Strange little stones.
They now have a protective wooden fence, presumably to stop the cattle from using them as rubbing stones.
The proximity to St Ninian’s Chapel is interesting, it’s an old early Celtic christian site, with inevitable thoughts of earlier provenance and possible continuities arising in my mind.
Apart from anything else, it’s an absolutely beautiful spot.
I just saw this posting before I left Dublin for Clonmel this morning, nice coincidence! I have passed the sign for the stone many times without seeing it, it points to a side road to your right coming from Cashel towards Clonmel but the help ends there. I drove up and down the road and saw nothing, after the second time I just thought ‘sod it’ and went back up once more since the crossroads on the other end has a sign for Cashel too. I just managed to catch a glimpse of it in a field to the right, the first gate after the sharp Z bend.
The gate into the field is now locked and wrapped with barbed wire, what was once a stile was blocked up with thorny branches. Nice. From the road side its easy to see the stone and the truly awful brick surround, maybe they have a grey rhino in the field and need to protect the public but in either case this stone has had its style severely cramped, a foresty plantation looks like its just about to swallow it up now too! A real pity, this would have been a wonderful stone with stunning views.
I have visited this site many times, since my late father comes from Islay and I have been going there since I was a child (most recently in 2005). The stone stands in front of a small hillock called Cnoc Mor – ‘The Great Hill’ – an odd name as it is only about two metres tall. In the same field, Pairc Bhaile Neill, are the remains of a chapel, Cille Lasrach, and a similarly named ancient well, Tobar Cille Lasrach. Lasrach is form of Lasair, a saint, but Maceacharna in The Lands of the Lordship notes that the word also relates to ‘a feminine word meaning a flame’. Interestingly if you pass this site on the small road leading off the the main road from Port Ellen to Ardbeg you soon come to another site – Kilbride. Saint/Goddess Bride is sometimes linked with Lasair.
Source of quote: MACEACHARNA, DOMHNALL The Lands of the Lordship; the Romance of Islay’s Names
Argyll Reproductions, Isle of Islay 1st ed 1976.
One of the most important Neolithic sites in southern Scotland . Occupying 16 acres of an upland natural amphitheatre there is not a lot to see and the dull pics don’t help much either . It is possible to access the site from the road to the nearby quarry but be careful where, you park , lorries use it constantly .
This is a lovely balluan which you should be able to see easily enough from the road. It is situated on a real 360 panoramic view.
The stone itself must be about 1.25m x 0.75m.
This stone is about 1.25m high and it makes up part of the field boundary, follow the directions for Manning megalithic tomb turn left after it and then follow this road for about a mile.
Its very difficult to make sense of this site. It is marked as stone circle on the OS Map but it so overgrown and damaged its hard to tell.
The eastern side has a cairn which looks very new and Id say it is field clearance. There are even some concrete slabs dumped in the ‘centre’ of this circle. There are a few stones from the circle lying flat to the western side but the eastern side has maybe 10-12 big stones ranging from 1m to 2m long and all about 0.75-1m high.
Follow the directions for the tomb in Manning and then turn left. The circle is in the field to the right after the turn. It is the middle of the field, difficult to see because there is some odd plants growing.
This big flat topped mound is massive. Im not sure what it is, possibly a raised rath or an artifical mound. Its not a motte.
It is about 5m tall, flat-topped the diameter could be anything up to 20-30m.
There is a low bank around the outside of the mound.
This tomb is only a few miles from Glanworth and is probably worth a look if you are visiting Labbacallee. In the town of Glanworth turn down towards the river and cross a really narrow bridge with a traffic light on it. After about 2 miles you will come to Manning cross. The tomb is on the right hand side about 300 before the cross in on a hill that is very overgrown.
The tomb itself is aligned west-east. There is a rath or a mound to the north of it and the OS map shows a number of circles around this suggesting ring-forts (i think). Its interesting that the inhabitants would have built around this tomb.
It isnt the easiest to see but thats as close as I could get with a few friendly bullocks coming over to say hello.
It looks about 1m high and seems to be a two tones stone, half black and half grey/white.
These pics are a couple of years old now. I happen to have passed the sign for this a few weeks ago and remembered I had called up here before.
Its a standing stone with two crosses on it, one incised into it the other standing out from the face. With a name like Giantsgrave you would think it was a megalithic tomb but this stone doesnt look like it could have been used in a tomb.
The standing stone is well sign-posted on the Clonmel to Cashel road.
Danesborough is an iron age hillfort, which if it were in say, the Welsh Marches or the Berkshire Downs, wouldn’t get much more than a second glance from all but the most dedicated researchers. However, since it is no more than a stone’s throw from Milton Keynes, an area not rich in prehistoric remains, it is worth a visit if you’re in the area.
It is situated in Aspley Woods. Whilst the trees and bracken make it difficult to appreciate the scale of the site, they do make for a very nice walk to get there. You can wander through the forest for literally miles if you want to.
The hillfort itself is fairly standard: with a bank, ditch and counterscarp bank all visible. In places the top of the bank is still 12-15 feet above the silted bottom of the ditch. The land falls away fairly steeply on the southeast and northwest, making quite an impressive defended site, close to the pre-roman route of Watling Street.
The soft, sandy soil of the area (the nearest village is Woburn Sands – an accurate name) mean that there are numerous hollow ways and sunken tracks, which combined with the trees make interpretation difficult. There are entrances to the northeast and southwest which may be original, but it is difficult to make out any traces of outworks or other defensive gateway structures owing to the bracken and the confused nature of the ground.
There is no best place to park and no best route to Danesborough. It is at least half a mile from the nearest road, and the paths can be muddy. Get yourself a decent map, park up in either Woburn, Woburn Sands or Bow Brickhill, and enjoy the peace and quiet of the woods on the walk there.
When originally discovered this motif appeared to have five rings curtailed by the edge of the rock ,see themodernantiquarian.com/post/53565 ,
quite a common feature in rock art . However ,when the the area surrounding them was cleaned up a bit and with better lighting the ” rings ” turned out to be two sets of arcs giving the impression of rings . While there are lots of examples of rings being cut off at a fissure or or change in slope or texture I don’t know of any that have it on two sides .
It’s completely different kind of stone when compared to those at Machrie. It would look more at home on the Isle of Lewis.
It’s a damn good one. Nice shape, size, good lichen, nice views, fairly easy to get to, with the fallen twin hiding in the grass as a bonus. It’s lovely and sculptural.
It’s easy to get to from the farmhouse halfway up to Auchencar, where the folks were happy to dispense permission for tromping across the field. Beware though, dodgy narrow track and not much space to turn a vehicle.
This is an interesting site, I first read about it in some history of the parish book calling it a Druids Altar. In this, seemingly it was excavated and some bones where found under it in a pit. So perhaps this is more of a Kist.
I then had a look in the North Tipp Inventory and it calls it a possible megalithic tomb but it references that there are few remains and it looks like field clearance.
I used my GPS to find it and the coordinate took me exactly to the spot where the large rock in the pictures are.
Now I dont really understand how this could be confused with field clearance but I will do so more investigation (check both the references).
I was quite delighted in finding this, its a huge altar like rock. It may have been resting on the slab below (or vice versa). The area is full of large rocks that are part of field clearance so any of them may have made have been part of this tomb or possibly other monuments. In the field to south there is a possible bullaun.
Also less than 20m away from the tomb in the trees to the left there a large mound which didnt come out very well in the pic.
There is no mention of the mound in the North Tipp Inventory and looked to me like either a raised rath or else something older.
All in all, pretty interesting for a spot on the map marked with only a circle.
17th April 2016 –
I’m afraid the description above is incorrect and relates to a large slab of stone about 1 field away from the actual Megalithic Structure. The mound beside it is now mentioned in the Inventory and it is likely to be the remains of a Cashel.
This one would have been right at a cross-roads but doesnt seem to be here any longer. There is a unusual rock outcrop 100m to the east.
Some new motifs on a area of bedrock found a couple of months ago .
This standing stone appears to have gone missing. Fantastic views to the south from over the Glen of Aherlow to the Knockmealdown mts.
Park next to the southern end of the dam and go up the stairs to the picnic site (tables and chairs) next to this a fence runs follow to the gate and climb over, take care your now tresspassing, from here another gate can be seen open and proceed after closing.
The stone stands between you and the forest, between you and the stone is a barbed wire topped fence, which we didn’t climb.
Looking up at the stone from below in the valley it has a lozenge shape, about 6ft tall and half covered in moss, as we approached I was uncertain if it be stone or tree stump...
There are many huge megaliths like this around Moytirra east and over on the other side of Lough Arrow at Carrowkeel. They are very probably glacial erratics but this one seemed so like it had been PUT there that I’ve posted it here. Should anybody have the slightest difficulty with this I’ll delete it. I would like the chance to go back there and investigate further, hopefully when the cows aren’t around.
Marked as an Ogham stone on sheet 33, this pair are parked on the south side of a rath. The western stone, which is almost entirely covered in white lichen, has the aforementioned inscription. Both stones are about a metre tall.
Slightly closer to the road than is marked on the OS map, you can see this one as you drive by (12/11/06). It’s a delightfully odd, 2 metre tall, deeply eroded, leaning phallus. How it hasn’t collapsed is anyone’s guess. The erosion on the side away from the road was a nice surprise.
A massive slab of stone, 2 metres long, tapering from 2 and-a-half to 3 metres tall and about three-quarters of a metre thick. It’s leaning slightly to the west now and must have taken a massive effort to erect. A complete wild estimate of about 15 tons in weight makes this the biggest standing stone I’ve seen yet. Impressive.
Finding this is not for the faint hearted.Park down by the sawmills and walk back up the road, on the right is a mountain bike path,follow this and you come to a forest path,follow this to a wider path walk up the hill and on the right at this time of year you can just see the barrow on the right through the trees.Best of luck.
The tor, and the area around it, is still very much closed off to the public...and will be for the foreseeable future as the owner is not prepared to budge on allowing access.
The tor itself can still be seen, and is a fine lump of rock which changes shape as you view it from different angles (as most things do!). Some say it looks like a witch’s head from one side and this ties in with the legend of Vixanna.
In the good old days I regularly climbed to the top, a tight squeeze up a gap in the middle of the tor. From the summit you could look out over the surrounding moorland , just like the witch used to do.
