Latest Fieldnotes

I parked up at the cottages and walked through the wood that runs along the edge of the field.
Fortunately the crop in the field had just sprouted so I was able to carefully pick my way across to the circle.
This is a lovely ring, the choice of stone, the views through the leafless trees to Mither Tap and the two mighty outliers all combine to make this a special place.
If you’re up in Aberdeenshire you should definitely put Balgorkar on your list

I was up in Aberdeen for a couple of days on a course. My course was scheduled to finish at 4pm, sunset was at around 3.30pm. Fortunately a couple of my colleagues had flights to catch so we wrapped it all up at about 2.30pm. I dashed out of the building, jumped in the van and made a beeline for Tyrebagger, racing the sun.

The Path to the circle offers various views of the stones but cannot really prepare you for the sense of lovliness that flows over you as you step into this circle. I was fortunate enough to be there on a sunny November day. The sun was slowly sinking below Tyrebagger hill and I was able to sit in the circle and watch the shadows grow longer and longer.

I’ve visited the circle a number of times in the past whilst waiting to fly out of Aberdeen. Tyrebagger has become something of a touchstone from me. When flying out of Aberdeen I always try to take ‘a ringside seat’, which every now and then rewards me with a glimpse of the circle from the air. More often than the not the helicopter taxis onto the runway and heads straight out for the coast but every now and then it lingers momentarily over the airport allowing a quick view of the stones.

This is a lovely and unusual site. It seems to be a standing stone surrounded by a barrow which is very unusual for this part of the country.
It is pretty close to the village of Ballinahinch famous for that terrible comedy Killinascully. There is a road at the back of the church in the village that runs for about 1.25 km.
At the end of this road the site itself is probably a half km. It is almost directly in line with the road and i found it (GPS wasnt working on the day but it would be the best way to find it).
There are a number of other barrows in the area that I intend to view particulary now that the M7 motorway is going to be passing pretty close to the village.

Just north of the junction of the A52 and the A523 359 metres up hill is the big barrow known as Musden low, it’s the biggest of three barrows on top of the hill but also the most destroyed, a massive section of it is gone. Two standing stones are on the moor at the bottom of the hill one has been used as a gatepost at one time but are now stranded on their own in the middle of the field and arent ancient.
From on the hilltop there are marvelous views to the southwest Calton barrow can be seen,to the northwest Waterfall low , to the northeast the entrance to Dovedale ,and to the east and south the stafford plaines

Coming from the Staneloof-Hunclett track I had to climb over several inter-linked fences to gain access to the field next to the recognised Staneloof sites (unfortunately you cannot get into the area containing these for the new fence-lined ‘drains’ now making the field boundaries here). This is a rather marshy field, even skirting the edge my feet ended up getting damp – you definitely need ‘wellygogs’. Panning around I found myself half-jumping from grassy hump to hump, the marsh interweaving in similar fashion to Brymer. They were, as far as I could tell, irregular in shape apart from the one nearest to the fence by the Staneloof cairn. This, at very roughly HY485070, is circular and of decent size. I half-expected burnt mounds here. Trying to find a way down the field I saw a small quarry-like pool where rocks were. Couldn’t get there so splashed back to the mound. Which is when I saw dark material exposed near the apparent base, perhaps a failed attempt at digging peats. Very damp stuff. I picked some up and the texture was surprisingly granular, lots of spherods like small beads. It has taken a few days for the thought to arise that just maybe this was carbonised grain – but this would not explain the slightly larger irregular pieces. Should have taken a sample. Too late now.

I visited Easter Aquhorthies on a still November evening. I had watched the sunset at Broomend and then drove in the twilight along the single track road from Inverurie.
I parked up in the carpark and walked along the track, the moon was quite high and was encircled by a huge ice halo. I could hear an owl screeching in the distance. It was one of those moments when you know something special was happening.
I sat in the circle and the place just seemed to wrap itself around me. I can’t tell you how long I stayed there but it was a real wrench to walk away from the place.
This was my first visit to the circle and to see it in the moonlight was an unforgetable experience. I’m in love with this circle

Not quite in the Auchenlaich league for being long , you’ll get six of Bracklin Burn into Auchenlaich and still have room for another chamber , but at 53.5 m still quite impressive.It’s aligned WNWN-ESE and tapers from 14.8 m, at the eastern end to 8.5m at the west .

I called in at Tealing on my way up to Aberdeen. I was hoping to have a good nosey around the general area but unfortunately a number of factors conspired to ensure that I arrived at Tealing just as the sun was going down. There is a parking space opposite the farmyard and the earth house is just a small walk away.
What prompted me to visit the Tealing Earth House was the inclusion of two carved rocks in the fabric of the structure. The pair of carved rocks are lovely, the cup and ring carved rock is built into the wall of the structure, the cup marked rock is embedded into the turf that is enclosed within the arc of the structure. The inclusion of these stones couldn’t really be anything but a deliberate act, perhaps as a ‘nod to the ancestors’.

Earth Houses, Souterrains, Weems, Fogous, call ‘em what you like, these are strange structures. We are told that they are possibly defensive structures or storehouses. Personally speaking, I feel that these structures had to be used for more than the usual explanations. The design and care taken in their construction implies that their uses ran to more than Iron Age storerooms or bolt holes. The limited geographical distribution, throughout our islands, of these structures also may imply that they may have had a specific meaning to a specific community. Truth is no-one knows.
The inclusion of the carved stones in the fabric of the building is not unique to Tealing, there are carved stones in the walls of the nearby Mains of Ardestine Earth House and there is a cup marked stone in the Aberdeenshire Souterrain at Clush.
The reuse of carved stones has a long tradition in our islands and abroad, an unbroken lineage from the Neolithic to the present day.

Tealing is a lovely site. The short walk from the parking space involves a low stile, a muddy field path and a kissing gate so may not be suitable for all.

The Glen of Imaal is one of the most beautiful places in Wicklow. A natural amphitheatre of gigantic proportions, it has one major problem: most of it is an army artillery range.
Marked on the map, just inside the range 400 metres along a track, is a graveyard that has many modern and less modern graves. 15 metres to its east-south-east it also has a bullaun stone. The stone is flush with the ground and has one bullaun, circular, estimated at 25 cms diameter by 8 cms deep.
The views from this commanding position, south to Keadeen and Brusselstown and East to Camenaboulogue and the hills up to Lugnaquilla, are gorgeous.

Easily seen on the A515 ,still quite big but hemmed in by field walls and recently planted with young trees in time it will become more and more invsible

The grounds of Stewart’s hospital are a bit of a maze. I had to ask directions for this from a staff member. On the last day of November ‘06 in the wind and rain I didn’t venture into the undergrowth to check the structure.

Plum Lane, junction Brinklow Crescent, SE18.
‘In the past six barrows existed on and about Shooters Hill. These mounds resembled the round barrows characteristic of the Bronze Age (2000 – 500 BC) but all except this one have been destroyed and sadly no proper examination was made of them before they were swept away. This last remaining mound is situated at the junction of what is now Brinklow Crescent and Plum Lane’.

greenwich.gov.uk/Greenwich/YourEnvironment/GreenSpace/Monuments/ShrewsburyTumulus.htm

‘The burial mound is on the eastern part of Plumstead Common, known as Winn’s Common, near Bleak Hill Lane. The mound is about 20 metres in diameter and very worn down. It is thought that it may have been part of a cluster of seven tumuli similar to the cluster known to have existed on Shooter’s Hill. The Winn’s Common tumulus has been opened some time in the past but there is no record of what was found or who was involved. The dimensions and shape of the two survivors suggest that they may be Bronze Age burial mounds. The barrow on Winns Common and the one in Brinklow Crescent on Shooters Hill Shrewsbury Tumulus are the only survivors. Five were destroyed in the 1930’s when the Laing Estate was built on Shooters Hill. One that stood in Shrewsbury Park survived the destruction by Laing but has subsequently vanished’.

greenwich.gov.uk/Greenwich/YourEnvironment/GreenSpace/Monuments/WinnsCommonTumulus.htm

What a fantastic place Carl Wark is, didn’t he play for Everton, or did I go school with him either way a strange name for a Hillfort.An even stranger place to live with all the boulders everywhere, it frankly looks more like an enclosure like on gardom’s edge.
parking is available to the North and the south, we parked near the Burbar bridge but then had to cross the river, so youll be better off walking down to the bridge and take the path there .
The stone built wall is quite impressive with the entrance and more walling plus some kind of stone trough but it’s outside the fort weather that means ‘out I don’t know,I told the kids it’s where naughty kids were made to sit till they can behave themselves.A walk up to Higger tor is obligatory as it looks over the fort and a window in the rocks fortuisouly looks straight to it .The Peak district is the most visited natoinal park in the world and on this day you could really tell it was teaming with walkers and climbers .The carpark near Burbar bridge south has what really looks like a standing stone long and tall aligned on the fort please someone go take a look

At 141 metres above Helsby there are great views to Wales, the Mersey river ,Merseyside and the mid Cheshire ridge of which this is the first hill .Park to the south near the old sandstone quarry and make for the trig point, as you approach it you’ll pass the ramparts on your right.The ramparts are better preserved on the public side of the fence than on the farmed side , a bit strange that all the feet of the public did less damage than a few farmers ploughs.

100 metres or so back from the Wicklow Gap road/Glendalough/Laragh road the Wicklow Way comes down to the road from Brockagh mountain. There’s a clear signpost for it there and directly opposite on the other side of the road there’s a farmgate. Over this about 20 metres into the field and to your left is the first of the bullauns. Said to have ‘9 granite boulders with 13 basins’, I located 8. The first of these is very font-like, with one bullaun carved/worked into the flat surface of a split rock. 10 metres to the west of this is a boulder with 2 bullauns, one of which seems to be in poor and very worn condition. Roughly 10 metres south of this is another double bullaun, again with one perfect specimen and its worn twin. Walk roughly 20 metres south-west of here and you’re confronted with the “Seven Fonts”. This is a concentration of 4 boulders, 3 with a single bullaun and one with the aforementioned rectangular basin with 3 bullauns inside it and one outside. 25 metres north-west of here is a huge earthfast boulder with a single bullaun. Which gives you 8 stones and 13 bullauns!

Heading north-west from the caretaker’s house, I decided to try and locate the stones behind the sawmill. You can see this about 80 metres up along the west bank of the Glendasan and as I was already in the field I went for it. Careful back here! The banks of the river are very steep and slippery. I was fairly nervous here but then I spied the huge stone in the river with the single bullaun Quite mad really, but I descended to have a better look and get a better shot. The late-November-swollen river, and the fact that I was in someone’s back garden, stopped me going any further.

It’s beside the right-hand pillar at the end of the car-park and is hugely ignored, with rubbish littering its vicinity. The stone itself has been broken, probably dug up and brought here to be willfully neglected.

Walk straight through the main monastic settlement and cross the wooden bridge over the Glenealo river and there it is. The first of the font-like stones, it’s surrounded by a heap of ‘megalithics’ that may or may not pre-date the christian settlement in their arrangement.

I thought the name may have had some roots in the Pallasgreen/ grian or sun goddess. However from the Gaelic for Rosegreen, it seems that it literally means rose green.
This mound is just off the R686, there is a church across the road that looks like it may be built on a low mound. Perhaps they are both barrows. The field this mound is in is up for sale for a housing development so this may be the last we ever see of it.

This ringfort is just outside Cashel. I include it because it is marked specifically as “Rath Na Drinne” on the OS Map which is unusual and because of its proximity to Carron Henge which is only a few kms away. It is a three bank ring-fort but perhaps it may orginally have been a henge? Its huge in the centre maybe 300-400m diameter.

Strangely enough this is the second townland near to Cashel that is called Ballinree. This stone is no longer here. It would have been in the middle of land that is now used for tillage so I guess it has been removed. The view south to the hills is great.

This mound is about 2m high and maybe 10-15m diameter. It is to the rear of a gentry house. It is very close to a standing stone. Perhaps the stone was on top of it but that is unlikely.

27 Nov 2006
After trudging around trying to find anything that might resemble a fogou to a shortsighted Ordnance Surveyor, I made my way to the top of High Moor. There sat two nice little cairns, which as soon as I approached resulted in me being attacked by huge flies.
Determined to capture the cairns on film..or whatever you call a digital image..I swiped about with my stick before snapping away. It made no difference of course but strangely as soon as I moved away from the cairn they left me alone.
So, not much in the way of fieldnotes about the cairns, I will go back next summer and have another look..and take some deet!
18 September 2009
Three years on from my last visit I find myself on the top of High Moor again...and the flies are still here! This time they are not so much a problem and I am able to inspect the easterly cairn, larger but lying lower than the summit cairn. It is also flooded with the central cairn appearing as a small island inside a circular sea.
This is a wild bit of moorland overshadowed by the hills all around, why it is known as HighMoor I do not know!

This standing stone has fallen. It can be found off the Horse and Jockey to Cashel (N8) road. Best to locate off of a OS map, its the first right after a long turn after the H&J coming from Dublin. Pass thru a cross roads and there is an old gentry house on the right hand side. Stop at the field just before it and on the rhs there is a cattle crush. Hop this and walk along side the walls of the estate. When it stops turn left in towards a circular barrow ish looking area. The stone is lying here. It is about 2m long and Im not sure which end is up. There is an artifical mound to the north east and I think the stone may have been on some kind of barrow.