into the crowns of them. Two of the bowl shaped barrows have chunks of stone on their flanks, which could be their former contents.
On the plus side the views of Abbotsbury swannery, Chapel hill, the Chesil beach and Portland are well worth the effort of getting here. Abbotsbury castle hillfort is only about half a mile away.
Dotted around the edges of the escarpment these sit on are former quarry diggings, the hillside is made up of lime stone cliffs, which may well have been used in the building of nearby Abbotsbury.

Three lovely stones in a really remote location – it must have been great to rediscover them!

GPS reading SK 28250 70868. The best directions I can suggest are to start at the wall junction at SK 2783 7072 and walk in a straight line towards the very obvious mast on Puddingpie Hill – in dry conditions in February it took me 500 paces until the stones suddenly appeared in a grassy/reedy area just beyond a small patch of heather.

When I visited in February I thought I could make out a level platform about 6 paces across with 6 very low stones visible on the rim. The area is covered by a mixture of grass and heather and the whole thing is very unconvincing!

I found what appears to be a ring of rubble under the heather at SK 28527 67706 on my GPS. I think Stubob’s photo and description of a much more obvious site refer to what John Barnatt (1990) calls Beeley Moor South (Beeley Moor South 1).

Yes, sorting out the ringcairns here is a very confusing business. I found a site clearly matching the diagram and description of Beeley Moor South (Beeley Moor South 1) in John Barnatt’s 1990 “The Henges, Stone Circles and Ringcairns of the Peak District” at SK 28537 67694 on my GPS. I think Stubob’s photo and fieldnotes refer to Beeley North (South 2).

This must be about the oddest place I’ve seen a barrow, the photo doesn’t show how truly steep the hill it sits atop is. If I’m feeling particularly insane one day I may walk up there and see the seaward barrow, I’m willing to bet the view is worth it.
The barrow itself is quite a large bell barrow, which looks like a pimple on an elephant on this great round hill.

Very easy to find, once you’ve been to the castle and well worth a look for the distant views of it alone. The barrows themselves are all bowl types of various sizes. The common is split in two by a road, the castle is visible from the western side, the eastern half of the Purbeck hills can be seen in it’s entirety from the barrows of the east side of the common.
One of the east side round barrows has obviously been excavated in the past, it has a large cleft in the top of it. Of the six barrows I could see, they appear to be in a row from west to east, parallel to the Purbeck hills to the north of them.

Well this piece of Rock-art can now be found in UCC in Cork as part of an exhibition of Rock-art and Ogham.
It was orginally found in Mothel in Waterford and according to Fourwinds is the only piece of Rock-art found in the county.

The hillfort at Lordenshaws is a real gem. It has the easiest access of any of the sites in the Northumberland National Park. The fort is only 400m or so from an area set aside for car parking along a good road.

The climb to the fort is in no way strenuous. Lordenshaws is surrounded by a wealth of archaeological remains and not far from the fort itself lie some spectacular examples of rock art.

There are ancient trackways, burial carirns and earthworks and, by arrangement with the Duke of Northumberland and the tenant farmer, you are free to wander around them in an agreed access area.

Lordenshaws is a roughly circular fort and has two entrances facing East and West. The outermost defensive ditch has a diameter of around 140m and is one of the best preserved features of the site.

In the South and South East this ditch has been disturbed by later development but to the North the ditch has a very steep V shaped profile and is up to 2.5m deep and up to 9m wide.

Inside this is a less well preserved inner ditch with a broader, more shallow profile. This inner ditch, in places, also manages a width of 9m but never gets any deeper than 1.3m. In the South East the outer ditch actually crosses the inner ditch suggesting the inner ditch was not associated with later phases of the fort.

If any form of rampart ever existed between the inner and outer ditches then there is no sign of it. There are signs of a short irregular bank, around 0.5m high in the middle of the inner ditch close to the Western entrance to the fort. It is possible that this is the remains of a rampart but it appears only in this one spot. The defences may never have entirely enclosed the fort as there is a natural outcrop to the South East which seems never to have been disturbed by the ditches.

The entrances to the fort simply cut through these defences. The Western entranceway is the least well preserved but the Eastern entrance is 3m wide and there are some facing stones visible. Where this entrance cuts through the second defensive mound there are some prominent stones still standing 0.8m high.

The innermost part of the site, the inhabited area, has a diameter of roughly 70m and is on two levels as the site is crossed from East to West by a natural scarp.

The usual way into the fort is from the Western entrance as this is the way a visitor would normally walk up from the National Park car park. From the West entrance the path takes you into the Southern half of the fort. Along the South facing edge of the fort there are four small circular features. I say ‘features’ as they seem too small to be huts. They vary in diameter and, in one, the stonework has been exposed.

Further into the fort is a very prominent hut. The interior of this has been cleared at some point and the stonework is visible. This hut has a diameter of 5.3m and the walls are around 1m high. There is no obvious entrance to this hut as the walls are continuous.

In the Northern half of the hillfort are the circles of two huts. It is possible that more existed but the ground here is very disturbed.

Standing outside the Western entrance to the fort you can see a large rectangular enclosure. It is enclosed by an earth and boulder wall which still manages a height of around a metre in places. The enclosure must have been constructed late in the life of the fort as it cuts into the defences. The enclosure shows prominent lines of medieval ridge and furrow plough marks and was recorded as a ‘cornfield’ in 1825.

There is other evidence of later development at the fort, especially in the South East. Here the defences have been overbuilt with an extension to the inhabited centre of the fort. There are circular features here but they are not prominent.

There is, also, a notable defensive outwork about 30m to the South and South West of the fort. It consists of an earth bank roughly 7m wide the outer profile standing up to 1.8m high. There is an outer ditch associated with the outwork but this is not easy to see. There is a gap in the earthwork which leads to the Western entrance to the hillfort yet does not exactly line up with it. It seems to accommodate the line of a trackway which runs North East from the existing road and turns East after passing to the North of the main cup marked rock on the site.

There have been no properly recorded excavations at Lordenshaws. A detailed survey of the hillfort and its surroundings was undertaken in late 1990 by RCHME.

Without doubt a wealth of information lies in wait at Lordenshaws. As I have said access to the site is relatively easy, though choosing when to visit can be important too. In the summer, for example, when the bracken and ferns are at their tallest, some of the lower lying ground features around the fort may be harder to pick out. For me the topography is best revealed by a light covering of snow. Later in the day a low angle of sunlight helps reveal the more subtle rock carvings.

The National Park car park is also a good base for walking in the Simonsides.

www.gefrin.com

The photo I was able to take of this much messed about with long barrow had to be taken long distance from Ackling dyke as there is no obvious public access I could see to this site.

Another visit to this place, this time minus the sheep, so I felt it was o.k. to walk on it. The large bell barrow at first dominates the site, it has a large cleft in it’s top, and has clearly been excavated. The real stars of this cemetery are for me the four huge disc barrows (there are actually five, one is now obscured by a nearby wood), two of which must be two hundred feet or so across. The best view I had of the central, largest one was from the top of the big bell barrow. Only from this extra height can a shortarse like me get a full view of the size of this thing.It has two small mounds on it, one central and the other close to the eastern ditch. The outer bank now stands about two feet high with the inner ditch being about twice as deep.
Just to see one of these close up is unusual in Dorset but there are four to see here, one of which has clearly had it’s ditch cut through by the bank of the Ackling dyke. This is the rarest one as it is not round, but oval in shape , it also has twin mounds. The romans were obviously no respecters of ancient burial sites. A smaller example, perhaps seventy five feet across, has three small mounds within the banks.
Another of the more normal looking bowl barrows has a two foot deep ditch surrounding it very close to it’s base, this again is fairly unusual in these parts , as most have had the plough too close to them or it’s silted up.
Something must be said about pond barrows here, as there were three I could see, although at this time of year the long grass makes them hard to spot. They may well be the oldest burials on this ground, but are probably the most overlooked features in any landscape.
The added bonus to being on this site today, with nobody else about, were the half dozen or so hares I saw running about the place. Normally with dog walkers about , these shy creatures have long since legged it. Unlike rabbits these non burrowing native animals don’t knacker these old places by digging great big holes in them , the normans have a lot to answer for.
This must be one of the best preserved, most varied barrow fields in Dorset, it’s only rival for different types, is the Winterbourne Poor Lot on the south Dorset ridgeway.