Latest Fieldnotes

Directions. From the A487 head south on single track lane if youv’e no desire to walk far look for Ynys-ddu small farm and turn right, pass the farm, down the lane and a small group of houses and another farm are reached ask at one of the dwellings for parking, and go through gate into field pass through hedge and the chamber is on the high ground to the right.
Looking at Julian Copes directions I put off coming here for a while but I brought my bike and parked the car on the B4411 which made it a lot easier and more fun.
This place is really cool, I got here before sunrise and moonset and witnessed something I felt was not often seen the full moon setting in the Llyns mountains and behind me the sun rising . the capstone would be better discribed less as a piano more as an arrow or spear head, supported on four upright stones one has a chock stone presumably for increased stability (dubious though i prefer the show off factor) and another stone only barely touches the capstone .
A fantatsic place where hardly anyone goes sunset would be awesome

Only a mile or two from Ystumcegid and only a 10-15 minute walk from the car .Off the A487park at Beudy Cil-haul not at the farm itself but next to a barn where the footpath heads south-east.
Follow the path then bend right(ssw) then a short walk uphill and there it is.
About five and a half feet tall circular in section near the floor but more angular as we go up and terminates in a point. Nice stone with great mountain views

Coming out of Caher on the road to Clonmel this standing stone is on the first imposing hill on the right hand side. There seems to be a lighting conduction on the hill as well. Part on the right-hand side of the road and access is easy enough thru two fields.
The stone itself is about 2.5m high and I wonder does the look of it and the fact it has a lightning conductor beside it are connected, perhaps it used get hit by lightning regulary!
The views from the top of this hill and panoramic and stunning. On a clear day you can see all the cairns that top the hills around these parts.

I looked on the OS map on this one and thought its positioning close to the road looked funny. This is actually ON the road in a little traffice island.
It is on the road south of Cahir take the road signposted for the Swiss Cottage but ignore the right hand turn for it. The stone is at the junction of the next left-hand turn.

Again there is no sign of this standing stone. Seems to be a regular occurance in the Golden Vale.

This tomb no longer appears to be with us.
With the construction of the M8 the site of this is difficult to get to.
I’ve been up here twice and Im fairly satisfied that it is no longer here. It is in a pine plantation and there is a little mound roughly in the area where I think it may have been.
As they say better men than me are welcome to try!

Well I was wrong about this site, I attended a talk about prehistoric sites in the Suir Valley and this appeared on it with a picture and everything. So this made me even more determined to find it.
It is very tough to find even with the ten digit OS grid ref.
It is in a kind of forest area with loads of different types of trees etc and no paths to it.
There does seem to be various paths through the forest but they dont go to this so it makes it even more confusing.
I believe it is listed as a possible Portal Tomb, Im not sure why that is so. although in fairness its state of repair at the moment is poor. There seems to be only a capstone and one small upright remaining. There is also some quartz stone in the vicinity.
Apologies about the pictures, I will get a few better ones another day, if I can find it again!

I had wanted to come for quite a while ever since I saw Kammers pictures who by the way had provided absolutely spot on directions, looking at the map it’s not really clear just where and how to get there just follow the directions.
I really wanted to add a picture of the megalithic bridge it’s very pretty but presumably not ancient.
The stones are barely ten minutes from the car and well worth the little walk.Conundrum ,that just about sums Llys Bradwen up but after the glut of single standing stones in the vecinity this little mystery was most welcome, more people should come here,but not whilst I’m here.
P.S approach down the road from the north, in Arthog the lane is well tiny and very steep.

150 metres north-east of the of the main cairn at Poulawack are the remains of another small burial cairn. Rising to a little over a metre, it’s a robbed out ruin. Estimated diameter is about 10 metres. At the centre of the mound there are the remains of a burial chamber/cist, with some of the orthostats still in place on the east side. It’s hard to guess the dimensions of this due to the infill. On a drizzly, January day we wondered who it was that pulled this mound apart and what they were looking for.

There is now a turnstile-type gate and three information boards at Poulnabrone. The pathway from the road to the tomb looks and feels unfinished. How many of the million-a-year visitors that the Cliffs of Moher get stop off here? There were 2 tour buses here the day we arrived, late January, when most of the Burren facilities were closed down. We waited for them to leave and had the monument to ourselves.

This is one superbly located wedge tomb, amazing views in all directions around Dingle Bay, across to the Iveragh Peninsula and over the fields and beaches far below. From the pictures it looks like the tomb is still covered in most of its cairn, there is a fair amount of cairn still here but the ‘entrance’ is really a gap where a side stone has been removed and the true front has been blocked up with dry walling which also makes up most of what looks like the cairn. It makes a great shelter, probably has been used by shepherds and travellers for thousands of years.

It’s hard to be sure but it seems there are three massive capstones in place, the structure is complete from inside except for the missing sidestone. It once formed part of a field wall and there doesn’t seem to be any double walling present. Overall a fine but modified monument.

To get here follow signs for ‘Arkil’ (the quarry?) from the main road through Lispole, go past the quarry and masts, back down the hill a bit on the left is a track with a wide entrance with room to park a car or two. The map shows the track winds around and back up to the tomb from the south, a much better approach is to leave the track at the first sharp bend, over the gate to the right. From here, climb to the top of the hill to the south west, the tomb is on the summit.

Visited this site on 27/01/07. Unfortunately someone’s dumped a load of stone debris around the base

Passing by through Killarney on my way home I thought I would pop by and see if it was possible to visit the circle. The farmer was walking up the lane so I was delighted to be given permission to go and see it.

My, my, my oh my... The area around the circle looks like its in the middle of a nuclear winter again, not a blade of grass left standing. Most of the tree cover around about half the henge has been cut down and thinned out, one tree has fallen directly onto one of the stones of the circle (though this may have been due to the storms) and to top it all off a large orange fibreglass ‘roof’ of something has been dumped inside the enclosure. I doubt things have ever been worse for this little circle. With some creativity I was able to get some nice shots of it, also some of the general state of the site.

Finding this place is a labour of love.

I intended to go for a poddle about on Garth Hill today but instead found myself carrying on up past Ponty towards this site, curiosity aroused since reading RedBrickDream’s post on it from almost five years ago.

If you haven’t got a tomtom, take a mate who’s a decent navigator. I went up the wrong side of the valley and ended up going ‘round in circles in some god-awful new road system they were building in Porth, I went back and forth between Ynyshire (ermn, I’m sorry, it’s that an island in Ireland? ;) ), Wattstown and Tonypandy for about an hour....don’t ask. Oh, and watch out, they like their speed camera vans around those parts.

Aaaanyway, eventually I made it to Gelli.

There are no signs for the landfill site anymore as the landfill site caused so much local unrest that they’ve now closed it down for good. The best thing you can do is follow the signs for the Industrial Estate. When you enter it the road forks in two – take the right-hand high road. Get to the end, turn right then right again onto a main road heading up the hill. Carry on past a speed camera on your right and it’s just ‘round the corner on your left with a sign for the ‘recycling plant’.

I found this by asking directions from two local gents, one of whom recounted fond memories of going up to the stones as a young man but had no idea whether they were still there or not. He assumed thay had fallen into the landfill.

On your left you will indeed see a small recycling centre. You need to pull in there, go to the booth and tell the person behind the counter that you’d like to go up and have a nose around. I didn’t have any problems getting entry and you follow the road up and park in a lay-by just outside the gates to the main landfill site.

Just before the gates there are two stiles (or ‘kissing gates’) on either side of the road. Facing the main gates of the landfill, the stile to your left leads into a field with a huge hill. The hill is an old part of the landfill but if you don’t mind climbing about on it, there’s some pretty impressive views of the Rhondda valley from up there. Gives you a good appreciation of the lay of the land. Standing atop it, looking down on the town, look up and to your right and you’ll see two prominent pointy hills. I’ve not had a chance to go investigate but it might be one to nose about on if you have the time. The problem with Welsh valleys is that you never know whether it’s something significant or a slag heap ;)

I was under a bit of pressure as the main gates close at five and, although I arrived in plenty of time, a guy from the landfill wanted to go home at three and, although not out-rightly asking me to hurry things along, seemed to be anxious to head off.

I spent quite a bit of time looking out at the other hills around. On my way in to Gelli I passed through Penrhys. Just off a roundabout leaving Penrhys is a car park and ‘St. Mary’s Well’. It’s worth stopping off here if you find it. The well no longer seems to be there but there is a giant statue of the Madonna with child looking out across the valley. It appears to be a renovation of one that was put there in the 1500s. The interesting thing is that this is on the opposite side of the valley to Mynydd Y Gelli. Standing on top of the rubbish heap with a wide view of the valley, looking to your right (in the rough direction of Penrhys and the well) is the aforementioned twin peaks. Another reason it might be worth checking out.

I have seen pictures online of the face stone and the main rings but I didn’t make it that far due to the time pressures. I would very much like to go back again with someone else who’s interested in this, to have another nose about. It’s not an easy site to distinguish as there’s the remains of a large stone wall and possibly a cottage, so the ground is littered with bits of rock. There is a definite difference between the large, old boulders in my pictures and all the wall debris, but that combined with the undergrowth makes the site well camouflaged.

Breathtaking view though. You can’t help but think that if the local council had treasured the site instead of turning it into a dump for dungy nappies, it could have a similar pull as Castlerigg just for the scenery.

I took a couple of quick picks (including St. Mary’s Well) here. Not the most impressive, but a start.

Fantastic views, particularly in the snow.

From Magic: The monument is a bowl barrow located at the summit of Kinderlow in the western gritstone moorlands of Derbyshire. It includes a steep-sided sub-circular mound measuring 17.5m by 15m and standing c.2m high. A gritstone kerb is visible in the edges of the mound and there is a modern walker’s cairn on the summit. The monument has not been excavated and so cannot be precisely dated, but its form and hilltop location assign it to the Bronze Age.

It is currently being restored by NT/Peak District National Park Authority to repair erosion damage.

Cherhill Down is a place close to my heart -might even get my ashes scattered up here one day – as a landscape its totally weird, those folds of the hills that seem to draw you down into a vortex. The hillfort when visited last November was full of sheep and the day was misty, its part of the Avebury landscape that is thankfully untouchable because of the terrain.
I can see the monument from the downs round Bath, a good 30 kms away, and it is always a reminder of the nearness of the prehistoric settlements round here, Avebury, the Mendips, Cotswolds, Stonehenge and Salisbury Plain. The movement of people through the high lands with the marshy ground below, visiting each other at certain times through the year,, generations of people living in a landscape that provided for them. They melded the land into a place of permanent homestead, from the early beginnings of the causewayed enclosures of Windmill Hill and Nash Hill down to these large defensive iron age hillforts.
Practical facts; 25 acres defended by two banks and ditches, with an inturned entrance on the East. Area enclosed is divided across by a small bank and ditch running N/S (probably not contemporary) Pottery of 2nd/3rd century bc has been found in rubbish pits inside.

This fine Menhir has sadly fallen over. It would have stood over 3m when erect. Looks like it toppled only in recent years. It’s shameful to see our national monuments suffering such neglect...

This stone is obviously leaning heavily towards the east. Looks like someone has placed packing stones around the base to help prevent it from toppling over. Hope their efforts were not in vain as this is a huge stone over 4m high. I fear that it’s sheer weight and gravity may cause it to topple like it’s neighbouring stone in Shanballynakill. Hope I’m wrong!

This is a craggy old rock, very eroded with loose pieces crumbling away, but still quite stable – didn’t want to poke at it too much though. It’s pretty large; well over 3m tall. There is another fallen rock beside it, can only assume that it was another standing stone.

From Barbrook I, find a track a few yards beyond the cairn to the NE and then follow it approx NNW for just over 200 metres.

Don’t be thrown as I was by the funny symbol (5 dots in a pentagon) which appears just to the right of the words “Stone Circle” on the OS Explorer map. I assumed it was an obscure symbol for a stone circle but in fact the circle is somewhat further south and I haven’t got a clue what the symbol really means!

The circle can be found by walking 200m on a bearing of 230 degrees from the path junction. Don’t try looking for the reservoir for help – it has been drained and will not be refilled.

after going through Rainow and Gincluogh take second right and at the highest point on the road Pike low is over the wall .The barrow is very battered with many big scoops taken out of it much like Musden low, and like that low there isnt much to see apart from the stone about 7ft tall, the squarish hole when looked through lets you see Big low ( but may not be ancient)
Like most Peak barrows there are extensive views,Shutlingsloe can be seen just peeping over the hills

Just to the north of the B4396 inbetween Llangedwyn and the smaller Pentrefelin is this impresive hill fort perched way up in the air on what must be an extinct volcanoe. Walk from the west or the east, but climb it from the east through the natural entrance otherwise it’s a really steep climb as we found out.

The bank runs around the entire hilltop reaching a height of about 5/6 feet, the back door is well defined but less so at the eastern entrance. What magnificent views from up here if your in the area the climb is well worth it.

A 3 basin bullaun that’s not marked on Sheet 56. Take the road south from Oldbridge to Laragh. After about a mile the road dips where Keocha’s Brook passes under the road. 10 metres before this on the right-hand side is a gate into a large, sloping field. Walk west through here just above the brook for approx. 500 metres. The stone is there in the corner of the field.
It’s a large lump of a rock that may have been previously earthfast. It reminds me of Clonmore bullaun stone: themodernantiquarian.com/site/935
Two of the basins are over a foot in diameter and quite deep. The other is very shallow, maybe the beginnings of a forgotten project.
For more on this see miscellaneous post below.

A fine setting , view is of Carn Liath .The cairn was found to contain the two side slabs of a cist .

If you’re heading for this panel, whatever you do, don’t rely on the OSmap (like we did), the explorer map shows a track leading from Slockaullin to Tayness, heading south, then doubling back after a mile or so. This track turns into a total bog (we slogged through it). Not worth the bother. Instead, follow Greywether’s directions, and use the newer track heading uphill to your right as you walk up from the road to Slockavullin, it’s not on the map, but it’ll get you right up there to where you want to go, we used it to get back down, much better.

Tidily mown inside the fence, completely wild and woolly outside. The panel itself is nice. A frequently made observation seems to be regarding how the motifs are clustered together on the rock surface, with a big gap around the edge. No-one knows if this was a deliberate choice or simply because the carvings are on the part that was exposed back when the carvings were pecked.

Possibly due to the uneven water table, we found that sunset at Ballygowan to be a very midge infested time.

Visited August 2006