Latest Fieldnotes

Took my dry stone waller friend up here the other day and he pronounced the ‘intact chamber’ to be a modern grouse butt. Seeing there is a whole sweep of grouse butts on the slopes around the cairn and the stones of the ‘chamber’ look relatively recently placed I was convinced. Likewise the surrounding wall – all recent. But dont let that detract from the site – it’s awesome !

From looking at the other field notes I’d say go in winter if you can. We went there today for the first time. I was primed with expectations of a small ruinous and very vague circle, made more confusing by clearance stones.
So I was surprised and impressed to find a very obvious double circle very much in the style of Oddendale and Gunnar Keld. Smaller though – estimate about 60 foot diameter. The clearance stones pile is between the outer and inner rings and when the undergrowth is this low it doesn’t confuse things at all.
Despite the proximity of the motorway, quarry and trial bike track there was a very definite sense of place there today. To me it felt very much an important part of the greater shap landscape.
Another advantage of a winter visit is the ease of finding bits of flint and chert in the bare ploughed field !

This is the first thing ive found using my new snazzy GPS. The tomb is situated in the middle of a number of fields and ive tried to find it before unsuccessfully. There is an esker ridge to the north of this site. The biggest stone is pretty impressive and the boundaries to the field that it is in have a number of huge stones of similar size so this is probably what happened to the rest of the tomb. It was a bit misty so I couldn’t see its relationship to any hills in the area especially the Devils Bit but the ‘front’ of it is east-facing so it may be aligned to general sunrise.

North Tipp Archaeological Inventory
“Portal Tomb
Situated on a gently sloping ridge in rolling farmland. The northern side of the E-facing chamber and its displaced roofstone survive. To the E there is a portal-stone. 2.25m high. To the W and leaning against the last there is a side-stone, 1.7m high, the roofstone 2.2m x 1.8m and 0.45 thick leans against the western end of the sidestone. A displaced slab, 1.9m in maximum dimension, rests against the outer faces of the orthosats (Manning, 1983-4, 44-5)”

Very rough directions
Its just over a 1km from the main road (Nenagh-Borrisokane) and isnt far from the bye-road that leads from Ardroney village roughly north-east-ish. However there are a lot of new houses built on the bye road so the easiest place to access without going through someones garden and getting some strange looks is from the main road. The fields are pretty ok just loads of electric fences to duck and dive over.

If you are arriving at this site by car, you will probably find parking a problem. The lanes are very narrow so don’t mistake a passing point for a parking space. There is a carpark at the pub in Loweswater village, this is for customers only. I guess it’s worth the price of a pint to park your car.
To reach the site walk along the lane from the village to the lake and cross over the small bridge. There is a footpath along the stream, it’s a bit muddy and pot holey and quite narrow in parts so may not be suitable for everyone. Once through the gate the path opens out into a large meadow and the carved outcrop is on your right, it’s a massive lump of rock and quite difficult to miss.
I visited on a wet, gloomy and extremely windy, autumn day and walking into the field was like opening a door into a howling gale. The wind being funnelled between the fells and along the lake straight at me. It was that bitterly cold kind of wind that makes your teeth hurt.

The rock outcrop is beautiful, it’s one of those places that makes you work a little bit for what you want. The carvings are all in the form of cupmarks but due to the nature of the rock and the lack of contrasting sunlight, they were not that obvious at first but once you get your eye in, you start to notice the buggers everywhere.
Once you’ve figured out the carvings just take a step back and look at the landscape, it’s breath taking. The high fells and lake frame this site beautifully.
It’s also worth having a look around the immediate area of the outcrop. There seems to be an enclosure of sorts running behing the outcrop and the modern stone wall. There are also two upright stones and a sunken trackway in front of the outcrop. A little further down the path towards the lake is a mound upon which a Peel once stood. I would imagine that the stones, trackway and enclosure may be contemporary with the Peel, but you never know.
Cumbrian rock art is a fairly rare commodity but this site has parallels with the carved panels at Beckstones in Patterdale.

The cairn sits at roughly the highest point of the pass between Grasmere and Thirlmere, called Dunmail Raise.
No bugger visits this. Not surprising really, as it sits in the middle of a dual carriageway. It’s sod’s Law really. The only place the road diverges is right here, for about 200 yards or so.
Mind you, if it hadn’t they might well have destroyed the cairn. There is a record of a stone circle here being destroyed when the road was “improved”. I’d like to get me ‘ands on the b*stard who planned that.
As for the cairn, well I must have driven past it literally hundreds of times, but I’ve never stopped to take a closer look. I always take my eyes off the road to have a good look whilst driving past. The hoary old stones give the appearance of being very ancient. The lichens and mosses look like they haven’t been disturbed for flippin’ ages.
As for remains of the stone circle, many large rocks can be seen around, and your imagination can take over. Try to think logically, otherwise every stone could be a possible remnant.

Snow and thick frost are not the best conditions for looking for new rock art ,so I was pleased to come across this rock , 8 m from one of those victorian obelisks set atop the only outcrop in the area . I’m confident that the rock was removed in the construction of the platform for the monument.

Very small standing stone behind a church down a long path to a big two story farmhouse.

This is a very impressive hill but i couldn’t really see any sign of the hill-fort on it but I think it may be worth a look another day. It looks like a very easily defended site so would be perfect for one. There also seems to be quite a few standing stones around the foot of it with the hill as there focus.

Edit 15th May 2007

Knockroe is a very impressive hill-fort. It has a bank about 1m high and about half of it and the rest is protected by shear cliff. The whole hill seems to be full of monuments and old field walls however I’m not sure what period they are from although the mound and the barrow stick out to me as being prehistoric/ iron age.
There is evidence of a well between the two peaks of Knockroe and this would have been of massive importance to a defensive site.
It is also intervisible with the col on Knockfennel to the south-west.

In the field beside the standing stone there is another circle on the ordnance survey map, im not sure what it was pointing to. There is a stone under a tree in the area but surely they would have put it down as a standing stone. There is also the unusual piece of slope at the rear of the site which to me just looked odd in the surroundings. Im sure if they bring out an archeaological record of Limerick this can be resolved.

If you look closely this cairn is made up of rocks and grass has grown over it. It is also shown on the OS map as a circle.
The blackthorn tree adds to it and reminds me of the cairn on top of Cnoc Aine. As I was standing on top the cairn a I spotted a big massive fox sunbathing himself. I love when I see wild animals around sites.

This sleek standing stone is approximately 0.5m high and is situated on a rocky outcrop with a little cairn and a possible other standing stone near by. There is also a strange platform feature which may be natural/man-made. It is also just off the road across for a small white old cottage style bungalow and is hard to see from the road.

I didn’t actually go into the field but took the picture from the road. This standing stone is in the shadow of the hillfort of Knockroe. I’d say its approximately 1.2m high. It is situated in a field alongside a farmhouse and out house buildings.

This stone is approx 0.7m high is easily found just off the road behind a high wall leading into an old two-story farmhouse. There seems to be a lot of standing stone action in the area. I don’t know wether the hole in it is from weathering or if was purposely done.

Truly a massive row, goes without saying of course. Despite its massive size this wasn’t really a highlight site for me, I’m not sure why. Maybe it was the proximity to the house and road which was very unexpected, maybe it was the crappy weather or maybe, just maybe, it was the slight hangover.

The row is odd, the stones are not set with their aixs along the line of the row, they all angle slightly so overhead they would look like the profile of a mutli-blade razor or a giants cheese grater. The stone lying on the ground is an oddity in itself in that it is completely out of character from the rest of the stones and doesn’t seem to belong.

I will definitley visit again, hopefully I’ll feel different.

This cairn is in poor repair and not very impressive. Its on average about 2-3m high. Diameter of very approx 15-20m.

Using an OS map it is easy to see that a long bye-road goes up most of the way up the hill. The road is pretty bad and there a number of gates on it as it is a farm track. Depending on the weather, if it is wet best to park before the first gate as there is no real alloted parking. Follow the track up the hill, the soil in the area seems to be an orangey/red.
Views from the top of the hill are amazing looking all over limerick, south-tipp and down into kerry (I think). I could pick out my own hill tountinna in north tipp here. The cross and the tv masts however really take from the hill and the cairn on top is pretty disappointing. However the mythology attached to the hill and the views more than makes up for it.

This wedgetomb is just in off the road. However the best place to access it is at the pump on the left hand side coming from lough gur. The tomb is on the far side of the house that you see as you climb into the field. From the tomb you can see Knockadoon and the very interesting looking Knockrahir. The owner of the field helpfully gave me directions and also pointed out to me that there is a famine graveyard near it as it used to run close to an older road. This road used to run alongside the lough and was replaced by the new road that runs alongside the grange lios.

Its very easy to make out the location of where this circle once stood theres faint traces of circular embankments at the top of the small hill in the field behind Stump Cross .
If i were in any other county i’d find it hard to beleive that someone would have the mentality to do such a thing as clear this circle.
A complete tragedy as all that remain are a few stumps and a pile of boulders by the field wall some of the stones are huge this circle was rather large.
It was only excavated and complete in the 1950’s but for some reason was never scheduled.

This stone seems far to close to Moseley Height i would think its an outlier to the great Circle that once stood in the field behind it.

This site is simply marked as an earthwork on Maps. On closer inspection it looks like a small hilltop settlement and there are a few of these around Lancs. that are quite similliar. Theres also rumoured to be a carved stone close by.

A few people have called this the best stone circle in Cork, if not Ireland and after being here I have to agree completely. You cant see this circle until you are very near it, but the circle itself has amazing views and what struck me most is that you can see a sliver of sea from here. I dont know why but I felt a sudden realisation that this was incredibly important to the site. I pictured in my head people gathering here and watching for boats returning or arriving and maybe lighting a fire as a beacon. Strange things this place does to you.

I stood leaning against the strangely pillow-like recumbent stone for almost an hour in the rain and it didn’t feel too bad at all. After two failed attempts at finding it, maybe it was a mix of triumph and delight that it was indeed worth it.

The swamp around it is foul, very foul. There is a lush growth of pond weed, its that bad. Luckily I spotted two stepping stones into the circle just to the right of the portals and was able to miss out on the delights of the horse dung polluted water.

After an hour or so the sun came out and I took dozens of photos, so exhilarated by the sunburst that I failed to notice one of the horses in the field had decided to steal what it could from my camera bag that I left open in the scramble to catch the sun. It took several Neanderthal-like screams before he dropped my 50mm lens from his teeth and settled for a lick of my telephoto. Not so much like the horse-whisperer, more like the horse-screecher.

I will now dispense possibly the easiest directions to this site... EVER! Travel on the N71 from Rosscarberry to Skibbereen until you come to a small tree enclosed place with a bridge called Connonagh (OS W244 388), take a right here (sign for Reanascreena half buried in the ditch) and take the next right. There is a large farm entrance with concrete walls on the left, go through the next field gate on the left and into the next field. Travel to the back of this field. Voilà!

I cant quite figure this one out it seems to be more ‘henglike’ than a cairn. A curving mound intersected on both sides by a house and a road so its impossible to tell i guess.

Visited the remains of this circle over the festive period. unfortunately the farmers of Lancashire decided to clear this one to. A few stumps are now sadly all that remains, there is only one stone remaining in the circle standing upright.
This must have been an impressive circle

I too would recommend leaving the car at the farmhouse; the track leading to the correct field is in poor condition and cotains sets of gates that are sometimes closed. The rock is a 0.5-mile walk from the farmhouse. Take the right-hand track at the fork in the road just past the farmhouse (the left-hand road is tarmaced and therefore looks more promising, but this leads to the milking sheds). Walk through the complex of barns and follow the track past a small isolated building on the left. The rock is in a fenced-off area in a field on the right, approximately 300m past this building. When I visited in December 2005 the enclosure was cluttered with a vast array of random boulders, presumably collected by the farmer from the surrounding fields. I thought this made the site look rather messy.

A gritstone cairn some 13m x 10m, and about 1.5m high, which has suffered some surface disturbance due to the activities of Enclosure period stone-getters, according to the SMR.

We visited on a particularly damp and misty day, hence the spooky picture.

To be honest, not worth a special trip, though Cown Edge Rocks are pretty cool.