Latest Fieldnotes

Yet again I get to visit a site that I have driven past hundreds of times but never stopped. To make up for it I spent most of the day in the Merrivale area on Nov 6, starting at 10 with the sun climbing high in the sky, slowly burning the fog away... and finishing at 4.30 as the sun sunk into Cornwall.

I had been told that there is a theory that one of the rows points directly to the Rillaton Barrow on Bodmin Moor, sadly the day was to hazey to pin point the barrow, although I could make out Stowes Hill.

Part of the day was spent with a National Park guide and several young ladies from Cornwall College who had never walked on the moor before. The guide pointed out that the rows run east to west (so!?). From my experience of stone rows I would say that is just coincidence, but there may be something in it.

I find it interesting that someone should have driven a leat right down the middle of the two rows. They obviously had no fear of superstition connected with pagan sites, or did they not realise what the rows were?

I thought that I would have to leave before sunset, but the gods were with me and provided a fantastic sky to end the day. I could post at least a dozen photos, but I won’t. Maybe a couple though.

Just to the south of the two rows stands the lovely menhir. between it and the rows is a circle of a decent size although none of the stones are of much more than a foot or two tall.

Around the menhir there are possibly the remains of another circle/row. A small cairn and what is thought to be a fallen menhir.

Is this all part of the settlement and stone row complex? the cairn is similar to the one found in the middle of the southern stone row, only really big enough for ashes, but if they do all date from the same time what is the realtionship between them all?

Visited on Friday 27th October. I was surprised when I looked at the photos on the website because they didn’t look like the one I’d taken! I quickly realised that a lot of the stones and wall in which the Cromlech was embedded have now been removed. It now looks more impressive.

Bloody hell, it was windy! We nearly got blown off the hill when we reached the Broch and Mark gave me one of ‘those’ looks which I took to mean, “never again will I follow you up a hill in a force 8 gale”. Oh well.

Easy to find, with a brown tourist sign pointing you in the right direction. The visitor centre is closed in winter though, although the toilets remain open all year round (very obliging folk, the Hebrideans)

This was my first broch and to say it is impressive is an understatement. When I visited Newgrange I was blown away by the corbelled ceiling and here I was equally amazed at the skill and ingenuity of the people who built this. Incredible.

I have driven past this stone on previous visits to Harris but this was the first time I got to see it up close and personal. There is a sign on the road for parking, with a bench by it. Park here and then make your way across the beach and up the sandy headland...it initally looks closer than it is and with the wind howling around us we were knackered by the time we reached the stone. But it was worth it. The views across to Taransay were amazing and the stone is another of those skinny Hebridean ones which shouldn’t still be still be standing after all of these years.

My second visit to this site in 3 years and the most striking difference is that the landscape in November is even more extreme. The peatland is now a glorious rust colour and the hills are covered in low cloud. This time I did the walk between the 3 sites alone and it felt exhilirating. I saw no one else the whole time and other than wondering whether I was about to be consumed by a peat bog at one piont, the whole experience was spine tingling.

I stood at the stones and kept looking around me, surrounded by the stones of Callanish on all sides and with Cailleach na Mointeach on the horizon; it really is the most incredible of places.

Having not been here before I wasn’t sure what I would find ,from several miles away I could feel the roads were leading me to a hilltop copse far in the distance.
Park in the village of Back o’ the Brook,When we visited a lady was looking for her dog and we asked where was good to park and she let us park in front of her house.
Opposite the lane with a ford is a footpath, which should be taken up hill, it leads directly to Grub Low but as it’s a bit naff turn right and keep on going uphill to the much more impressive Waterfall Low.
The barrow is right on top of the hill and surrounded by a low stone wall amongst an attractive copse.It stands maybe 8ft tall by 20ft across and has a shallow scoop taken out of the top.Like I said having not been here before I was impressed by this large barrow ,a good find with spectacular views

Brian Byng’s book “Dartmoor’s Mysterious Megaliths” mentions settlement remains to the north of the B3357. He also talks about a fallen menhir and the fact that it might have lined up with Pew Tor on the winter solstice.

The field, now open access, is full of stone and also full of bracken. Even with a sketch of what I am trying to find I fail miserably. Nevermind, I decide to explore the hut circles and enclosures, again hidden amongst the bracken.

I found four huts, I think!, none of them easy to photograph, then crossed the road to head back towards the stone rows.

Shortly after crossing the road I came across the biggest stones I have ever seen used to build a hut circle...if thats what it is. The hut itself was not large, perhaps 15ft across but the stones used in the construction are not your usual random moor stones.

The hillside is dotted in circles and enclosures, one even features an 18th century millstone, balanced on granite uprights, inside its perimeter.

Slightly to the north west of the western end of the northern stone row (are you following?) there is hidden amongst the grass what Byng calls a stone circle. The National Park booklet about Merrivale calls it a cairn. I thought it looked like a small circle, there are three or four stones in the circle plus one in the middle, not very cairn like.

From here it is a short walk to the stone rows

I visited this amazing site on a freakishly hot day in mid July. What a location! Probably the most impressive views from a tomb that I’ve seen.
Unfortunately the tomb itself has seen better days, with only a few of the court stones still standing. The tomb is facing NE, and the court is about 6m wide, with the gallery stretching 9m to the SW. The cairn sits on top of a natural rise, and some of the kerb is still visible, dotted around the site. It seems to be about 11m wide, but its hard to be certain.

From around the site, I could see the Crannog at lough na crannagh, another little ruined wedge tomb, and with binoculars, several other tombs marked on the OS. a fun day indeed.

The site is marked on the OS map, and is about 2km NW of the top carpark at Murlough Bay, which is probably the easiest way to get to it, over pretty rough bog, past Lough Fadden and with no real paths, so be careful. Once at the site, the views are astonishing, and make up for the hike.

A dumpy little 0.93m tall lump of basalt, perched on top of a little hill, overlooked by Knocklayd mountain. Not as impressive as the other standing stones in the area, but quite easy to find, and with great views to the west.

From the Round Tower at Armoy, head east, straight ahead at the crossroads, and take the second (concrete) lane on the left. (There’s a little house at the bottom of the lane used to store wheely-bins) Just after a sharp turn in the lane, the road heads straight through a farmyard. The stone is directly behind the barn.

The stone is easy to pinpoint from the OS map, but I didn’t spot it until speaking to the local farmer.

A pretty poorly preserved Wedge tomb?? (I’m only guessing really), in a field just next to the road to Coolanlough Clachan, and Lough na Crannagh, with its Crannog. The cairn is aligned ENE-WSW, 7.5m long, narrowing on the WSW side to 2.5m, from 6m at ESE. Only one upright stone remains, about 1m tall, The rest of the site is a bit of a jumble of boulders, probably including field clearance stones.
According to the Northern Ireland Sites and Monuments Record, a porcellanite axe was discovered on top of the cairn in 1991.

Will return with camera and take some proper shots. This one was taken from the court tomb on the hill above.

This standing stone Id definitely put in the unknown gems of Ireland. It is a huge stone way over 2.5m high and it must surely be the highest in these parts. It is waffer thin about 200mm.
It is kinda knife shaped with the handle dug into the ground.
To find it turn right just after Hospital (going towards limerick) and follow the road. It is in a field next to a sign for a vets practice.
The pics I have arent great but there is a big hill to the which it seems to addressing as they say to the top right of the first photo.
This would be roughly west from it.

This standing stone is in the vicinity of Lough Gur. Coming from Herbertstown take the next left and the follow the road. It is on the left-hand side and you shouldnt miss it. It is a little over a 1m tall.
It is in fact on unmarked standing stone which I confused previously with a marked stone farther up the road.

This cairn is in a nice spot on the top of Birch Tor , with stunning views all around. Although the cairn is not much to look at it is worth a visit for the views alone.
This is the cairn that R.H.Worth, in 1925, found some road workers taking stones away in a cart. There would have been even less of it left if it had not been for his intervention.

More than ample parking at the Country park which is more like a built up crossroads of footpaths,take any path they all go up.
The fortifications are on the east,and south mainly, at times nearly 5ft tall with a well defined entrance at the east .
The last time I came up here it was ultra clear and we could see all the way to The Isle of Man and across to the Wicklow mountains

We took to the sanctuary of the tiny Nine stones stone circle, sheltered beneath the branches of a spectacular mature beech tree, with massive fungus colonies sprouting from its roots. It’s a very sweet stone circle which was perhaps used by both local people and travellers using the trackway that is now the busy A35.

Some tosser or tossers has chosen to decorate the monument with flowers. One bunch, still wrapped in its sellophane, had been left at the base of the tree. Another bunch had been placed in a log vase in the centre of the circle, around which was arranged some twigs to form the arms of a reversed swastika. Perhaps the same tosser who did this scratched the graffiti at the Hellstone?

Two things: 1. How come the people who apparently have enough ‘respect’ to lay flowers as some kind of offering at an ancient monument, can’t be arsed to respect the 1. environment by taking their sellophane wrappings aways with them? and 2. the feelings of other visitors for who the swastika means nazism and is therefore deeply offensive? You can be sure that the swastika twigs did not stay very long! Moth unwrapped the flowers and took away the sellophane to dispose of correctly.

I do love a dolmen. The Hellstone is one I’d wanted to see for some time as in the photos I’d seem it looked so tortured and in a very unusual position. When I actually saw it yesterday it all made sense at last. On a field boundary, near a gate and a pond, this dolmen has been horribly mucked about with during an ill-considered restoration. Stones huddle together like fingers in a clenched fist supporting a single lumpy capstone. It’s all wrong! But it’s all right, too, because at least it’s up. It’s up and someone actually gives a toss. The monument still has power.

Like all ancient monuments with chambers I have to get inside. This one is tall enough for me to stand up in with loads of headroom. Some tosser had scrawled graffiti on one of the stones inside the chamber- a reversed swastika. A pox on them.

As Moth whizzed around taking photos, I made a very quick sketch before my hands got too cold to continue. The more I drew the more it reminded me a lot of Crucuno dolmen in Brittany.

Our first stop was The Grey Mare & Her Colts – the remains of a once-mighty Neolithic long barrow. Sheep were basking like lizards in the winter sun as we arrived. They hardly even budged as we climbed over the gate and over them to get into the field. The Grey Mare & Her Colts is a bit of a wreck but I have seen enough trashed burial chambers to be able to ‘read’ what is left of the stones. The swelling of the barrow is very pronounced and the portal stones are very large indeed. Up here the views stretch for miles and sounds of the countryside quietly seep into your soul...

Just two fields away from The Grey Mare lies Kingston Russell stone circle. The world’s leading authority on stone circles, Aubrey Burl, didn’t put this circle in his definitive field guide to British stone circles which has caused much puzzlement in the amateur antiquarian community over the years. I wanted to see the stones for myself, especially as Moth said he liked it so much.

Sadly not one of the stones stand any more, but there are lots of stones to see, perhaps 18 of them, some really quite big lying on the ground next to the place where they once stood. The circle’s diameter is about 15ms (I’m quite bad at guessing these things). This would have been a real beauty. And actually, it still is. The internal space is still clearly marked out and although the drama and life was destroyed by whoever pulled the stones down, the circle is not yet dead. I liked it a lot. The farmer had just been and mowed carefully round the circle and the place smelled fabulous.

Re-erect them stones!

Got a chance to search out another of the standing stones on the western slopes of Knocklayd mountain. A lump of basalt this time, almost 2m tall, and 1m thick, with a graceful angled cut towards the top. It stands about 1km north of the stone at Tober-bile.

According to the Northern Ireland Sites and Monuments Record;

The current owner stated that no finds had been made when ploughing close to the stone& that his father had found a similar stone many years ago buried in the adjoining field to NE. The upper shape of this stone suggest that it could be a remnant of a megalithic tomb, possibly a portal stone, but the owner had never heard of any other stones at this location.

Another easy one to access, just 200m or so from a farm lane, with great views all around.

One of the many standing stones encircling Knocklayd mountain, with the possible passage tomb ‘carn an truagh’ (cairn of woe) on its summit. This cairn marks the intersection of the ten townlands surrounding Knocklayd.

The stone is quite easy to find, on a small B road which branches off the main A44 from Armoy to Ballycastle. Just beyond the little crossroads at the hamlet of Cape Castle, the stone can be seen on the slope of a field about 300m to the east of this road, behind a derelict house.

Impressively situated, and leaning slightly to the south, the stone, like many in the area is of schist/quartzite, and the top half is encrusted with lichen. It stands around 2.25m tall, just over 1m thick at the base, tapering to about 0.3m at the top. From the side it is around 0.4m thick, giving the stone a slightly slab-like apperarance from the WSW. In fact the stone seems to be aligned from WSW-ESE, in line with the cairn on the summit of Knocklayd, which looms over the site.

I visited the site on November 2nd, and was treated to a moonrise over the summit of Knocklayd, whilst the sun set opposite. Moments like these make all the trudging about worthwhile.

Headed out to visit Wateresk portal tomb on a crisp October morning, but due to heavy ploughing activity going on in the surrounding field, I decided to pay this stone a visit instead. I’m glad that I did. Quite close to a couple of modern bungalows, just west of Slidderyford bridge on a slight bend in the lane, and incorporated into a scruffy hedge. There is another, fallen stone of megalithic proportions hidden from view amongst the undergrowth. According to the DoENI Environment and Heritage Service website, this could be the remains of a tomb.

Well I was always intigued by the name Carney and it obviously comes from the word cairn so I was wondering what great cairn did the area take its name from.
Well the cairn that is marked on the map is in very poor condition. It may be that it has been used for building etc. It is on flat ground in fairly poor soil. It is made up of loose stones. However close by in the adjacent fields there is a lot of the same stone strewn around.

Four “new ” panels found today , more incisions on one too .

After years of waiting a storm has finally brought down from the cliif edge on the opposite side of the burn to the broch village a few sods containing the midden-y material. Definitely not pot of any kind. The coloured rock appears to be the same kind of burnt stone as I saw last week at the Loch of Tankerness. No doubt the next high enough tide will remove the material from the bottom of the cliff.